We May Finally Get to Write: “Convicted Felon Donald Trump”

That’s why this week is different. This, finally, is a court of criminal law. There will be facts submitted for the record. There will be testimony, under oath. And eventually, in an estimated six weeks or so, there will be a verdict from a jury of Trump’s peers.

That verdict might exonerate Trump. But most experts don’t think it will. It seems pretty obvious that Trump ordered Michael Cohen to make that payment to Stormy Daniels for the reason the prosecution alleges—to keep the affair from becoming public before the election. So, with any luck, by Memorial Day or so, we’ll be able to write the phrase that has been crying to be written for about 35 years: “Convicted felon Donald Trump.”

How much will that change things, if it comes to pass? Maybe not much, immediately. The pro-Trump media will say he was railroaded, and the mainstream media will move on to the next story. Not many Americans have served on juries—about one in 10 in the last decade, according to this survey. But faith in the jury system is high. That may well be especially so in a case like this one, which until this week has been, to your disinterested observer, a partisan circus. But a jury’s verdict has an authority and finality for these Americans that a Sean Hannity rant or a New York Times editorial lacks.