Donald Trump guilty on all counts in Stormy Daniels trial

Donald J. Trump was convicted on Thursday of falsifying records to cover up a sex scandal that threatened to derail his 2016 presidential campaign.

The guilty verdict in Manhattan — across the board, on all 34 counts — will reverberate throughout the US and the world as it ushers in a new era of presidential politics.

Trump will carry the stain of the verdict during his third run for the White House as voters now choose between an unpopular incumbent and a convicted criminal.

The man who refused to accept his 2020 election loss is already seeking to delegitimize his conviction, attempting to assert the primacy of his raw political power over the nation’s rule of law.

As Trump learned his fate on Thursday, he showed little emotion, shutting his eyes and slowly shaking his head while a hush descended over the courtroom.

When he emerged, the former president spoke to the assembled television cameras. He declared that the verdict was “a disgrace” and proclaimed: “The real verdict is going to be 5 November, by the people,” referring to the Presidential Election Day.

Trump still faces three other indictments in three other jurisdictions, but with those cases mired in delays, this was likely to be his only trial before Election Day. The other prosecutions concern loftier issues — Trump is charged with mishandling classified documents in Florida and plotting to subvert democracy in Washington and Georgia — but this trial sprang from the seamy milieu that had made him famous, if not notorious, as a New York gossip-page fixture.