Trump convicted on all counts

Found guilty of 34 charges in 2016 election scheme | Sentencing set for July II, just before GOP convention | Ex-president lashes out at 'rigged political witch hunt'

- RICHARD WARNICA

Former U.S. president Donald Trump leaves a Manhattan courthouse after a jury found him guilty on Thursday.

For six weeks Donald Trump closed his eyes, but in the end he couldn’t make it go away.

Guilty. Guilty. Guilty, the foreman said. Guilty 34 times. Guilty on every count. Guilty of falsifying business records to cover up an affair. Guilty of cheating election rules. Guilty, and still he isn’t going away. Guilty, and you have to wonder sometimes if he ever will.

For neither the first nor the last time, Donald J. Trump, the 45th president of the United States, made history of the ugly kind Thursday. He became the first former president ever convicted of a crime in the United States and the first major party candidate ever convicted during a presidential campaign.

Within minutes he was already raising money off the defeat. “I was just convicted in a RIGGED political Witch Hunt trial,” his email to supporters read at 5:42 p.m. Thursday. “I DID NOTHING WRONG!”

But that’s not what the jury said. Their verdict, when it came, seemed to take the entire court by surprise. Judge Juan Merchan had already told the parties he was ready to let the jurors go for the day when the note came in.

“No verdict today,” Molly CraneNewman of the New York Daily News tweeted at 4:14 p.m.

“Update,” Maggie Haberman of the New York Times wrote 23 minutes later. “The jury says they have a verdict.”