An American flag is seen upside down at the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington, on May 31, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

Upside-down American flags emerged outside homes and on social media on May 31 in support of Donald Trump after a New York jury returned a historic guilty verdict against the former Republican president.

Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and country music singer Jason Aldean were among the prominent Americans to display the inverted flag, a symbol of distress or protest in America for over 200 years.

The symbol, popular among some avid Trump supporters since his 2020 election defeat, exploded across pro-Trump social media accounts after he was convicted on Thursday of falsifying documents to cover up a hush money payment to a porn star to illegally influence the 2016 election.

Minutes after the verdict Greene, a Trump loyalist, posted an inverted U.S. flag on her X account. By Friday afternoon more than 8 million people had viewed it.

Mr. Aldean posted an inverted flag on his Instagram account, saying: “Scary times in our country right now, man.” He added: “If there was ever a time to speak up, ITS NOW! Make no mistake. We are in trouble.”

Don Tapia, a former Trump ambassador to Jamaica and a Republican donor, flew an inverted flag outside his Arizona home. He said he had received phone calls of support and that motorists had honked as they drove by. “Will switch back Sunday to regular flag,” he told Reuters by text message.

Dan Bongino, a conservative radio talk show host who interviewed Trump on his show on Wednesday, posted an inverted U.S. flag on his X account after the verdict. It had received 250,000 views by mid-afternoon on Friday.

A Miami chapter of the Proud Boys, a far-right militant group, posted an inverted flag on the message channel Telegram, as did a similar group called Patriot Voice, with the words: “In dire distress.”

Also read | Biden says questioning Trump’s guilty verdict is ‘dangerous’ and ‘irresponsible’

On pro-Trump corners of the internet, some supporters called for riots, revolution and violent retribution.

The symbolic inverting of the flag drew nationwide attention when the New York Times reported in mid-May that an upside-down Stars and Stripes was flown outside the home of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito in the weeks after the January 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters rioting in protest at his 2020 election defeat.

Mr. Alito, a conservative appointed to the court by Republican former President George W. Bush, told the Times he had “no involvement whatsoever in the flying of the flag.” He said his wife raised the inverted flag over a neighborhood dispute.

Trump, the first former president to be convicted of a crime, said on Friday he will appeal the verdict. He is locked in a tight race with Democratic President Joe Biden ahead of their November. 5 election rematch.

Staring down a bank of cameras inside Manhattan’s Trump Tower, he rattled off a list of adversaries and grievances in rambling remarks while vowing to keep on fighting.

An upside-down U.S. flag was first used by sailors in the 1700s to signal distress, said presidential historian Timothy Naftali. It has since taken on a long history of political symbolism on the American left as well as the right.

It was used in the anti-slavery movement in the mid-1800s and was carried by anti-Vietnam War protesters in the 1960s, said Mr. Naftali, a professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.

He said it was ironic that when Vietnam War protesters inverted the flag or burned it, Republicans generally decried that.

“We live in an era now where the deepest and most virulent conspiracies about the nature of our Constitution are on the right. Inverting the flag is part of that,” he said.

An inverted U.S. flag was flown by some people protesting the murder of George Floyd, a Black man, by a white Minnesota police officer in 2020.

It was carried by people protesting the U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2022 to end the federal right to an abortion.

Trump and his Republican supporters have in recent years decried Black football players taking a knee during the playing of the U.S. national anthem, known as the Star-Spangled Banner, itself a reference to the flag.

In an unprecedented verdict, a New York jury on May 30 unanimously convicted Donald J. Trump of falsifying records to cover up a sex scandal that threatened to derail his 2016 presidential campaign. The trial, that led to the first-ever criminal conviction of a former U.S. President, could have a significant bearing on Mr. Trump’s voter support barely five months ahead of the U.S Presidential election where he seeks to recapture the White House.

The judge overseeing the case, Juan M. Merchan, set his sentencing for July 11 — just days before the Republican National Convention is set to convene to formally declare Mr. Trump as the presidential nominee. The conviction on 34 Class E felonies carries a potential penalty of four years of imprisonment for each count, although the judge may also consider probation or home confinement as possible alternatives. However, the conviction will not deter him from running for president for another term in the absence of any explicit constitutional bar.

The real estate tycoon faces three other felony indictments, but the Manhatten case — often criticised by legal experts as the weakest of the four prosecutions— is undoubtedly significant since it is the only one to conclude before the November election. The other three cases — two involving accusations in Atlanta and Washington that he conspired to overturn the 2020 election, and a federal indictment in Florida charging him with illegally hoarding top-secret records — are currently mired in delays and appeals.

Also read: Trump hush money trial LIVE updates

Reacting to the verdict, Mr. Trump said that he would be appealing the conviction while downplaying the allegations underlying the case. “It’s not hush money. It’s a nondisclosure agreement, totally legal, totally common,” he said. Addressing reporters at the Trump Tower in New York, the former president further claimed that the trial was “rigged” and a tactic of the Democratic party to derail his electoral bid.

The felony charges

The historic trial involved charges that Mr. Trump falsified business records in an attempt to cover up payments made to Stormy Daniels, a porn actor who claimed that she had a sexual liaison with the married former president in 2006. The $130,000 payment was made by Mr. Trump’s former lawyer and “fixer” Michael Cohen to buy Ms. Daniel’s silence during the final weeks of the 2016 presidential race — an attempt to interfere in the elections according to the prosecution. When Mr. Cohen was reimbursed, the payments were recorded as legal expenses in an “unlawful attempt” to disguise the true purpose of the transactions, the prosecution contended. However, the defense argued that they were legitimate legal retainer fees.

The trial, which featured more than four weeks of riveting testimonies, finally persuaded the 12-member jury that Mr. Trump had hatched a conspiracy with Mr. Cohen and David Pecker, the former publisher of The National Enquirer, to buy and suppress claims that could have jeopardised his candidacy. Jury deliberations are, however, confidential and the reasoning behind the ruling will remain unclear unless any of the jurors decides to speak publicly.

The 34 counts were divided into three categories — 11 related to invoices from Mr. Cohen showing payments made to Ms. Daniels, 11 related to checks signed by Trump or using his funds to reimburse Mr. Cohen and 12 related to accounting entries documenting these reimbursements in Mr. Trump’s financial records.

Editorial | In the dock: On Donald Trump and his legal challenge

From the moment Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced charges against the real estate tycoon more than a year ago, legal analysts questioned his unconventional strategy — it is not illegal to pay hush money and the misdemeanour counts were all barred by the statute of limitations. However, Mr. Bragg contended that the case was fundamentally about an attempt to corrupt the 2016 presidential election, not merely about past sexual encounters. He argued that this constituted a crime involving the violation ofSstate election laws aimed “to manipulate and defraud the voters, to pull the wool over their eyes in a coordinated fashion.”

Prosecutors were “successful at reframing this as essentially a disinformation operation on the 2016 election, not just the coverup of an affair,” Asha Rangappa, a lawyer and a former FBI agent told Time Magazine.

The trial

A major challenge for the prosecution was to establish Mr. Cohen’s credibility — the star witness of the trial whose loyalty Mr. Trump had lost. In 2018, he had pleaded guilty to multiple crimes involving the hush-money scheme, including lying to Congress and federal investigators. During the proceedings, the defense lawyer Todd Blanche told the jury about Mr. Cohen’s previous deceitful conduct, including an instance in which he allegedly stole from Mr. Trump’s company. However, prosecutors retorted by saying that Mr. Cohen was hired “because he was willing to lie and cheat on Mr. Trump’s behalf.”

Over the last couple of months, Mr. Trump has repeatedly targeted Mr. Cohen and the jurors in the case, despite a court-issued gag order that prohibits him from making such public statements. This resulted in Judge Juan M. Merchan holding him guilty of contempt of court and even warning that he might place the former president behind bars.

In the courtroom, the jurors were presented with a recording secretly captured by Mr. Cohen in September 2016. In it, Mr. Trump could be heard discussing a hush money payment to Karen McDougal, a Playboy model who claimed to have had a year-long affair with him. The evidence was further bolstered by Mr. Pecker’s testimony that he had agreed to ensure that unflattering stories which could damage the Trump campaign were never made public. This included having his company buy Ms. McDougal’s silence.

Notably, Ms. Daniels herself testified, offering a detailed account of her affair with the former president which began during a celebrity golf tournament on the shores of Lake Tahoe in 2006. In some of his most incriminating testimony, Mr. Cohen said that Mr. Trump and the then Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg had discussed Ms. Daniel’s payment plan in a January 2017 meeting shortly before Mr. Trump’s inauguration as the president. 

“To keep the loyalty and to do the things that he had asked me to do, I violated my moral compass, and I suffered the penalty, as has my family,” Mr. Cohen told the jury in a candid confession.

Although Mr. Trump did not take the stand during the proceedings, his lawyers denied the sexual encounters and argued that his celebrity status, particularly during the 2016 campaign, made him susceptible to extortion attempts. They claimed that the hush money deals were motivated by personal considerations such as the impact on his family and his business, and not political ones.

What happens next?

With Mr. Trump set to appeal his conviction, the American electorate will be left with two distinct choices — a convicted felon or an unpopular incumbent. Although he remains highly competitive in polls, a poll from Bloomberg and Morning Consult earlier this year found that 53% of voters in key swing states would refuse to vote for the Republican if he were convicted. Concurring with this, former prosecutor and government ethics expert Melanie Sloan told Al Jazeera the conviction could “drive a wedge” between Mr. Trump and more moderate constituencies.

The sentencing, set for July 11, will be preceded by the submission of a pre-sentencing report with recommendations based on the defendant’s criminal history. Given that Mr. Trump has no prior convictions, this is likely to work in his favour.

The ruling is also unlikely to dampen his chances of contesting the presidential elections. The U.S. Constitution sets very few eligibility criteria for presidents — they must be at least 35 years old, be a “natural born” citizen and should have lived in the U.S. for at least 14 years. While some States prohibit felons from running for sState and local offices, these laws do not apply to federal offices.

However, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment arguably sets out another criterion — it bars those who have “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” after taking an oath to support the Constitution from holding federal offices. Activists have pointed out that the then-president’s actions in the run-up to the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol constitute participation in an insurrection. However, the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year ruled that Congress would have to pass a special law invoking this prohibition before it can bar Mr. Trump from Colorado’s ballot.

As a convicted felon in New York but a resident of Florida, Mr. Trump’s ability to exercise his franchise depends on the sentence that is imposed on him — and when or if he completes it. Under Florida law, a person with a felony conviction from another State is ineligible to vote only “if the conviction would make the person ineligible to vote in the State where the person was convicted.” New York is one of 23 states where people convicted of a felony can vote, even if they are on parole or probation, as long as they are not incarcerated.

“After New York goes through their process, whether President Trump can vote with a felony conviction will depend on what the State of Florida does,” Neil Volz, deputy director of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition told The Guardian. “Our belief is that no one should be above the law or below the law when it comes to voter eligibility for people with convictions and that everyone should operate under the same set of standards,” he added.

Donald Trump launched into attacks on the judge in his criminal trial and continued to undermine New York’s criminal justice system on May 31 as he tried to repackage his conviction on 34 felony charges as fuel, not an impediment, to his latest White House bid.

Trump spoke to reporters at his namesake tower in Manhattan on Friday, his return to campaigning a day after he was convicted of trying to illegally influence the 2016 election by falsifying business records to hide a hush money payment to a porn actor who claimed they had sex.

Also read | Analysis: How former U.S. President Donald Trump got convicted at his hush money trial

Trump, as defiant as ever, argued the verdict was illegitimate and driven by politics and sought to downplay the allegations underlying the case.

“It’s not hush money. It’s a nondisclosure agreement, totally legal, totally common,” he said.

In a message aimed to galvanize his supporters, he declared: “If they can do this to me, they can do this to anyone.”

While the guilty verdict against him and his vow to fight appeared to motivate his base of supporters, including those who began pouring donations into his campaign, it’s unclear if any of this will help him with independent voters who will be decisive in the November election.

No former president or presumptive party nominee has ever faced a felony conviction or the prospect of prison time, and Trump is expected to keep his legal troubles central to his campaign. He has long argued without evidence that the four indictments against him were orchestrated by Democratic President Joe Biden to try to keep him out of the White House. The hush money case was filed by local prosecutors in Manhattan who do not work for the Justice Department or any White House office.

Trump chose to start Friday in the atrium of Trump Tower, the brass and rose marble lobby where he descended his golden escalator to announce his 2016 campaign nine years ago next month.

In his disjointed remarks, Trump initially started attacking Biden on immigration and tax policies before pivoting to his case, growling that he was threatened with jail time if he violated a gag order. He picked apart intricate parts of the case and trial proceedings as unfair, making false statements and misrepresentations as he did so.

Trump said he wanted to testify but said the judge wanted to go into every detail. “I would have liked to have testified,” he said. “But you would have said something out of whack like ‘it was a beautiful sunny day,’ and it was actually raining out.”

Trump, who had the right to testify but didn’t, also tested the limits of the gag order that prohibits him from publicly critiquing witnesses including Michael Cohen, calling his former fixer, the star witness in the case, “a sleazebag.”

His son Eric Trump and daughter-in-law Lara Trump joined him, but his wife, Melania Trump, who has been publicly silent since the verdict, was not seen.

Outside, on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue, supporters gathered across the street were flying a giant red “TRUMP OR DEATH” sign that was flapping in front of a high-end boutique. A small group of protesters held up signs that said “Guilty” and “Justice matters.”

On Friday morning, his campaign announced it had raised $34.8 million as donations poured in after the verdict. That’s more than $1 million for each felony charge and more than his political operation raised in January and February combined.

Trump and his campaign had been preparing for a guilty verdict for days, even as they held out hope for a hung jury. On Tuesday, Trump railed that not even Mother Teresa, the nun and saint, could beat the charges, which he repeatedly labeled as “rigged.”

His top aides on Wednesday released a memo in which they insisted a verdict would have no impact on the election, whether Trump was convicted or acquitted.

The news nonetheless landed with a jolt. Trump, his team and reporters at the courthouse had been under the impression that the jury on Thursday would wrap up deliberations for the day at 4:30 p.m. Trump sat smiling and chatting with his lawyers as the proceedings seemed to be coming to a close.

Trump had spent the hours before the verdict was announced sequestered in the private courtroom where he had spent breaks throughout the trial, huddled with his attorneys and campaign aides, eating from a revolving lunch menu of McDonald’s, pizza, and subs.

As the jury was deciding his fate, he filled his time making calls, firing off social media missives and chatting with friends, including developer Steve Witkoff, who joined him in court, and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, who is considered a top vice presidential contender.

In a sign that they expected deliberations to continue, Trump’s holding room was outfitted with a television Thursday, according to two people familiar with the setup who, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the case.

Instead, Merchan announced that a verdict had been reached. Thirty minutes later, Trump listened as the jury delivered a guilty verdict on every count. Trump sat stone-faced while the verdict was read.

His campaign fired off a flurry of fundraising appeals, and GOP allies rallied to his side. One text message called him a “political prisoner,” even though he hasn’t yet found out if he will be sentenced to prison. The campaign also began selling black “Make America Great Again” caps to reflect a “dark day in history.”

Aides reported an immediate rush of contributions so intense that WinRed, the platform the campaign uses for fundraising, crashed. The $34.8 million raised Thursday did not include what Trump collected at his in-person fundraiser or any donations that continued to come in online Friday.

“President Trump and our campaign are immensely grateful from this outpouring of support from patriots across our country,” Trump’s senior campaign advisers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles said in a statement. “President Trump is fighting to save our nation and November 5th is the day Americans will deliver the real verdict.”

Trump has long complained that the trial limited his campaign appearances for several weeks. “I want to campaign,” he had told reporters Thursday morning before a verdict was reached.

It is unclear, however, how much Trump’s schedule will ramp up in the days ahead. He held only a handful of public campaign events as the trial unfolded, despite the fact that he had Wednesdays, as well as evenings and weekends, to do what he wished.

He’s set in the upcoming two months to have his first debate with Biden, announce a running mate and formally accept his party’s nomination at the Republican National Convention.

But before he goes to Milwaukee for the RNC, Trump will have to return to court on July 11 for sentencing. He could face penalties ranging from a fine or probation up to four years in prison.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump, with attorney Todd Blanche, speaks to the press amid his trial for allegedly covering up hush money payments linked to extramarital affairs, at Manhattan Criminal Court in New York City, on May 10, 2024. Trump is accused of falsifying business records in a scheme to cover up an alleged sexual encounter with adult film actress Stormy Daniels to shield his 2016 election campaign from adverse publicity.
| Photo Credit: REUTERS

Donald Trump’s defence attorney and Stormy Daniels went head to head on Thursday during cross-examination of the porn star’s blistering testimony, the line of questioning occasionally meandering into the bizarre and even earning a critique afterwards from the judge.

Under examination that frequently veered hostile, Ms. Daniels was quick on her feet, toeing a tight line between tenacity and vulnerability as jurors watched the defense deride her career and assail her credibility.

She clapped back for hours during the most intense testimony yet in the criminal trial, which centers on whether a $130,000 hush money payment to Ms. Daniels was fraudulently covered up with the intent of influencing the 2016 presidential election.

Mr. Trump’s lawyer Susan Necheles insisted repeatedly through her questioning that Ms. Daniels, 45, had fabricated her story of a one-off sexual encounter with Trump.

“You made all this up, right?” the counsel asked at one point, prompting Ms. Daniels to respond with an emphatic “No.”

Several moments saw Ms. Daniels accuse Ms. Necheles of putting words in her mouth: “You’re trying to make me say it’s changed, but it hasn’t changed,” she said, referring to her account of events.

Team Trump vied to cast Ms. Daniels as money-grubbing, sleazy and deceptive.

Ms. Necheles grilled Ms. Daniels over her decision to pen a book that included depictions of the encounter, and her decision to promote branded products.

“Not unlike Mr. Trump,” Ms. Daniels quipped back.

In one of the more offbeat moments of the nearly eight hours of testimony, Ms. Necheles brought up interest in Ms. Daniels in tarot cards and the paranormal, in an apparent bid to cast her as unhinged.

She then moved to present Ms. Daniels as a fabulist, mocking her work as a screenwriter and director of pornographic films while alleging that it makes her good at twisting the truth.

“So you have a lot of experience in making phony stories about sex appear to be real?” said Ms. Necheles.

“Wow, that’s not how I would put it,” Ms. Daniels said.

“The sex is real. The characters names might be different. But the sex is very real. That’s why it’s pornography,” the witness continued.

If the story with Mr. Trump were untrue, she said, “I would’ve written it to be a lot better.”

Mistrial denied, again

At the close of her marathon testimony which lasted approximately eight hours over two days, the defense asked Ms. Daniels if she knew anything about Mr. Trump’s bookkeeping — the actual crux of the case.

She said she does not.

But that wasn’t the point of calling Ms. Daniels to the stand, one prosecutor said later — she was there to detail why Mr. Trump would’ve wanted to cover up her story at the finish line of his White House bid.

That reasoning came up after jurors had been dismissed for the day, during a motion hearing that saw Team Trump try once more for a mistrial.

It was again denied, but not before Judge Juan Merchan skewered Mr. Trump’s lawyers in front of him.

“I disagree with your narrative that there is any new account here. I disagree that there is any changing story,” he said, audibly irritated.

In his extraordinary dressing down of the defence’s lawyering, Mr. Merchan said their very insistence that Ms. Daniels had made the encounter up cleared the way for the prosecution to include evidence — much of it salacious — to the contrary.

Ms. Necheles spent much of her cross-hammering on the very details they were holding up as grounds for a mistrial, Mr. Merchan said, “drilling it over and over and over again into the jury’s ears.”

“I don’t understand the reason for that,” he said during his dramatic critique, asking why the defence had not objected to the presentation of those details during direct questioning.

And that Mr. Trump’s team has been attacking Ms. Daniels from the very beginning, including during opening statements, “pits your client’s word against Ms. Daniels’ word,” Mr. Merchan said.

“That, in my mind, allows The People to do what they can to rehabilitate her and corroborate her story,” he said, using a term for the prosecution.

“Your motion for a mistrial is denied.”