Trump Becomes the First President Turned Felon
Former president and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has been convicted on in New York in a case stemming from a hush-money incident that took place ahead of the 2016 election. Newspaper headlines screamed “,” and media reports relied on superlatives such as “historic” and “unprecedented” to label the jury’s unanimous verdict. Given that Trump has been unusually adept at avoiding accountability for a , the verdict sparked shockwaves.
Corey Brettschneider, a professor of political science and a constitutional law expert at Brown University, has closely followed Trump’s myriad legal trials. He is the author of several books about presidential politics and his forthcoming book is called . Brettschneider spoke with YES! Senior Editor Sonali Kolhatkar on YES! Presents: Rising Up With Sonali about Trump’s felony charges.
Sonali Kolhatkar
joined YES! in summer 2021, building on a long and decorated career in broadcast and print journalism. She is an award-winning multimedia journalist, and host and creator of YES! Presents: Rising Up with Sonali, a nationally syndicated television and radio program airing on Free Speech TV and dozens of independent and community radio stations. She is also Senior Correspondent with the Independent 鶹¼ Institute’s Economy for All project where she writes a weekly column. She is the author of Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice (2023) and Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence (2005). Her forthcoming book is called Talking About Abolition (Seven Stories Press, 2025). Sonali is co-director of the nonprofit group, Afghan Women’s Mission which she helped to co-found in 2000. She has a Master’s in Astronomy from the University of Hawai’i, and two undergraduate degrees in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Texas at Austin. Sonali reflects on “My Journey From Astrophysicist to Radio Host” in her 2014 of the same name.
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