Inside the courtroom: Trump becomes first convicted US president

NEW YORK — “We, the jury, have reached a verdict.”

After countless motions and more than five weeks of trial that saw 22 witnesses take the stand, former President Trump could no longer outrun his fate.

A jury of 12 New Yorkers returned with a verdict Thursday that shocked the political world — they found Trump guilty on every single count he had been charged with in a case that had also made him the first former U.S. president to be indicted.

At 4:20 p.m., 10 minutes before they were set to leave for the day, the jury completed its task after roughly 11 total hours of deliberations. When the announcement of a verdict was read, audible gasps rang out in the courtroom.

Trump had been laughing with his attorney, but he quickly changed his mood. He crossed his arms, occasionally whispering with his lawyers as he sat awaiting the arrival of the 12 New Yorkers.

“We would like an extra 30 minutes to fill out the forms. Would that be possible?” the jury wrote in its note announcing they had reached a verdict. The request was accepted, and the jurors left the courtroom in suspense.

Shortly after 5 p.m., the jurors trailed into the courtroom with the completed verdict form in hand. They passed by Trump on their way to the jury box but didn’t look at him. Some glanced at the ground, while others directed their gaze anywhere but the defendant they were about to convict.

Once seated, two jurors exchanged a nervous smile. Others kept a straight face as they were asked if they had, indeed, reached a verdict.

“Yes, we have,” the foreperson responded.

Then came the historic moment: An aide to the judge asked for the verdict on the first count.

“Guilty,” the man said without emotion in his Irish accent, his neck growing red.

In rapid fashion, he’d list off 33 more “guilty” determinations, finding Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) and his office had proved their entire case beyond a reasonable doubt. The verdict took only two minutes to read.

Four-hundred twenty-seven days after bringing the first indictment of a former president, Bragg had won the first conviction, too. Seated in the second row of the gallery, he looked straight ahead when the first “guilty” verdict rang out.

The conviction affirms that Trump, in seeking to conceal a hush money payment his ex-fixer made to a porn actor ahead of the 2016 election, unlawfully falsified business records. 

Trump slowly trudged out of the courtroom, red in the face and biting his cheeks as he glanced around the courtroom filled to the brim with reporters.

The former president had walked out the two sets of courtroom doors, one wooden and the other metal, some hundred times before, pumping his fist or toting a stack of favorable printed-out articles. Sometimes, he was flanked by powerful lawmakers, while other times he was joined by his entourage of security and lawyers.

Now a convicted felon, Trump reached the cameras one last time in the courthouse hallway. His somber attitude turned indignant.

“This was a rigged, disgraceful trial,” Trump said outside the courtroom. “The real verdict is going to be Nov. 5 by the people, and they know what happened here, and everybody knows what happened here.”

Across the street, a raucous crowd formed larger than any other point during the trial. Most were celebrating the conviction, while others were just passing by through the streets of lower Manhattan.

The crowd was initially hushed, pressed up against barricades on the edge of the park. But the protests soon became confrontational, with a swarm of law enforcement standing by.

Pascal Hogue, 22, a Columbia University journalism student, stopped by the Manhattan Criminal Court after realizing a verdict would be reached Thursday. Earlier in the trial, he attended several days of testimony — including from star witness Michael Cohen, Trump’s fixer at the center of the case. 

“I’m not surprised that they found him guilty, ultimately, but that’s obviously for the jury to decide,” Hogue said.

Keith Allen, 56, a New Yorker passing by who joined up with the crowd, said he was “impressed” by the verdict, which he believed to be correct.

“He should’ve never been president the first time around,” Allen told The Hill of Trump’s first term. “He’s a criminal.”

Though the trial is now over, it won’t be the last time Trump comes to Manhattan Criminal Court.

On July 11, he’ll return to receive his sentence in the same spot where he once proclaimed he was “not guilty.”