Shortly after 11 p.m., Swedish time, the verdict came. Donald Trump is convicted on all charges. He becomes the first US president to be convicted of a crime.
– Donald Trump is now a convicted felon running for president, it is a historic moment in American history, which tests the patience of his voters even further. The saved will stay with him, but the question is how uncertain middle voters react, says SVT’s USA correspondent Fouad Youcefi.
After the announcement, Trump commented on the outcome.
– This was a rigged, shameful trial, I am a very innocent man, he says.
Trump denies wrongdoing and claims the trial is politically motivated.
The announcement that the jury had reached a verdict came toward the end of the jury’s second day of deliberations. At 4:30 p.m. local time, when the judge was ready to send the twelve people on the jury home for the day, it announced that only another 30 minutes would be required for a form to be filled out.
Trump has been indicted on 34 counts of accounting violations in New York. The former US president is accused of ordering payments to people who threatened to leak sensitive information about him during the 2016 presidential campaign.
More than 20 people have testified in the trial.