Trump verdict full coverage: Trump vows to appeal criminal conviction, while Biden says verdict proves 'no one is above the law'

President Biden on Friday commented on former President Donald Trump's guilty verdict in his criminal hush money trial, reaffirming that "no one is above the law." Biden acknowledged that his political rival can appeal the decision "just like everyone else has that opportunity."

Trump spoke to reporters earlier in the day from Trump Tower in New York, asserting, "This is a scam. There's a rigged trial. It shouldn't have been in that venue. We shouldn't have had that judge."

In his remarks on Friday, Biden excoriated the former president, saying "it's dangerous, it’s irresponsible" to claim that the trial was rigged.

Hours after Donald Trump was found guilty Thursday on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, his legal team vowed to appeal.

Trump’s lead defense attorney Todd Blanche said on CNN Thursday evening that the appeal of the convictions would be filed “as soon as we can.” Blanche also told NBC’s Today that they “expect to win on appeal.”

Read more from Yahoo News here about what an appeal timeline could look like.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan is demanding that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and prosecutor Matthew Colangelo testify about Trump's trial.

Jordan's subcommittee on weaponization wrote in an X post on Friday that a hearing on "the unprecedented political prosecution of President Trump" is set for June 13.

This is not the first time Jordan, a Republican from Ohio, has gone after Bragg or Colangelo. Jordan first requested testimony from Bragg back in March 2023, which Bragg resisted appearing for. Jordan also looked into Colangelo's hiring in April 2023 and tried again last month. Colangelo's résumé lists numerous cases that involve Trump.

Trump's guilty verdict, announced by the Manhattan jury on Thursday evening, dominated front-page headlines worldwide. It is the first time a U.S. president has been convicted of criminal charges.

Trump said he will be appealing the guilty verdict, which aligns with what his defense lawyer Todd Blanche has said.

After Trump's sentencing in July, his defense team will have 30 days to file a notice of appeal, and then they’ll have six months to file the appeal.

Yahoo News has more on the appeals process here.

Trump has continued to verbally attack people including President Biden, Judge Juan Merchan, his former lawyer Michael Cohen and the prosecutors. He also criticized the case and its conclusion, insisting it was a "rigged" trial.

Trump is currently speaking to reporters and supporters at Trump Tower in Manhattan after he was found guilty of 34 felony counts on Thursday.

So far, he has repeated the complaints he made about Judge Juan Merchan throughout his trial and lamented being under a gag order, which he incorrectly said was imposed by President Biden.

The Trump campaign said it received $34.8 million since yesterday's guilty verdict.

In a statement, Trump campaign senior advisers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles said, "President Trump is fighting to save our nation and November 5th is the day Americans will deliver the real verdict."

After deliberating over the course of two days, the 12-member jury in Manhattan found Donald Trump guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.

Just before 4:30 p.m. ET, Judge Juan Merchan was set to send the jury home for the day if they didn't have a verdict.

• The day started with portions of witness testimony being reread to the jury

• The jury then spent the rest of the day deliberating

• It looked like the jury was going to be sent home — but Merchan received a note saying jurors had reached a verdict

• Trump was convicted on all 34 counts of falsifying business records

• The judge scheduled Trump's sentencing for July 11 at 10 a.m. ET

• Following the jury's decision being read, Trump called the trial "rigged" and "a disgrace," and said the "real verdict" will be decided on Election Day.

Trump's lawyer Todd Blanche, who delivered the closing argument for the defense, said in a Thursday interview with CNN's Kaitlan Collins that the former president would appeal the jury's guilty verdicts handed down in the hush money trial.

"As soon as we can appeal, we will," Blanche said, noting that the defense still had court issues to resolve with Judge Juan Merchan before they would file their appeal.

While Blanche complimented the jury as hard-working and attentive, he said it was "very hard for us to get a fair trial" because "every single person on that jury knew Donald Trump."

Asked whether it was a mistake not to have Trump take the witness stand in his own defense, Blanche noted that it was "ultimately" Trump's decision.

"I don't think there was a conviction because he did not take the stand," Blanche added.

As to the prospect that his client could be sentenced to prison by the judge in the case, Blanche continued to defend his client.

"Somebody like President Trump should never, never face a jail sentence," he said, adding that he planned to keep working on Trump's legal team in the other criminal cases in which the former president is charged.

In an interview Thursday on MSNBC, former Trump lawyer and key witness Michael Cohen said he was not surprised by the jury's guilty verdicts on the 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, and called the case "important" and "legitimate."

"Donald needed to be held accountable," Cohen said of his former boss.

Asked by MSNBC host Rachel Maddow about the withering attacks on his character by Trump's lawyers during the trial, Cohen acknowledged that he sometimes got "hot-tempered," but added that he was able to remain calm during his testimony.

"I was nervous because so much was riding on the result of this," Cohen said, while praising the prosecutors who called him to testify despite his past convictions on tax evasion and bank fraud charges.

Cohen had a less glowing appraisal of Trump lawyer Todd Blanche, who coined the acronym "GLOAT" — greatest liar of all time — to describe Cohen during his closing argument.

"I was going call him a 'SLOAT,'' Cohen said of Blanche, "the stupidest lawyer of all time."

In part, Cohen said, that was because Blanche seemed to base the bulk of Trump's defense on attacking him.

Republican leaders reacted with anger Thursday evening at the conviction of former President Donald Trump.

According to the Associated Press:

House Speaker Mike Johnson said it was a “shameful day in American history” and the charges were “purely political.” Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance said the verdict was a “disgrace to the judicial system.” And Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise, the No. 2 House Republican, said that the decision was “a defeat for Americans who believe in the critical legal tenet that justice is blind.”

Read more about the Republican reaction.

Trump announced on Truth Social that he will hold a press conference at 11 a.m. ET tomorrow at Trump Tower in New York City.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, whose office brought the 34 felony charges against Trump, delivered a statement following the guilty verdict decided by 12 Manhattan jurors and thanked them for their service.

"While this defendant may be unlike any other in American history, we arrived at this trial and ultimately today at this verdict in the same manner as every other case that comes through the courtroom doors," Bragg said.

When asked by reporters about a potential prison sentence for the former president, Bragg noted that sentencing is set for July 11 but declined to comment further, adding that the hush money case is still ongoing and active.

Here is the complete verdict sheet filled out by the jury, indicating the verdicts on each of the 34 felony counts against Trump.

After the guilty verdict was announced, people were seen gathering to celebrate. The New York Police Department restricted access to the area around the courthouse as helicopters circled above.

Photos show demonstrators cheering in lower Manhattan, waving signs that read "Trump Convicted" and simply: "Guilty."

The Trump campaign's online portal to accept donations, run by Republican platform WinRed, reportedly crashed shortly after the guilty verdict came down.

“So many Americans were moved to donate to President Trump's campaign that the WinRed pages went down," the Trump campaign posted on X.

The website appears to be up and running again, with a picture of Trump's mug shot from his criminal case in Georgia with "Never Surrender" as the caption.

Shares of Trump Media & Technology Group (DJT) fell 9% in after-hours trading following the announcement that a jury had found Donald Trump guilty on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, CNN reported.

Michael Cohen, Trump's former attorney turned key trial witness in the case against him, responded to the jury's guilty verdict, per New York Magazine reporter Olivia Nuzzi:

“Today is an important day for accountability and the rule of law. While it has been a difficult journey for me and my family, the truth always matters. I want to thank my attorneys Danya Perry and Joshua Kolb for their invaluable guidance and support throughout this process," Cohen, who served jail time for tax evasion and bank fraud, said.

Cohen's testimony about paying adult film actress Stormy Daniels $130,000 to buy her silence about an alleged extramarital affair with Trump was at the center of the prosecution's case.

Donald Trump has become the first former or sitting U.S. president to be convicted of a felony. In a historic decision, a 12-person Manhattan jury found the former president guilty on all 34 counts of falsifying business records in an effort to disguise a hush money payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election.

Trump is also the first major party candidate — he's the 2024 presumptive Republican presidential nominee — to run for president as a convicted felon.

Judge Juan Merchan scheduled Trump’s sentencing for July 11 at 10 a.m. ET. The judge will then decide whether the former president’s punishment will include prison time, fines, probation or a combination of those.

Read more from Yahoo News here for the answers to frequently asked questions, like whether Trump can still run for president or if he'll be allowed to vote for himself in November.

President Biden's campaign spokesperson released a statement following Donald Trump's conviction, according to the New York Times, saying "no one is above the law."

"There is still only one way to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office: at the ballot box,” Michael Tyler, the Biden campaign's communications director, told the Times. "Convicted felon or not, Trump will be the Republican nominee for president."

The campaign posted a similar statement on X.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who brought the criminal charges against Trump, marked the jury's guilty verdict in a post on X on Thursday afternoon.

"Today, a jury found Donald J. Trump GUILTY on ALL 34 felony counts," Bragg, whose decision to charge Trump had been second-guessed by some legal analysts, wrote.

Speaking from the courthouse after the guilty verdict was announced, Trump said: "This was a disgrace. This was a rigged trial by a conflicted judge who was corrupt."

"The real verdict is going to be November 5," he said, referencing the 2024 election.

"I'm a very innocent man," Trump said, claiming he didn't get a fair trial.

Moments after the jury's guilty verdict was read in court, Judge Juan Merchan announced that Trump would be sentenced on July 11 at 10 a.m.

The former president has been convicted on all 34 counts of falsifying business records.

Here's a breakdown of each of the charges brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

Judge Juan Merchan has taken his seat on the beach and the jury is filing into the courtroom.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has entered the courtroom, alongside his team of prosecutors, according to reporters in the courtroom.

The Associated Press reports that the 12-member jury has asked Judge Juan Merchan for 30 minutes to fill out the appropriate forms.

Judge Juan Merchan announced that the jury had sent him a note saying that they had reached a verdict.

"Please let there be no reactions, no outbursts of any kind," the judge told the courtroom audience.

Judge Juan Merchan will excuse the jury at 4:30 p.m. ET if they haven't reached a verdict, the Associated Press reported.

Trump supporters gathered outside of Manhattan criminal court on Thursday as the jury continues to deliberate in the former president's historic criminal case in which prosecutors allege he covered up hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels.

Photos from the scene in lower Manhattan show pro-Trump supporters waving flags and wearing MAGA gear.

The jury that will decide whether Trump is guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records stemming from his $130,000 payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels has now been deliberating for 11 court hours.

As we await the jury's verdict in Donald Trump's hush money trial, it's worth remembering that even if he is convicted, he is unlikely to be sent to jail anytime soon.

Throughout the course of the trial, Trump has been free on bail. If he is found guilty, there's little reason to believe Judge Juan Merchan would change that status ahead of handing down Trump's sentence, especially given the fact that this would be the 77-year-old's first felony offense.

In the event of a guilty plea, Merchan will have to decide whether to fine Trump, put him on probation or supervision or sentence him to prison. The maximum sentence for the felonies Trump is charged with is four years.

Trump would almost certainly appeal a guilty verdict and that process could take months or years to play out, possibly further delaying the possibility that he would ever spend time behind bars.

Supporters of former President Donald Trump, many of them commentators on right wing news outlets like Fox News and Newsmax, have taken issue with the instructions Judge Juan Merchan gave to the jury, sometimes falsely claiming that the judge is allowing them to convict Trump without coming to a unanimous decision.

On Wednesday, Fox News host Jesse Waters proclaimed that Merchan had told the jury they “can pick whatever crime they want, and they can all disagree on the crime and it’s still a unanimous decision. ... It’s like a buffet!”

Fox News co-host Jeanine Pirro, a former judge, said his jury instructions were “unheard of.”

But in his remarks to the jury, much of which he repeated on Thursday, Merchan told jurors that they "must conclude unanimously that a defendant conspired to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means.” What he did leave partially open to interpretation, however, was the specific means jurors could conclude Trump had used when he carried out his alleged conspiracy.

While falsifying business records is usually a misdemeanor charge, it rises to a felony when the false reporting is done in furtherance of another crime. In this case, the judge told the jurors that while they needed unanimous agreement that a second crime had been committed, they could choose from one of three options: violations of the Federal Election Campaign Act, the falsification of other business records or the violation of tax laws.

Because Trump is not specifically charged with those crimes, jurors do not have to vote unanimously on them. Instead, he is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records relating to the $130,000 hush money payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels. For those charges, the jury must vote unanimously.

University of Texas law professor Lee Kovarsky explained the judge’s instructions to the jury this way:

“If a law says NO VEHICLES IN THE PARK & list of vehicles includes mopeds and motorcycles, all the instruction means is that you need unanimous conclusion of vehicle but not unanimous on whether vehicle was moped or harley,” he wrote in a post on X.

It is now up to a New York jury to determine whether former President Donald Trump is guilty on 34 felony counts brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, but the public may never learn the identities of those who will make that decision.

That's because Judge Juan Merchan ruled in March that their names would be revealed to the lawyers in the case but, out of safety concerns, not be made public.

Anonymous juries are somewhat rare in the U.S. Out of more than 100,000 jury trials in the country, just about a dozen a year keep the identities of jurors hidden from the public, USA Today reported in 2021.

Read more from Yahoo News.

After the jury was read testimony given by former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker about a June 2016 phone conversation he had with Trump, the former president posted a message on his social media network claiming that it showed he did not pay hush money to keep negative stories about him from being published.

"Testimony conclusively showed that I clearly stated, 'I DON’T BUY STORIES!'— Not that there would be anything wrong with doing that — NDA’s are PERFECTLY LEGAL AND COMMON!" Trump wrote Thursday.

The testimony in question concerned Pecker alerting Trump to former Playboy model Karen McDougal's claim that she had an extramarital affair with Trump. Pecker, who later paid McDougal for the exclusive rights to the story, initially advised Trump to purchase it.

Here is what Pecker said on the witness stand about the conversation:

"'This story about Karen, since she's claiming that she has a relationship with you, should be taken off the market.' And Mr. Trump said, 'I don't normally — I don't buy stories because it always gets out.' And then I said, 'I still think you should buy the story.' And Mr. Trump said to me, 'I'll speak to Michael [Cohen], and he'll get back to you.'"

Following the read-back of testimony requested by the jury and their exit to continue deliberations, Trump, his legal team and some of his closest confidants also left the courtroom, heading to a holding room where they will have to wait to see what comes next.

With the read-back of testimony concluded and the judge having repeated his instructions on rendering a verdict, the jury left the courtroom to resume deliberations.

The jury requested to rehear another portion of testimony concerning Michael Cohen's account of a meeting between himself, Trump and thenNational Enquirer publisher David Pecker in August 2015. It was at this meeting, both Cohen and Pecker testified, that the "catch and kill" agreement was hatched.

Pecker testified that he told Trump he would “keep an eye out for anything negative" and work to keep such stories from public view. Cohen corroborated that account.

Court stenographers are rereading portions of testimony from David Pecker, the former National Enquirer publisher. Here's what he said when he took the stand during the trial:

• Pecker revealed a 2015 plan he reached with Trump to assist his presidential campaign

• The National Enquirer published negative stories about Trump's rivals that were fed to the publication by members of Trump's team

• The publication would buy the rights to a story to ensure it wouldn't be published, in an arrangement known as "catch and kill"

• Pecker spent $30,000 on a story that was ultimately fake because of the potential embarrassment it could've caused Trump

Cameras are not allowed in court, but photographers are given a small window (less than a minute) each morning to take photos of Donald Trump once he enters the room.

Yahoo News' David Artavia spoke to Spencer Platt of Getty Images about what that moment is like.

“It's kind of weird and awkward too, because the court gets really quiet. It’s just the sound of cameras and jostling photographers. You can hear a pin drop," Platt said.

Read more on the process of photographing Trump in his historic trial each morning here.

In a note submitted this morning, the jury is asking for Judge Juan Merchan to reread his instruction on how it should consider facts and what it can infer based on the evidence presented, according to CNN.

The jury also asked to hear the instructions related to the charges for count one, and requested headphones to use with an evidence laptop.

Before deliberations kick off, Judge Juan Merchan is expected to reread instructions to the jury, which jurors had requested on Wednesday, according to the New York Times.

The jury also asked to hear portions of testimony read back to them, so actual deliberations are expected to start in about an hour.

Court is back in session this morning, and Judge Juan Merchan said jurors have submitted a third note, according to reporters in the courthouse.

As day one of jury deliberations wrapped up yesterday, Donald Trump's lawyers were reportedly happy court was dismissed without a verdict. Sources told ABC News that Trump's legal team believes the longer jurors deliberate, the more likely the case would lead to a hung jury.

One person close to Trump's defense told the outlet: "We want chaos ... we want evidence of strong disagreements."

ABC News reports:

Day one of jury deliberations in Trump's hush money trial ended without a verdict. But the 12 jurors on the panel that will decide whether Trump is guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records did get down to work. Here's a recap of what transpired:

• Before court resumed, Trump attacked Judge Juan Merchan and appeared to again violate his gag order by going after witness Michael Cohen. "Kangaroo court! A corrupt and conflicted judge," Trump wrote in all caps on Truth Social. "There was no crime, except for the bum that got caught stealing from me!"

• When court began, Merchan instructed the jury on how they should go about rendering a verdict in the case. "You and you alone are the judges of the facts," he said.

• Jurors should not "speculate about matters related to sentence or punishment," Merchan said, adding that he alone would be responsible for deciding those questions if Trump was found guilty.

• "If you are not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt of the charged crime, you must find the defendant not guilty," Merchan told the jury.

• Merchan then went over the specific charges Trump is facing. "A person is guilty of falsifying business records in the first degree when with intent to defraud, which includes the intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof, he makes or causes a false entry in the records of a business enterprise." He then sent the jury to begin their deliberations.

• After nearly four hours, the jury sent the court two notes. One requested that portions of the testimony be reread. The second asked the judge to repeat his instructions.

Judge Juan Merchan has dismissed the jury for the day. Jurors had been brought back into the courtroom to have testimony they requested reread, but the court had not finished compiling all of that material.

Merchan advised them not to discuss the case or to read about it. And with that, the first day of deliberations ended without a verdict.

Deliberations will pick back up again at 9:30 a.m. ET on Thursday.

The jury has returned to the courtroom to hear portions of the trial testimony read from the transcripts.