Democratic Massachusetts’ lawmakers on Friday had a similar reaction to Trump’s guilty verdict: “The legal system worked,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren said.
The senator spoke Boston Public Radio one day after a jury found Trump guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records to illegally influence the 2016 presidential election.
The ultimate decision, said Warren, lies with the American people on Election Day in November. “We truly are coming to the fork in the road,” she said.
Mass. Attorney General Andrea Campbell echoed support for the judicial system.
“The process absolutely worked,” Campbell said. ”This was a judicial process that unfolded very fairly. You had a jury of his peers find him guilty, and now it’s up to the same fair judicial process to hold him accountable based on the factors they see in New York.”
Trump faces jail time on his sentencing hearing on July 11 and could be incarcerated during his run for president.
But at least one local former lawmaker across the aisle did not see the verdict as an example of justice in action.
“I felt a great deal of sadness,” said Michael Sullivan, former U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts under President George W. Bush.
Sullivan questioned the impartiality of the judge and prosecuting district attorney.
“I don’t believe the president ever had a fair shake in this,” he said, noting that New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg ran on a platform of prosecuting Donald Trump, and that Judge Juan Merchan has contributed to Joe Biden’s campaign. Merchan donated $15 to Biden’s presidential campaign and three other small donations to a Democratic fundraising platform in 2020.
Trump is expected to appeal the conviction and his legal team is expected to argue that he should not have been tried in New York.
“I don’t think that it will be enough to overturn this conviction,” said retired federal judge Nancy Gertner. “But I do think that that would have made a difference here, if there had been a venue other than Manhattan.”
However, Gertner noted the lenient treatment Trump received in this trial, particularly being able to continue with his personal life outside of the courtroom. She hopes it’s a model for things could work for other defendants the judicial system.
“This trial suggests to us the way other people ought to be treated,” Gertner said.
