His conviction for 34 charges, including accounting falsification, was not enough to weaken him. Thursday, May 30, a few minutes after the announcement of the New York jury’s verdict, former President Donald Trump managed to raise $34.8 million in funds for his campaign, almost double his record in a single day, according to his campaign team. The figure climbed to $52.8 million in the evening, 30% of these donations having been made by new donors, particularly from the business world.
It must be said that the promises of the very likely Republican candidate for the next American presidential election, with a reduction in taxes for the richest, have enough to convince the country’s great tycoons. Without waiting for the jury’s decision, Stephen Schwarzman, the co-founder of Blackstone Inc and one of the 40 richest people in the world, announced that he was once again supporting Donald Trump.
“This verdict will have less than zero impact on my support,” assured Omeed Malik, president of the management company 1789 Capital and co-responsible for fundraising for the former American president. According to him, this trial illustrates a “militarization of the legal system”, ready to do anything to discredit Donald Trump.
“A rigged trial”
The expression resonates with the former president’s campaign advisers who, since the start of the affair, have cried conspiracy. “Joe the crook and the Democrats, with their witch hunt, have awakened the MAGA movement (“Make America Great Again”, Donald Trump’s slogan) like never before,” they declared in particular. Trump also refers to “a scam, a rigged trial”, and announced that he would “appeal this scam”. While Judge Juan Merchan has set his sentencing date for July 11, Trump and his team are convinced: the “real verdict” will come on election day, November 5, when he faces the President Joe Biden in a rematch of their 2020 election.
This speech, however, struggles to conceal the financial difficulties of the former president: the day after his conviction, the shares of Trump Media & Technology Group, the group which owns Donald Trump’s social network, Truth Social, plunged by 5.29 % in stock exchange.
In March, Trump’s lawyers also claimed that he was unable to advance the sum of 454 million dollars (418.5 million euros) as a guarantee to pay the civil fine received in February for financial fraud within his real estate empire. A worrying observation for his team, especially since Trump could face three other trials between now and the election, notably for “conspiracy against America” for his attempts to reverse the result of the 2020 presidential election .