What A Day Crooked Media

Guilty, guilty, guilty. A Manhattan jury on Thursday found former President Donald Trump guilty on all 34 felony charges in his criminal hush-money trial. Trump was accused of falsifying business records in a scheme to cover up payments he made to the adult film star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election. The verdict makes Trump the first U.S. president to be tried and convicted of felony crimes. Diana Florence, a former federal prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, explains what’s next for Trump now that he’s a convicted felon. Pod Save America co-host Dan Pfeiffer weighs in on what the verdict means for both Trump and President Joe Biden’s campaigns.

The defense and prosecution delivered their closing arguments Tuesday in former President Donald Trump’s criminal hush money trial. New York Justice Juan Merchan said jury instructions will begin early today, after which the jurors will begin deliberating Trump’s fate. He faces 34 charges of falsifying business documents in the first criminal trial of a former U.S. president. Harry Litman, senior legal affairs columnist for The Los Angeles Times and a former deputy assistant attorney general at the Department of Justice, takes us inside the courtroom.

And in headlines: The Democratic National Committee announced plans to nominate President Joe Biden through a “virtual roll call” to ensure he qualifies for Ohio’s general election ballot, at least two dozen people died, and more than a million were without power after severe storms battered the eastern half of the U.S. over Memorial Day weekend, and the Pentagon said it will take more than a week to rebuild and repair portions of a temporary pier built off the coast of Gaza for humanitarian aid deliveries.

Ohio Republican Gov. Mike DeWine has called a rare special legislative session starting today to ensure President Joe Biden’s name appears on the state’s November ballot. But Ohio Democrats say Republicans are using it as a pretext to pass legislation that would make it harder for people to fund local ballot initiatives, like the one that enshrined abortion protections in the state’s constitution last year. Ohio House Democratic Minority Leader Allison Russo explains what’s at stake.

House and Senate Democrats are amping up the pressure on Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito to recuse himself from two current cases involving former President Donald Trump and his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Their calls come after The New York Times reported two right-wing flags flying outside homes owned by Alito in the last few years. Jay Willis, the editor-in-chief of the website Balls and Strikes, says it’s more evidence the court needs more than an ethics code to fix its reputation problems.

The International Criminal Court is formally seeking warrants to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. But what power does the ICC actually have? Does anything they do matter? This week on How We Got Here, Max and Erin take a look at the short history of the world’s paramount arbiter of war crimes and human rights—an impressive title for a court that seldom convicts. The hosts pick apart cases against the leaders of Kenya, Yugoslavia and Russia to determine why the ICC matters, and to whom.

The United States Supreme Court sided with Republicans in a decision over South Carolina’s disputed congressional map. Last year, a lower court ruled that the map was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander because it “exiled” thousands of Black voters from a district that was becoming increasingly competitive to make it safer for the Republican incumbent. On Thursday, The Supreme Court’s conservative majority reversed that decision in a ruling that will likely make it harder for Black voters to bring racial gerrymandering cases in the future. Marc Elias, longtime attorney for the Democratic Party and founder of the voting rights website Democracy Docket, breaks down some other big, ongoing fights over voting rights heading into the election.

And in headlines: The Department of Justice announced it’s suing Live Nation over an alleged monopoly of the entertainment industry, Senate Democrats launched an investigation into a meeting last month between oil companies and former president Donald Trump, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is predicting a massive hurricane season this year.