Your summer reading list: The Trump indictments, convictions, jury forms, and judicial orders
Ignore Trump's claims that every court action against him is rigged. Instead, read the actual documents for yourself to see our judiciary system in action.
Today, Donald Trump meets with his probation officer. That’s reality. He will and his allies claim everything is rigged against him. That’s fantasy. A quick look at the court record, and a longer dive into the facts and the evidence prove two things: we still have a hard working justice system and Donald Trump is not only a felon, he is as big a loser as he is a liar.
Among the many cases Mr. Trump has lost, here are a few worth keeping top of mind.
1. In Colorado a trial court found Donald J. Trump guilty of insurrection.
Norma Anderson et al v Jena Griswold
Intervenors: Colorado Republican State Central Committee and Donald J. Trump
Finding:
Consequently, the Court finds that Petitioners have established that Trump engaged in an insurrection on January 6, 2021 through incitement, and that the First Amendment does not protect Trump’s speech.
This isn’t a political charge. It is the finding of a jurist who weighed evidence presented under oath and by witnesses who were cross examined and reviewed the applicable laws and legal standards.
2. In New York, a jury found Donald Trump liable for sexual assault and twice for defamation.
E. Jean Carroll v Donald J. Trump
Jury’s Decision
In accordance with the Court’s instructions, which the jury is presumed to have followed, the jury made the following explicit findings based on its answers to the verdict form. On the sexual battery claim, the jury found that:
• Mr. Trump sexually abused Ms. Carroll.
• Mr. Trump injured her in doing so.
• “Mr. Trump’s conduct was willfully or wantonly negligent, reckless, or done with a conscious disregard of the rights of Ms. Carroll, or was so reckless as to amount to such disregard”.
On the defamation claim, it found that:
• Mr. Trump’s October 12, 2022 statement was defamatory and false (i.e., “not substantially true”).
• Mr. Trump made that statement “with actual malice” – that is, that when he made the statement, Mr. Trump “knew that it was false”, “had serious doubts as to its truth”, or “had a high degree of awareness that the statement probably was false.”
Mr. Trump countersued and lost.
3. In New York, the state proved Mr. Trump falsified business records in order to cover up a crime related to the 2016 election.
The People of the State of New York v Donald J. Trump
The state proved that:
the defendant, in the County of New York and elsewhere, on or about February 14, 2017, with intent to defraud and intent to commit another crime and aid and conceal the commission thereof, made and caused a false entry in the business records of an enterprise.
Note: The falsification of records in 2017 retroactively covered payments made before the 2016 election.
4. In New York, the Trump Organization and its leaders were proven to have violated New York Executive Law by submitting false financial statements to banks and insurance companies to obtain better rates on loans and insurance coverage.
People of the State of New York v Donald J. Trump et al
In his order, the judge said, “this Court finds that defendants are likely to continue their fraudulent ways unless the Court grants significant injunctive relief.”
• December 2022- Trump organization guilty of 17 felonies related to tax evasion
• May 2023- Donald Trump held liable for sexualt assault and defamation
• January 2024- Donald Trump (again) found liable for defamation
• May 2024- Donald Trump found guilty of 34 felonies in an attempt to cheat in the 2016 election
The Bottom Line
Mr. Trump has been found of insurrection, sexually assault and defamation. He has violated gag orders put in place to protect jurors and the integrity of his trials. He has been found guilty of business fraud. He has been found guilty of crimes meant to cover up attempts to manipulate the 2016 election.
In four cases that went to juries, he lost four unanimous verdicts. Two were criminal, with twelve jurors. Two were civil with nine. That’s 42 jurors who all reviewed the evidence against Mr. Trump determined he was wrong. Not one believed him. Every one of those jurors was chosen from a random pool and approved to sit on the jury by Mr. Trump’s lawyers.
After he lost the 2020 election, Mr. Trump went to court more than 60 time alleging a variety of election frauds. He lost every time.
Now Mr. Trump is using every tactic to delay other trials- one for stealing national security documents and two more for insurrection and election subversion.
Each of these cases required an enormous amount of work from prosecutors, judges, juries, and all the people who help make our judicial system work. Read the findings linked above. See for yourself how carefully the evidence was vetted. On top of everything else, it is simply contempt for everyone else that allows Mr. Trump to dismiss all of this as just politics.
Oh, and he has been found to have no remorse for any of it.
Candidate Trump wants America to believe that all of these decisions are corrupt, that the evidence in each case does not exist, that all the judges and every American who sat on a jury is dishonest, that every single prosecutor was a liar and that all his defense attorneys were incompetent.
Or, looking at the evidence, we could just believe Mr. Trump is a crook.