His surprise election at the head of the world’s leading power stunned all four corners of the planet. As he attempts to return to the White House, Donald Trump made history again on Thursday, this time by becoming the first former US president to be convicted criminally.
In the middle of the electoral campaign, far from the gilding he loves, the 77-year-old Republican billionaire was forced to listen to the ax fall 34 times in a dull New York courtroom: once for each of the charges. in a case of falsification of accounting documents.
This case was considered the least threatening of the proceedings against him. And in fact, it will not prevent him from being a candidate in the presidential election in November.
But it is a humiliation for someone who spent his entire life immersed in the jet set before becoming, for a time, the most powerful man in the world. He is now forced to wait for his sentence to be handed down for having tried to disguise a payment intended to buy the silence of an adult film actress.
By relying on a « instinct » always put forward, the one whose fall has been announced a thousand times has already proclaimed it: he will try to bounce back.
The “true verdict” will be November 5, election day, he said defiantly in front of the cameras.
He has an army of supporters behind him, who firmly believe that the trial is part of a ” witch hunt “ to prevent him from becoming president again.
Reality show
At a Donald Trump meeting in the Bronx on May 23, 2024 / Jim WATSON / AFP/Archives
Born in New York on June 14, 1946, Donald J. Trump joined the family business after studying business.
Contrary to the legend he built for himself, he is not a « self-made man ». After World War II, his father had already built an empire in New York by constructing buildings for the middle class in working-class neighborhoods.
Donald Trump took over the reins of the company in the 1970s with a solid financial boost and made a place for himself in American homes thanks to the reality TV show « The Apprentice ».
Elected in November 2016 in an unprecedented political scenario that almost no one had predicted, during his four years at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue he delivered the spectacle of a president freeing himself from all norms, to the delight of his supporters but to the great dismay of his opponents, terrified by his impact on American democracy.
Father of five children born to three different women, grandfather several times, the tycoon with his virulent speech against immigrants never ceased during his mandate to praise family values to attract the praise of evangelical circles , to whom he delivered a resounding victory on abortion by reshuffling the Supreme Court — indisputably one of his greatest legacies.
Abroad, he has bullied America’s allies, engaged in an unpredictable escalation with Iran, demonstrated a disturbing fascination with authoritarian leaders from Vladimir Putin to Kim Jong Un, and put a brutal brake on to climate mobilization. All in the name of“America First”.
Free to campaign
Donald Trump in New York on May 30, 2024 / TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP
He is the only president to have twice suffered the infamy of impeachment before Congress. And he is now the only ex-president convicted in criminal proceedings.
When he lost the 2020 presidential election to Democrat Joe Biden, he propagated what was described as “Big Lie”: he actually won the election, he claims without the slightest proof, and the election was fraudulent.
This is false, but its most fervent supporters adhere to it.
On January 6, 2021, hundreds of them attacked the Capitol to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s victory. Images of incredible violence that go around the world.
The billionaire, triumphant face of uninhibited populism, was for a time abandoned by a large part of his camp.
But he quickly regained his hold on the Republican Party, whose nomination he ended up handily winning for the November 2024 election.
What impact will Thursday’s conviction have on his trajectory? The months to come will tell. But paradoxically, until his sentence is pronounced on July 11, he finds himself free to campaign as he wishes, to try to return to the top of the State.