- A Manhattan jury found the Trump Organization guilty of all counts related to its executives' tax fraud.
- Donald Trump's real-estate company now faces up to $1.6 million in penalties and felony status.
The Trump Organization was found criminally liable for its executives' tax fraud on Tuesday, making Donald Trump the first former president whose business has felony status.
A Manhattan jury found the Trump Organization guilty on a total of 17 counts, including scheme to defraud, conspiracy, criminal tax fraud, and falsifying business records, related to the admitted tax frauds of its two top financial executives, ex-CFO Allen Weisselberg and top payroll executive Jeffrey McConney. Trump himself was not on trial.
Tuesday's conviction adds to mounting legal scrutiny on the former president, who is still tasked with defending his business from a lawsuit that New York Attorney General Letitia James filed.
Trump has also been under fire for hosting white supremacist Nick Fuentes and rapper Kanye West at the very place he faces a criminal inquiry into sensitive documents found at his South Florida residence: Mar-a-Lago.
The Florida resort also happened to be the place where Trump announced his third run for the White House as the House committee investigating the Capitol insurrection — prompted by ardent supporters of Trump's last presidential run — weigh criminal charges against the former president.
Trump 'seems to have this Teflon coating where no matter what he does, everything just sort of slides off or bounces off and he comes out on top,' experts say
Trish Crouse, a practitioner in residence of political science at the University of New Haven, told Insider that the former president does seem to be losing "some of his shine" with the Republican party — evidenced by the absence of the "red wave" at the 2022 midterms.
"But at some point, the Republican party has to decide how much they're willing to overlook before they just cut him loose," Crouse said.
In terms of the Trump Organization conviction, Crouse said she doesn't believe it will significantly affect Trump because he wasn't a nominal defendant in the case, but on top of his other legal issues as well as controversial remarks, "this may could be the last straw for some of the people in the Republican party."
While the conviction may not impact Trump in the grand scheme of things, Kevin O'Brien, a former assistant US attorney at the Justice Department, said he also believes that it's a start.
"You can argue that it kind of broke the dam and now the flood waters will come," O'Brien, who now works as a a partner at Ford O'Brien Landy LLP, told Insider. "That's not really a logical analysis, that's more a poetic analysis, but I think it does have symbolic significance in that sense."
"Even though [Trump] wasn't a defendant, it's at his feet, and it can be portrayed that way by his enemies both inside the Republican party and outside the Republican party," O'Brien added. "And I think that's going to weaken his candidacy" in 2024, especially as his hold on the GOP is challenged by a potential presidential hopeful: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has yet to officially announce a campaign but has been been favored in conservative political circles.
But Crouse said the question remains: "Is this just another blip on the radar" for Trump?
"He's been impeached twice. Most people find him, at least partially, at fault for the insurrection," Crouse said. "At what point do we say enough is enough, that do you really want someone like that holding the highest office in the land?"
"I'm sort of flabbergasted that any Republican at this point would still be behind him," she continued. "But you know, there's people that are so strongly into that sort of MAGA movement that nothing he does is going to turn them away."