Trump Never Stood a Chance Against His Political Enemies and Their Courts | Opinion

Even when you know it’s coming, even when you know a successful appeal is likely, even when there is fair analysis that a conviction may be a net positive for former President Donald Trump‘s chances in November, Thursday’s guilty verdict in a Manhattan courtroom on 34 counts is still a sad new low for an American justice system that is supposedly based on facts, evidence, judges who preside fairly, and juries that decide coherently.

Those standards lie in ruins at the feet of the metaphoric image of Lady Justice, the famous figure seated holding a scale and wearing a blindfold. The scale represents the necessity of weighing evidence objectively. That did not happen in Trump’s case. The blindfold represents a system that treats citizens without regard for who appears before it. That means no benefit for the rich or powerful, no disadvantage for any marginalized class.

Trump represented a singular combination of a wealthy, powerful defendant who nonetheless represented an aggrieved figure in the forum of a New York courtroom. It was not a glib take to say he could not get a fair trial on the island of Manhattan. Every dark suspicion held by skeptics has been confirmed. The fix was in.

I will leave to others the task of detailing the procedural outrages that should lead to a successful appeal. The bones of that challenge will involve a biased judge lording over a trial on artificially concocted crimes, featuring testimony from some witnesses who trafficked in irrelevancies and other testimony disallowed because it would have brought helpful clarity.

A different type of clarity now settles over a troubled America. Our institutions are collapsing before our eyes. Our courts used to be venerable halls of reliable justice. Real crimes used to be prosecuted. District attorneys used to avoid targeting people in political vendettas.

It is of only middling comfort that the appeal may someday fix this. This should never have happened. And I don’t mean…