As of June this year, Trump had been charged with 88 felony counts and found guilty of 34 of them. Lawsuits against him revolve around the obstruction of justice, be it by hiding documents from the FBI, filing false documents, writing false statements and attempting to manipulate election results. In June 2023, Trump was found to have 15 boxes of classified documents in his home that should have been returned at the end of his presidency. Recordings and communications between the then former president and one of his attorneys show Trump bragging about his possession of these documents and his efforts to conceal them from the FBI after he had been subpoenaed. This indictment made him the first US president ever to answer to criminal charges.
It is well documented that Trump has attempted on multiple occasions to rig democratic systems in his favour to ensure his success. In 2016, leading up to the election, Trump’s attorney Micheal Cohen paid adult film star Stormy Daniels $130,000 in hush money to stop her from coming forward about her affair with Trump. The reimbursement of Cohen by Trump was made over several years, including those that he was in office as president, and the payments were noted down as legal fees in his financial records. The 34 falsified documents were successfully charged as felonies on the basis that they aimed to cover up a scheme to corrupt the 2016 election.
The gap in the logic of retracting someone’s right to vote upon conviction but voting for a convicted felon to act as president is truly astounding.
Trump was also indicted for instigating the storming of the Capitol after the results of the 2020 election revealed that he would have to hand over to democratic candidate Joe Biden. It was argued that Trump fuelled the raid in an attempt to retain power and interrupt democratic processes.
Convicted criminals in all but two US states lose their right to vote upon conviction. Interestingly, in the republican states where Trump held the most significant majority convicts’ right to vote can be definitively withdrawn even after fulfilling their sentence. The gap in the logic of retracting someone’s right to vote upon conviction but voting for a convicted felon to act as president is truly astounding. The double standard continues with talk of putting all of his pending convictions and investigations on hold whilst he fulfils his second term as US president. This has left millions of Americans fearing the extension of his time in the White House via similar illegitimate means to those he employed over the course of his first presidential term.
