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Trump found guilty on all counts, sentencing scheduled for July 11

Biden campaign: ‘we saw that no one is above the law.’

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Former President Donald Trump (Screenshot/YouTube NBC News)

Former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, was found guilty on Thursday of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to conceal a hush-money payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels.

After the 12 jurors returned with their verdict Judge Juan Merchan of the New York Supreme Court in Manhattan scheduled Trump’s sentencing for July 11.

Though his conviction calls for a four-year prison sentence, the former president will almost certainly appeal the verdict, which could forestall a final resolution in the case for several years. The remaining three criminal cases against Trump are likely to begin after Election Day, Nov. 5.

ā€œIn New York today, we saw that no one is above the law,” Biden-Harris 2024 Communications Director Michael Tyler said in a statement.

ā€œDonald Trump has always mistakenly believed he would never face consequences for breaking the law for his own personal gain,” he said. “But todayā€™s verdict does not change the fact that the American people face a simple reality. There is still only one way to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office: At the ballot box. Convicted felon or not, Trump will be the Republican nominee for president.”

ā€œThe threat Trump poses to our democracy has never been greater,” Tyler said. “He is running an increasingly unhinged campaign of revenge and retribution, pledging to be a dictator ā€˜on day oneā€™ and calling for our Constitution to be ā€˜terminatedā€™ so he can regain and keep power.”

Tyler added, “A second Trump term means chaos, ripping away Americansā€™ freedoms and fomenting political violence ā€” and the American people will reject it this November.ā€

Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson said in a statement, “The twice-impeached, forever disgraced former president of the United States has now been convicted of 34 felony counts by a jury of his peers.”

“Todayā€™s conviction shows clearly that no one is above the law. And now, we must commit to showing up in November and ensuring that Trump doesnā€™t make his way from the courthouse back to the White House.”

ā€œThe verdict underlines that no one is above the law, and that election interference is a serious crime that harms every American, including and especially vulnerable people whose voices should be heard and whose votes should be counted,” GLAAD President Sarah Kate Ellis said in a statement.

“The trial detailed how Donald Trump lied and schemed to get elected. In four horrific years in office he stripped LGBTQ Americans, all women, and others of our essential human rights, then lied about losing the 2020 election and encouraged a deadly riot at the Capitol to overturn it,” she said.

“Donald Trump is now a twice convicted, twice impeached, serial liar and sexual abuser who has always seen the presidency as a scam to enrich and protect himself,” Ellis said. “Today the jury emphatically said Trump is guilty as charged. Voters everywhere should follow the juryā€™s lead and continue to hold him accountable for his crimes, anti-American behavior and rhetoric.ā€

Lisa Gilbert, executive vice president of Public Citizen, said: ā€œThis is an historic moment for democracy. A jury heard evidence that Donald Trump illegally interfered in the 2016 election and rendered a fair and appropriate verdict.”

ā€œNew Yorkā€™s prosecutors served justice by bringing this case,” Gilbert said. “We applaud the jury for doing its job and standing up for the fundamental principle that no one is above the law, not even a former president.”

She added, ā€œJustice was served today. On to the next trial!ā€

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Politics

HRC slams White House over position opposing gender affirming surgeries for minors

ā€˜Biden administration is flat wrong on thisā€™

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Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson issued a strong rebuke on Tuesday of the Biden-Harris administration’s position opposing gender affirming surgeries for minors.

The New York Times reported on June 28 that the White House, which broadly supports making medical interventions available for transgender youth, had expressed opposition to surgeries for patients under 18, having previously declined to take a specific position on the question.

ā€œHealth care decisions for young people belong between a patient, their family, and their health care provider. Trans youth are no exception,” Robinson responded. 

ā€œThe Biden administration is flat wrong on this. Itā€™s wrong on the science and wrong on the substance. Itā€™s also inconsistent with other steps the administration has taken to support transgender youth. The Biden administration, and every elected official, need to leave these decisions to families, doctors and patientsā€”where they belong,” she added. “Although transgender young people make up an extremely small percentage of youth in this country, the care they receive is based on decades of clinical research and is backed by every major medical association in the U.S. representing over 1.3 million doctors.”

Robinson said the “administration has committed to fight any ban on healthcare for transgender youth and must continue this without hesitationā€”the entire community is watching.” 

ā€œNo parent should ever be put in the position where they and their doctor agree on one course of action, supported by the overwhelming majority of medical experts, but the government forbids it,ā€ she added.

HRC is a prominent backer of Biden’s 2024 reelection campaign, having pledged $15 million to support efforts in six battleground states. The organization has a strong relationship with the White House, with the president and first lady headlining last year’s National Dinner.

A White House spokesperson declined to respond to Robinson’s statement.

Campaign for Southern Equality President Allison Scott also issued a statement.

ā€œThis is a cowardly statement from an administration that promised to support transgender people. It is a troubling concession to the right-wing assault on transgender Americans, falling for their false narratives about surgical care and betraying a commitment to equality and trust in the medical community,ā€ said Scott.

ā€œLetā€™s be very, very clear: Government has no business inserting itself into private medical decisions that should be exclusively between patients, their providers, and the patientsā€™ parent or guardian,” Scott added.

“It is dangerous to begin endorsing categorical bans or limits on healthcare, and there is no justification for restricting transgender youthā€™s access to the very same care that many cisgender youth receive every year ā€” thatā€™s literally the definition of discrimination,” Scott concluded. “We demand the Biden administration retract this thoughtless statement and work to undo its damage.ā€ 

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Congress

Members of Congress introduce resolution to condemn Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act

U.S. Reps. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) and Joyce Beatty spearheaded condemnation

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U.S. Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

More than 20 members of Congress on Thursday introduced a resolution that condemns Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act.

Gay California Congressman Mark Takano and U.S. Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio) spearheaded the resolution that U.S. Reps. Becca Balint (D-Vt.), Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.), Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), Sylvia Garcia (D-Texas), Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), RaĆŗl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), Gwen Moore (D-Wis.), Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), Mark Pocan (D-Wash.), Delia Ramirez (D-Ill), Linda SĆ”nchez (D-Calif.), Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), Brad Sherman (D-Calif.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.), and Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) co-sponsored.

“The House of Representatives condemns the government of Ugandaā€™s criminalization and draconian punishments regarding consensual same-sex sexual conduct and so-called ā€˜’promotion of homosexuality,ā€™” reads the resolution.

The resolution, among other things, also calls upon the Ugandan government to repeal the law.

ā€œIt is difficult to overstate the gross inhumanity of Ugandaā€™s Anti-Homosexuality Act,ā€ said Takano in a press release.

President Yoweri Museveni in May 2023 signed the law, which contains a death penalty provision for ā€œaggravated homosexuality.ā€

The U.S. subsequently imposed visa restrictions on Ugandan officials and removed the country from a program that allows sub-Saharan African countries to trade duty-free with the U.S. The World Bank Group also announced the suspension of new loans to Uganda.

The Ugandan Constitutional Court in April refused to ā€œnullify the Anti-Homosexuality Act in its totality.ā€ A group of Ugandan LGBTQ activists appealed the ruling.

ā€œInstead of focusing on rooting out corruption or ending extrajudicial killings, the Ugandan Parliament, president, and Constitutional Court have chosen to mark LGBTQ+ Ugandans as less than human,” said Takano. “Congress must not be silent in the face of such systematic, state-sponsored discrimination.”

“To all those LGBTQ+ people and your allies in Uganda ā€” we see you,” added the California Democrat. “We and the Biden administration will not allow this terrible violation of basic dignity to go unchallenged.ā€ 

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Politics

LGBTQ issues absent from Trump-Biden debate

Advocacy groups hoped candidates would address queer topics

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Former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden debate on CNN on Jun 27, 2024. (Screen captures via CNN)

At their televised debate in Atlanta on June 27, President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump traded barbs on issues from abortion and election integrity to immigration and foreign policy. The 81 and 78-year-old candidates even argued over who is a better golfer.

Absent from the discussion, however, were matters of LGBTQ rights that have animated national politics in this election cycle with the presumptive Republican nominee promising to weaponize the federal government against queer and trans Americans as the president pledges to build on his record of expanding their freedoms and protections.

CNN hosted Thursday’s debate, with the network’s anchors Dana Bash and Jake Tapper moderating. ABC News will run the second debate scheduled for September 10.

The president’s performance was widely criticized as halting and shaky, with White House reporter Peter Baker of The New York Times writing that Democratic Party leaders are calling for him to be replaced at the top of the ticket.

Also setting the tone early into the program was Trump’s repetition of the lie that Democrats are so “radical” on matters of abortion that they “will take the life of a child in the eighth month, the ninth month, and even after birth.”

Biden, meanwhile, laid the blame at his opponent’s feet for appointing three U.S. Supreme Court justices during his term in office who overturned Roe v. Wade’s 51-year-old constitutional protections for abortion.

He also referenced the fallout from that ruling and the extreme restrictions passed by conservative legislators in its wake, arguing that Trump would not veto a federal abortion ban if Republican majorities in Congress were to pass one.

Trump also repeated falsehoods about the 2020 presidential election.

“Will you pledge tonight that once all legal challenges have been exhausted, that you will accept the results of this election,” Bash asked him, “regardless of who wins, and you will say right now that political violence in any form is unacceptable?”

The Republican frontrunner first responded by denying he was responsible for his supporters’ violent ransacking of the U.S. Capitol Building on Jan. 6 2021.

After the CNN anchor pressed him twice to answer the first part of her question, Trump said, “if it’s a fair and legal and good election, absolutely” but “the fraud and everything else was ridiculous.”

“You appealed and appealed to courts all across the country,” Biden responded. “Not one single court in America said any of your claims had any merit, state or local, none. But you continue to provoke this lie about somehow, there’s all this misrepresentation, all this stealing ā€” there is no evidence of that at all.”

The president continued, “And I tell you what, I doubt whether you’ll accept it, because you’re such a whiner.”

Advocacy groups hoped the debate would address LGBTQ issues

Leading up to the debate, advocacy groups urged the candidates to defend their records on and policy proposals concerning LGBTQ rights, with some arguing the discussion would advantage President Joe Biden’s campaign, as reported by The Hill’s Brooke Migdon.

As the community celebrated Pride this month, the Biden-Harris 2024 team made significant investments in paid media and the Out for Biden national organizing effort to court LGBTQ voters, who are expected to comprise a larger share of the electorate than ever before.

ā€œThis will be an enormous slight to our community if LGBTQ questions are not asked during this debate,ā€ GLAAD President Sarah Kate Ellis said. ā€œOur community is deeply affected by where these candidates stand.ā€Ā 

ā€œThe safety and freedom of LGBTQ people depends on your engagement with the candidates and ability to inform voters about their records and proposals,ā€ she said.

Annise Parker, the outgoing president and CEO of the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund, said ā€œI certainly hope that the moderators bring up the LGBTQ community and LGBTQ issues, because there is a stark contrast between the two candidates.”

ā€œI hope we see a substantive conversation on the records of these two men for the fight for a more equal society,ā€ said Brandon Wolf, national press secretary at the Human Rights Campaign.

ā€œA vast majority of people in this country support an America that treats people with dignity and respect; they support an America that prevents people from experiencing discrimination and harm simply because of who they are,ā€ he said.

ā€œThat is where the American people largely are, and I hope we get an opportunity on that stage to see the contrast between these two candidates.ā€Ā 

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