I’ll keep updating this for a while. A corrupt judge, corrupt prosecutors, and a Democrat jury found Donald Trump guilty on 34 counts. He faces over 100 years in prison. Don’t be surprised if Merchan imprisons or remands him to his home eventually. BREAKING: Donald Trump found guilty on all 34 counts of falsifying business […] The post Stalinesque NYC Court Finds Trump Guilty on All Counts – Updated Again appeared first on www.independentsentinel.com.

Jurors returned a guilty verdict on Thursday in Donald Trump‘s hush-money trial in New York, marking the first time a former U.S. president has been convicted of a crime. The decision is the culmination of a weeks-long courtroom battle in which Trump claimed he was the target of a “political persecution” as he runs another campaign for a second term in the White House. The former president was found guilty on all 34 charges brought in the trial. Legal experts doubt the 77-year-old Trump will end up being incarcerated, though the Secret Service reportedly coordinated with local jail officials just in case. Possible alternatives to imprisonment include probation or community service. Sentencing has been scheduled for July 11, just days before the Republican National Convention is set to be held in Milwaukee. Trump, who is the presumptive GOP nominee, can still run for the presidency if he ends up behind bars. At the heart of the case brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg were 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to conceal damaging information around the 2016 election as part of a “catch-and-kill” scheme. Prosecutors accused Trump of improperly masking reimbursements to repay his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, for a $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels in exchange for her silence on an alleged extramarital affair by classifying them as legal expenses. Trump has denied that the affair with Stormy Daniels ever happened and pleaded not guilty to the charges. His lawyers argued there was no intent to defraud or influence the 2016 election. The trial began last month and featured nearly two dozen witnesses, including Cohen and Stormy Daniels. Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to multiple crimes, including lying to Congress, and served prison time. Former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker, former White House aide Hope Hicks, and former federal prosecutor Robert Costello also testified. Trump himself did not take the stand. Closing arguments took place on Tuesday after both sides rested their case last week and jury deliberations began on Wednesday. The 12 jurors made a couple of requests for information, including to rehear some witness testimony and the judge’s jury instructions. CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILYWIRE+ APP Bragg and Judge Juan Merchan, who presided over the trial, have faced intense blowback from Trump and his allies. Republicans in the House opened an investigation and filed complaints, raising concerns about potential bias and misconduct tainting the case. With the judge, they set their focus on past donations to groups supporting Democrats and his daughter working as a political consultant for Democratic candidates. Merchan refused to recuse himself and issued a gag order meant to stop Trump from commenting publicly on jurors, witnesses, and others linked to the case. Trump claimed the gag order violated his First Amendment rights and continued to speak out, resulting in thousands of dollars in fines. Three other criminal matters on the state and federal levels hang over Trump as he seeks re-election this year, prompting the former president to say he is the victim of a politically motivated “witch hunt.” It is not clear whether any of those will reach the trial stage before the November election. Despite all the court battles, Trump remains competitive in polling for the presidential race. On Tuesday, President Joe Biden‘s campaign held an event outside the Manhattan courthouse with actor Robert De Niro, who claimed American freedoms “will perish from the Earth” if Trump wins the election. Trump shot back, saying the De Niro “looked so pathetic and sad out there.” His adviser, Jason Miller, said, “President Trump’s numbers continue to rise, and the best that Biden can do is roll out a washed up actor.”

Former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki edited her new book that falsely claimed President Joe Biden never checked his watch during a ceremony for soldiers killed during the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan in 2021. The Daily Mail reported on Thursday that Psaki, who is now a host on MSNBC, had cut 150 words from “Say More: Lessons from Work, the White House, and the World” after Axios first revealed two weeks ago that she had rewritten history and would be making a fix. On X, reporter Charlie Spiering posted a side-by-side text comparison. “According to the new version, Gold Star military families were just upset that he talked about Beau,” he said, referring to Biden’s eldest son who died of brain cancer at the age of 46 in 2015. Jen Psaki's book is now edited – and she has taken out all mentions of President Biden looking at his watch during the dignified transfer ceremony entirely. According to the new version, Gold Star military families were just upset that he talked about Beau. pic.twitter.com/RxHrhUp5Ei — Charlie Spiering (@charliespiering) May 30, 2024 In the original print of the book, which was first published on May 7, Psaki wrote that “the president looked at his watch only after the ceremony had ended. Moments later, he and the First Lady headed toward their car.” She also claimed Biden’s critics engaged in “misinformation” and used the image of Biden checking his watch to make “him appear insensitive, concerned only about how much time had passed.” Psaki denied that Biden checked his watch despite photo evidence, media fact-checks, and statements made by Gold Star parents of a U.S. service member killed in the Kabul airport attack who were in attendance during the ceremony at Dover Air Force Base. CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILYWIRE+ APP “I watched you disrespect us all 5 different times by checking your watch!!! What the f*** was so important that you had to keep looking at your watch????” said a Facebook post from Shana Chappell, mother of Marine Lance Cpl. Kareem Nikoui. Mark Schmitz, father of Marine Lance Cpl. Jared Schmitz, testified to Congress that “while I stood there on the tarmac watching you check your watch over and over again, all I wanted to do was shout out, ‘It’s two f***ing thirty, a**hole.'” Psaki’s book also misattributed sentences taken from USA Today to The Washington Post to point out that Biden looked at his watch after the ceremony — even though the article said elsewhere that Biden checked his watch during the ceremony, too. In a statement responding to the report from Axios, Psaki said the “detail in a few lines of the book about the exact number of times he looked at his watch will be removed in future reprints and the ebook.” Psaki insisted her story was “really about the importance of delivering feedback even when it is difficult told through my own experience of telling President Biden that his own story of loss was not well received by the families who were grieving their sons and daughters.” A press representative for her publisher, Scribner, told the New York Post that the text “will be corrected in the e-book and future printings, due to inaccuracies as originally written.” Several members of Gold Star families of the 13 service members killed in the Kabul airport attack also signed onto a statement responding to Psaki’s original version of events in the book. “We watched in horror as President Biden looked at his wristwatch on multiple occasions during the dignified transfer of our children in Dover,” they said in a statement reported by the Daily Mail. Psaki served as Biden’s White House press secretary from the beginning of his administration on January 20, 2021, to May 13, 2022. She then got hired by MSNBC. During her time as a cable TV host, Psaki has continued to defend Biden while disparaging former President Donald Trump and the Republican lawmakers who back him. Last week, House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) suggested Psaki could face a subpoena if she does not stop dodging an interview for an investigation into the Afghanistan withdrawal in 2021 while alluding to her book. “It is troubling that Ms. Psaki seeks to profit off the Afghanistan tragedy, and has felt comfortable writing accounts and making them available to the general public, but refuses to make herself available to Congress, the branch dedicated to representing the interest and will of the American people,” McCaul wrote to Psaki’s lawyer.

A Democratic California lawmaker who supports a bill that would keep convicted pedophiles behind bars for longer excoriated her colleagues last week, saying she was “done” with her own party “protecting” those who abuse children. State Senator Susan Eggman, 63, who represents an area just outside San Francisco, delivered a heated floor speech last Thursday. “I’d like to say as a progressive, proud member of this body for the last 12 years, I’m done,” Eggman said. “I’m done with us protecting people who would buy and abuse our children. I’m done.” HOLY SH*T!!! ???? Susan Talamantes walks away from the Democrat party in California after 12 years !! “I’m done. I’m done with us protecting people who would buy and abuse our children.” “I don’t want people buying little girls anymore. And I’m tired of saying it’s okay… pic.twitter.com/G28gJAVpwc — TONY™ (@TONYxTWO) May 30, 2024 “I don’t want to send more black and brown men to prison,” she continued. “I don’t want more people in prison. But I don’t want people buying girls. I don’t want people buying little girls anymore. And I’m tired of saying it’s okay and that we have to protect the men who do it.” Eggman went on to say that as a mental health professional and as a social worker she has spent her “entire career working with people who have been wounded, I’m not going to say beyond repair, but they have been wounded to their core by the abuse that’s been heaped on them oftentimes by those that they love and look to protect them.” “And if their parents won’t do it then by God we should,” she said. Currently under California law, purchasing sex from a child is only a misdemeanor that carries a punishment of two days to a year in jail and a $10,000 fine. The bipartisan bill Eggman supports would make buying child sex a felony punishable by at least two to four years in prison and a sex offender registration. Last month, the bill moved forward, but not before Democrats made significant changes. The new version of the bill would only allow prosecutors to level felony charges if the minor was under 16, meaning those who attempted to buy sex with a 16-year-old or 17-year-old could still only be charged with a misdemeanor. The bill’s author, Republican State Senator Shannon Grove, reacted with dismay to the “hostile amendments” to her bill, her voice shaking as she responded. “To force these amendments on me in front of survivors, to water this down to avoid 16 and 17-year-olds,” Grove said at the time. Before the changes, Grove explained that she spoke to sex trafficking survivors last year who told her, “You’ve got to go after the buyers” in order to really crack down on the child sex trade. “I want to make the solicitation, the person who’s going out there going, ‘Hey little 13-year-old, 14-year-old, 15-year-old.’ I want to get that person. I want that person to face felony charges. That’s what the bill does,” Grove said during a phone interview with The Daily Wire. Last week, Eggman also said that her party has “got to move back into the center” on this issue “or we all look like fools and laughingstocks.” “A lot of these kids can be throwaway kids. They’re poor kids, they’re kids of color, but they shouldn’t have to live a life determined by what happens to them by others at a very young age and have the Democratic Party of California say, ‘It’s okay,'” Eggman said.

Former President Donald Trump responded to the guilty verdict that he received in a Manhattan courtroom on Thursday by saying that the real verdict would be delivered on election day by the American people. Jurors convicted Trump on all 34 counts in the controversial hush-money case. Legal experts say that the ruling will be quickly appealed by Trump’s legal team. “This was a disgrace. This was a rigged trial by a conflicted judge who was corrupt,” Trump said after the verdict was read. “It’s a rigged trial, a disgrace. They wouldn’t give us a venue change. We were at 5% or 6% in this district, in this area. This was a rigged, disgraceful trial. The real verdict is going to be November 5 by the people. And they know what happened here. And everybody knows what happened here.” “You have a Soros-backed D.A. and the whole thing, we didn’t do anything wrong. I’m a very innocent man,” he continued. “And it’s okay, I’m fighting for our country. I’m fighting for our Constitution. Our whole country is being rigged right now. This was done by the Biden administration in order to wound or hurt an opponent, a political opponent. And I think it’s a just a disgrace. And we’ll keep fighting. We’ll fight till the end, and we’ll win because our country has gone to hell.” “We don’t have the same country anymore,” he concluded. “We have a divided mess. We’re a nation in decline, serious decline, millions and millions of people pouring into our country right now from prisons and from mental institutions, terrorists, and they’re taking over our country. We have a country that’s in big trouble. But this was a rigged decision right from day one, with a conflicted judge who should have never been allowed to try this case. Never. And we will fight for our Constitution. This is long from over. Thank you very much.” CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILYWIRE+ APP WATCH: Trump responds to guilty verdict: “The real verdict is going to be November 5th by the people and they know what happened here and everybody knows what happened here.” pic.twitter.com/ltud3w4s4p — Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) May 30, 2024

Judge Juan Merchan has set the date for former President Donald Trump’s sentencing after the Manhattan jury found him guilty on all counts on Thursday — and it falls four days before the start of the Republican National Convention where Trump is set to be nominated. After beginning deliberations on Wednesday, the jury found Trump guilty on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to hush-money payments made to porn actress Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election. After the verdict was delivered, Merchan scheduled the sentencing for July 11, just days before the GOP convention in Milwaukee that will begin on July 15. The sentencing date set by Merchan was blasted by Donald Trump Jr., who wrote on X, “Sentencing is 4 days before the GOP Convention…They’re not even trying to hide the ELECTION INTERFERENCE!!!!” The Federalist Editor-in-Chief Sean Davis added, “The corrupt Biden donor judge whose daughter raised millions attacking Trump just coincidentally scheduled the Soviet show trial sentencing to be a week before the GOP convention.” Trump’s sentencing will also come just two weeks after his first presidential debate against President Joe Biden, which is scheduled for June 27. Trump has blasted the judge and the prosecution throughout the trial, arguing that he’s being politically targeted by Democrats and the Biden campaign to keep him off the campaign trail. Manhattan Democratic District Attorney Alvin Bragg brought the 34 charges against Trump, accusing him of being part of a “catch-and-kill” scheme to conceal information and influence the 2016 election. The former has denied having an affair with Daniels and pleaded not guilty to all charges. The verdict is likely to be appealed by Trump’s legal team, and experts doubt the presumptive GOP presidential nominee will be thrown in jail. Instead of imprisonment, Trump could face probation or be ordered to community service. Daniel Chaitin contributed to this report.

Megyn Kelly said the Democrats will “rue the day” they used the legal system to “corrupt a presidential election” after a New York jury found former President Donald Trump guilty. In a Thursday post on X, the host of “The Megyn Kelly Show” podcast didn’t hold back and slammed the verdict after the jury found him guilty on all 34 counts in the hush-money trial. “Guilty on all counts,” Kelly wrote to her 3 million followers. “The country is disgraced. Alvin Bragg should be disbarred.” “They will rue the day they unleashed this lawfare to corrupt a presidential election,” she added. The comments came after jurors returned a guilty verdict on Thursday in Trump’s New York trial, marking the first time a former U.S. president has been convicted of a crime, as previously reported. Guilty on all counts. The country is disgraced. Alvin Bragg should be disbarred. They will rue the day they unleashed this lawfare to corrupt a presidential election. — Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) May 30, 2024 Kelly’s comments were similar to others she’s made on her Sirius XM podcast after the case went to the jury on Wednesday. On her show, she ripped apart the “outrageous prosecution” of Trump by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. “It wasn’t until closing arguments yesterday when the prosecution got up second, because under New York law, unlike in most places, the defense has to go first and the prosecution goes second,” Kelly said. “And after the defense attorney had already sat down, that’s when we finally learned what the underlying crime was.” “He [prosecutor, Joshua Steinglass] got up there and while he cast a wide net, still saying it could have been a tax violation, it could have been falsification of other records like double falsifications, but really they’re hanging their hats on the violation of FECA [Federal Election Campaign Act],” she added. “That’s what the prosecution drove home. That’s the principal basis for this entire case. He [Bragg] didn’t want us to know because that’s a federal statute.” CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILYWIRE+ APP “And Alvin Bragg doesn’t have the jurisdiction to enforce federal election law,” Kelly continued. “The Federal DOJ had already said there’s no case here. The Federal Election Commission had already said there is no case here. Only Alvin Bragg resurrected this alleged violation as the underlying basis for this entire criminal case…” The decision, which will likely be appealed, is the culmination of a weeks-long courtroom battle in which Trump claimed he was the target of a “political persecution” as he runs another campaign for a second term in the White House. Daniel Chaitin contributed to this piece.