The Verdict: Guilty As Hell

A victory for the rule of law against Donald Trump.

Guilty.

Guilty as charged.

Guilty as hell.

Guilty as sin.

Guilty on EVERY DAMN CHARGE.

A jury of Donald Trump’s peers in New York City just delivered a stunning verdict in the election fraud Stormy Daniels payoff conspiracy case. (God knows what to call it; it’s like a crime gumbo.)

Guilty. Felon. We can now, confidently, nay, breezily refer to Donald Trump as a criminal. A felon. A man permanently marked with the shame of a criminal conviction.

Donald Trump cannot cast a ballot for himself in this election, or any election until and unless he pays restitution for his crimes and petitions the State for the restoration of his rights. He may not own a gun.

Make no mistake, Trump remains one of the most successful criminals in American history, the architect and beneficiary of a bewildering constellation of scams, grifts, con games, bust-outs, rip-offs, and flim-flams. His entire life is one long lie, one long trick against the people who bought in to his garbage-tier projects, gimcrack branding schemes, and mid-tier golf course’s for aspiring middle managers.

His tough-guy, Billy-badass act in the courtroom was an utter failure. The jury clearly decided that Trump’s crimes deserved punishment. His stunts, to say nothing of his contemptuous “I think I’ll take a nap” attitude couldn’t have helped.

One mystery about Trump, a man who has been in more legal entanglement in his lifetime than one can easily catalog, remains. How did it take this long?

I know stories of contractors, vendors, and clients he ripped off in various deals over the decades recount his strategic lawfare approach, delaying their day in court, throwing endless money behind armies of lawyers to make litigation look fruitless. Sure, there were some consent decrees, settlements, and civil cases that cost him some money and pride, but he really had a long run as a criminal.

I was pondering the question of thieves who get away with their criminal life over time. Some manage it. Some live modestly, take few risks, and never buy the pink Cadillac.

Here’s the part where I confess another of my rabbit holes; I’m broadly fascinated with 18th Century England, and deeply so about the London demimonde of the time, including its thieves, thief takers, fences, whores and madams, highwaymen, swindlers, housebreakers, smugglers, touts, flash mobs, and forgers. At the same moment as the Enlightenment blossomed, so did crime and the London underworld. As Neal Stephenson would say, the quicksilver was flowing.

In 18th century London, Jack Sheppard was a scrappy kid — and if you made it to the age of ten in this era, you were by definition scrappy — from the rough streets of Stepney who didn't just flirt with danger—he waltzed with it, thumbed his nose at authority, and slipped out of prison four time. Born in the smoke and filth of 1702 London, Sheppard was a carpenter by trade but a thief by sheer audacity.

His knack for slipping through prison bars and outwitting the clumsy bailiffs of his day made him a legend. Jack wasn't some Robin Hood wannabe; he was a cult figure whose daring prison breaks—four in total—were the stuff of nightly pub tales and ballads.

But Sheppard was caught in the end and kept his date with the Triple Tree at Tyburn. The legend has it Sheppard was mystified not at the fate that awaited him on the Deadly Nevergreen, but that it had taken so very long to capture him.

Somewhere, even in the moral desert of Trump’s mind he must have wondered, “Why haven’t I been caught? What’s taking them so long?” Trump won’t take a last short drop at the hands of Jack Ketch, but he did meet justice today for the first time in his filthy, low life.

This case isn’t the end for Trump. It’s not even the beginning of the end. It’s the end of the beginning. Of course he’ll raise millions from his credulous rubes tonight, all of which will be poured into more legal bonfires of Trump’s endless vanity.

Trump’s army of elected acolytes will echo his lies about the case. They’ll claim it was all a Biden set-up (somehow, Biden used the White House Time Machine to get Trump in bed with Stormy Daniels, but I digress), that this is political persecution, and that Trump is as innocent as the driven snow.

His media cheer squad will do the same. The mainstream media will fall victim to the usual working-the-refs strategy that tricks them time and again where Trump is involved. “While Trump claims Biden was involved, the White House refused to deny it…” You know the tiresome drill.

No one who is upset over all this was ever going to vote for Joe Biden. No one who bleats out their insults and objections to the judge, the jury, or the case was ever going to vote of Joe Biden. No one who claims they’re not voting for Joe Biden because of this case was ever going to vote for Joe Biden.

Source: Twitter. Message me for credit.

Don’t be tricked by the spectacle we’re about to watch.

We’ll see if his army of thugs, incels, miscreants, cousin-humping Punisher-decal goons, and Proud Boys takes to the streets, which could very fundamentally change the game in this election, and not in Trump’s favor. Get violent, MAGA. See how that works out for you.

Now, we await his sentencing. Putting Trump in jail would be a moment of shattering national consequence, and also, hilarious. It’s vanishingly unlikely, in my view, but damn is the prospect a delight to consider.

After a few weeks on a diet of prison loaf and misery, we’ll see how much smack Trump talks. The man who hung his message of “Lock Her Up” around his first opponent for President is now a felon.

We'll know on July 11th.

I hope his prison nickname is “Hillary” if he goes down.

We’ve learned one thing this week: no one is above the law.

Not even Donald Trump.

Guilty.