Trump Is A Convicted Felon
On Friday a jury in Manhattan District Court found Donald Trump guilty of 34 felonies. He was charged with illegally falsifying business records to conceal hush money payments he made to Stormy Daniels, a woman with whom he had had a brief sexual encounter.
The purpose was to hide the encounter from the American voters in the days before the 2016 election. This violated New York election law, which makes it a felony to commit illegal acts to promote the election of a candidate for public office.
Trump and his followers have relentlessly and publicly attacked the Manhattan District Attorney, the judge, the judge’s daughter, witnesses, and the jury itself. Many are now promising violence on social media. They assume their lies and threats — not the facts of the case — will delegitimize the proceedings in the eyes of the public.
Donald Trump was given a fair trial. He engaged the best defense attorneys who fought for him every step of the way. He, like all defendants, could have testified in his own defense and refuted the charges against him. He chose not to. A jury of his peers considered the facts and the law and found him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
Aside from the fact that Trump’s encounter with Ms. Daniels happened in Nevada Assembly District 39 — at Harrah’s in Stateline — any direct connection to the District seems unlikely. This is not correct.
In 2022 the incumbent District 39 Assemblyman, in his previous role as a Lyon County Commissioner, spearheaded the renaming of the county courthouse after Donald Trump. It is now the “Donald J. Trump Justice Complex.” In doing so, he forever linked our county to a philandering and now convicted felon currently awaiting sentencing. The irony is rich, but it stops being funny when you think about Lyon County judges, lawyers, defendants, plaintiffs, and witnesses seeking justice under the law beneath the watchful eye of a convict.
This is the price we pay for political extremism. The District 39 incumbent, Ken Gray, is a devoted follower of Donald Trump. Renaming the courthouse was only one example of his fealty, which is extreme by any definition of the word.
Mr. Gray is being opposed in the upcoming election by myself, Erich Obermayr. As a legislator, my first job will be to pass legislation that advances economic opportunity, health, education, safety, and quality of life for everyone in our state. You won’t see these needs and tasks if your view of the world is through an extremist peephole, or if you’re distracted trying to defend the indefensible. That won’t be a problem for me.