A jury of twelve Americans found former President Donald Trump guilty on all 34 felony charges of falsifying business records in his New York City criminal hush-money trial.
Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee in November's election, is the first former U.S. president in the nation’s history to be convicted of a crime.
Sentencing is scheduled for July 11, four days before the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, where he will formally be nominated as the GOP's nominee for president.
The reaction of Wisconsin lawmakers to Trump’s unprecedented criminal conviction is dividing along party lines.
“It's a real dark day for the United States,” said Rep. Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau.
Wisconsin Republicans are denouncing the verdict a sham, criticizing the justice system, and blaming President Joe Biden for the trial and the outcome, even though there is no evidence he had anything to do with the case, which was brought by the independently elected Manhattan district attorney.
“I think this is just rhetoric from Trump, and Republicans picking up on that,” said Charles Franklin, a professor of law and public policy at Marquette Law School.
Wisconsin Democrats, on the other hand, are saying the verdict shows no one is above the law, even former presidents.
“I am a person who accepts the rule of law in this country,” said Rep. Gwen Moore, D-Milwaukee.
Wisconsin is one of a handful of states that will decide the election in November. In 2016, Trump beat Democrat Hillary Clinton by about 20,000 votes. Four years later, Biden beat Trump in the state by the same margin.
“If the election is once again decided by about 20,000 votes in Wisconsin, then we could be looking back at Thursday as a turning point in the campaign,” said Anthony Chergosky, an assistant professor of political science at UW-La Crosse.
In the April presidential primary, more than 120,000 Wisconsin Republicans voted for candidates who had already suspended their campaigns, like Ron Desantis and Nikki Haley, instead of Trump. That means about a fifth of the Republican voters who turned out chose not to support him. Though Trump already had enough delegates to be the party’s presumptive nominee, the Republican protest vote sent a message.
“I suspect that the conviction, in terms of Wisconsin politics, really puts Wisconsin in play, instead of focusing on a hair's breadth of a win,” said Mordecai Lee, professor emeritus at UW-Milwaukee. “In other words, that 21,000 votes out of more than 3 million votes cast, we're now focusing on just a slightly larger demographic of people who are open to the appeal. And given how deep purple Wisconsin is, this may well turn out to be the deciding issue.”
Trump could face time behind bars for his conviction, but it's up to the judge and incarceration is not mandatory.
"We're gonna be appealing this scam," Trump said Friday in his first speech after the guilty verdict.
Get reaction from Wisconsin delegation members here: