Trump’s primary offense was surpassing Joe Biden in the polls

Allies of former President Donald Trump were quick Thursday to decry a Manhattan jury’s guilty verdict in his hush money trial as a political ploy by Democrats and President Joe Biden to destroy his enemy — and possibly democracy.

One of Trump’s pollsters, John McLaughlin, told Secrets, “President Trump is right. Joe Biden and his supporters have corrupted our legal system and used it to try to defeat their leading political opponent. President Trump’s real crime was leading Joe Biden in the polls.”

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said, “How long can our Republic survive once partisans have taken over the judicial process? This verdict will tragically undermine Americans’ confidence in impartial justice.”

McLaughlin agreed and said voters could now be concerned that they will be next and said it is why the campaign will push harder to get Trump elected.

“It’s now up to the American people to reject the Biden corruption and vote to elect President Trump. If Joe Biden can do this to President Trump, he can railroad any American. This has to end,” the pollster said.

Sen. Mike Braun (R-IN), the GOP nominee for governor in the Hoosier State, told Secrets that the public has to demand that politics be pulled out of the courts.

“This case was a blatant abuse of our justice system as a political weapon by a radical prosecutor trying to interfere in the election, and the verdict proves that this was just a show trial all along. Trump is going to win in November because Americans are sick of these political games,” he said.

Figuring out who was hurt or helped by the verdict was a key topic in Washington late Thursday.

Top Washington communicator Ron Bonjean, a co-founder of the bipartisan ROKK Solutions, told Secrets, “You never want to be a presidential candidate with the title of ‘convicted felon’ next to your name. Having said that, it will fire up Republicans and some independents that this has gone way overboard.”

Polls have shown that Republicans do not plan to withdraw support in any conviction. And the buildup of legal cases has appeared to help Trump.

However, the legal troubles for Trump haven’t translated into any surge for Biden.

Bonjean told us that today’s verdict “does not change the lack of enthusiasm Democrats have for voting for Biden in November.”

Longtime Democratic pollster John Zogby said, “Coming at a time when the two candidates are within a point of each other and the president has hit 50% in one poll, Trump will probably drop a few points behind, especially among independents. He certainly won’t be helped by this.”

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His son and polling partner, Jeremy Zogby, said the timing is bad with the country already leaning in the direction of civil war, a topic he has been studying.

He said the conviction will appeal to those who view Trump as a persecuted politician: “The Trump mug shot will gain him martyrdom and street cred. That seems to be a cross-cultural fact of anyone with a cultlike following, especially when that following totals tens of millions of voters who, at the end of the day, aren’t so different from you and me, and poll after poll shows a majority of voters have buyers remorse” after the 2020 election.