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Recap / Law & Order: Criminal Intent S2E3 "Anti Thesis"

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This episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent begins with a retirement party for a Hudson University department chair, Professor Winthrop. Winthrop disparages a fellow professor, Sanders, for being a media hound and even turning his subject matter into a rap video. He is then pestered by a graduate student Mark Bayley, who asks for more time to finish his dissertation. Two female professors, Fellows and Hitchens disparage Bayley. Prof. Sanders is pissed and confronts Winthrop in his office. Sanders then talks to Bayley and promises to grant him more time for his thesis - if he is made the new department chair.

Soon after, the department head and his secretary are found dead in his office.

The detectives investigate the scene and determine that the murder weapon is a gavel - implying that the killer thought he was getting justice by murdering Winthrop. They talk to the secretary’s roommate, who reveals that she was starting and stopping a CD on her Diskman. The detectives don’t find the CD, but they do find the words transcribed. The lyrics of the song point to an older African American man, most likely a professor at Hudson U. Which leads them to Sanders.

Sanders states that he was grading papers all night, but the detectives bust that alibi by noticing one paper with an obvious error that the professor should have caught were he actually grading papers. His assistant though, gives him a stronger alibi. The detectives then look into Mark Bayley, the grader of the paper and notice that his shoes are way too nice compared to the rest of his clothes. They find out from the exclusive store that sells those shoes, that a woman named Hitchens bought them from him.

Goren and Hitchens seem to verbally dance around each other. Hitchens is shown comforting Bayley before going to bed with him. The next day, she gets into a car and kisses Prof. Fellows, who now seems to be a lock for the department chairmanship.

Goren and Eames interrogate Bayley. When confronted with the insults that Hitchens uttered about him to Goren, Bayley appears ready to confess and implicate her too. But he goes into shock and dies.

An autopsy and medical records reveal that Bayley was allergic to peanut products. Medical records also show that he was recently rushed to the ER from a Thai restaurant. When the detectives question the hostess at that restaurant, they find out that he was there with an Australian woman who ordered for him in Thai, so he wouldn’t know the dish had peanuts. Upon further inquiry, the hostess reveals that the Australian woman spoke fluent but low class Thai and claimed to have lived in a town that has a large women’s prison. Detectives find out “Hitchens”’ real name - Nicole Wallace, and find out she had been convicted of aiding a Frenchman who murdered eight tourists to rob them.

The detectives trick Prof. Fellows into firing Hitchens/Wallace, then detain and interrogate her. The professor realizes she’s been played by the cops, re-hires “Hitchens” and sends a lawyer to spring her from detention. The police then discover that the real Prof. Hitchens had embezzled money from a foundation in Sydney. This was why Nicole had fled to the US - because financial crimes aren’t covered in the extradition treaty between the US and Australia.

But the cops discover that Hitchens cleared out her apartment and has fled, leaving a weeping Prof. Fellows.

This episode contains examples of the following tropes

• Armor-Piercing Question : Nicole tries to rattle Goren by asking when he realized his mother was abnormal. Goren fires back by asking her whether sexual abuse by her father led her to prey on men.
• Artistic License – Law : Getting terminated while on a work visa doesn’t immediately make your presence in the country illegal. You have a 60 day grace period to find a new job. Also, even a visa overstayer or undocumented migrant has the same legal protections that arrested US citizens have - the right to counsel, right to remain silent, right against detention without charges or a trial.
• Citizenship Marriage : Of sorts. Nicole has shacked up with Prof. Christine Fellows so that the latter will sponsor her work visa and eventually an Employment based Green Card.
• Depraved Bisexual : Nicole is involved in at least 9 murders, and sleeps with men and women.
• Failed a Spot Check : A paper that Prof. Sanders supposedly graded during the time of the murder, attributed a quote to T S Elliot when Sanders himself states later that it was Ezra Pound who stated that quote. This tips the detectives off to the fact that Sanders’ teaching assistant was grading those papers instead of him. Later, they use the same mistake to zero in on Mark Bayley.
• Kill and Replace : While it isn’t confirmed for sure, it is heavily implied that Nicole Wallace killed Dr. Elizabeth Hitchens and assumed her identity.
• Malcolm Xerox : Professor Sanders is a textbook example. He takes umbrage at his unorthodox teaching methods being characterized as a “rap video” and even calls the university a “plantation” and the department chair as a “massa”.
• Manipulative Bitch : Nicole Wallace manipulated Mark Bayley into murdering the head of the department. With him gone and the black professor as the prime suspect, her lover Dr. Fellows has a clear path to take over the department.
• Meaningful Appearance : Mark Bayley’s classy shoes don’t match his otherwise slovenly clothes and appearance. This tips the detectives off that someone else is buying him stuff, presumably female.
• Passed-Over Promotion : Sanders was a shoo-in to succeed Winthrop as department chair. Until Winthrop scuttled Sanders’ candidacy as well as his ability to get hired on at any other prestigious university, by raising a stink about the “rap video”.
• Perfect Poison : Nicole uses Mark Bayley’s peanut oil allergy to kill him - by spiking his nicotine gum. That said, an autopsy immediately identifies peanut oil as the method and Goren zeroes in on Nicole as the culprit.
• Ridiculous Procrastinator : Mark Bayley has been working on his doctoral thesis for ten years. And he is still nowhere close to being done. This is presumed to be the motive for murdering the Department Head - so a different one will give him yet another extension.
• The Sociopath : Nicole. Charming, manipulative and homicidal.
• Spanner in the Works : Nicole had a good thing going, having assumed the identity of Dr. Elizabeth Hitchens from Sydney Australia. Too bad, the real Elizabeth Hitchens had embezzled money and the Sydney police were closing in on her. This forced Nicole to run to the US.
• Secret Relationship : Between Nicole and Prof. Fellows. Also between Nicole and Bayley.
• Weaponized Allergy : "Hitchens" ordered Bayley a dish with peanuts, in order to trigger Bayley's allergy.
• Law And Order Criminal Intent S 1 E 5 Jones
• Recap/Law & Order: Criminal Intent
• Law And Order Criminal Intent S 2 E 7 Tomorrow

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Anti-Thesis

As Goren and Eames sift through the likely suspects in the murder of a university president and his assistant, they discover that the culprit is a wily adversary who has more than these crimes to hide.

Olivia d'Abo

Steve Zirnkilton

Cast appearances.

Vincent D'Onofrio

Kathryn Erbe

Jamey Sheridan

Courtney B. Vance

Episode discussion.

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Law & Order: Criminal Intent/Anti-Thesis

Anti-Thesis is the third episode of the second season of Law & Order: Criminal Intent , and the twenty-fifth episode overall.

Starring : Vincent D'Onofrio ( Detective Robert Goren ), Kathryn Erbe ( Detective Alexandra Eames ), Jamey Sheridan ( Captain James Deakins )

and Courtney B. Vance ( ADA Carver )

Guest Stars : Olivia d'Abo (Elizabeth Hitchens / Nicole Wallace), Linda Emond (Dr. Christine Fellowes), Peter Gerety (George Dawkins), Daniel London (Mark Bayley), Reg E. Cathey (Professor Roland Sanders)

and Philip Bosco (Prof. Winthrop)

with Geoffrey Cantor (Ronald Hardin), Craig Chester (Derek), Doug Barron (Hamilton Frisch), Pascale Armand (Valerie Goodman), Jason Furlani (Detective Ponds), Liana Pai (Janey Lin), Tess Lina (Vana), Shauna Hurley (Kate Robbins), Jane Sweet (Female Student), Khaz B. (Male Student)

Plot Overview

Arc advancement, behind the scenes, allusions and references, memorable moments.

• Episode Stubs
• Law & Order: Criminal Intent/Episodes

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Law & Order: Criminal Intent

Anti-Thesis

Cast & crew.

Reg E. Cathey

Daniel London

Olivia d'Abo

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Peter Gerety

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Law & Order: Criminal Intent – Season 2, Episode 3

Anti-thesis, where to watch, law & order: criminal intent — season 2, episode 3, more like this, cast & crew.

Vincent D'Onofrio

Detective Robert Goren

Kathryn Erbe

Detective Alexandra Eames

Courtney B. Vance

Jamey Sheridan

Reg E. Cathey

Daniel London

Episode Info

• Assault Victims
• Characters Based on Real People
• Con Artists
• Conspirators
• Facilitators
• Foreign Nationals
• LGBTQIA Characters
• Murder Victims
• Proxy Murderers
• Rape Victims
• Repeat offenders
• Serial Killers

Nicole Wallace

• View history

A brilliant, calculating sociopath, Nicole was the only person who was ever able to get the better of Goren and took particular delight in confronting him about his unhappy childhood and career hurdles, which he always retorted by regularly regarding her own traumatic past and failures at a safe, normal life.

• 1 Background
• 3 Accomplices
• 4 Associates
• 5 Known Victims
• 7 Appearances

Very little is known about Nicole's past, although it was apparently so painful that she went to great lengths to keep anyone from learning about it. As best as can be determined, she was born somewhere in Queensland, Australia . Detective Goren once speculated that she was molested by her father from the age of three. Nicole has vehemently denied this is true, but once said in private to Gwen Chapel that "sometimes daddies love too much".

Nicole later surfaced in Thailand , where she met a charismatic sociopath named Bernard Fremont . Fremont saw great potential in her and trained her as his apprentice-in-crime. Together, they robbed and murdered eight tourists, for which she was imprisoned for ten years. While in prison, she learned to speak Thai, though only low-class, likely picking up the language from her fellow prisoners. After she served her time, she moved back to Australia to start a new life. In 1995, she was living in Bendigo and was vaccinated for anthrax there. One year later, she met a man named Daniel Croydon , who was studying anthrax in Bendigo.

As an adult, she married Rohan Bartlett, and the two had a daughter named Hannah together in 1997. Things were apparently normal up until her daughter Hannah turned three. After that point, Nicole began to fear that her daughter Hannah would become a rival for Rohan's affections; Goren later speculates that she had internalized her father's excuse that young girls are too attractive for men to resist. On September 12, 2000, while visiting Stradbroke Island at the beach with her daughter, she broke the girl's neck and arm, killing her, leaving her feeling remorse with what she had done. The child's father reported the crime to the Queensland Police at 2:30pm. Then, she later came up with the cover story that her daughter drowned in the waters off Stradbroke Island. She was never conclusively connected to the crime, but a year later, she left the country under the name of Elizabeth Hitchens after her daughter Hannah's body was discovered. Police in Brisbane would later find the body of an unidentified woman, suspected to be the real Hitchens.

Nicole first became known to Goren and Eames while using her Hitchens identity. Under this alias, she was employed as a visiting professor at Hudson University . While there, she became romantically involved with Professor Christine Fellowes , who was in line to become the head of the American Studies department. Wallace arranged for the dean's murder, knowing he was deciding on that position. Nicole hoped that Fellowes would get the position because of the suspicion cast on another candidate through the killer, Mark Bayley . To cover her tracks, she poisons Bayley after talking with Goren. However, her scheme is eventually discovered, and her fake identity's embezzlement is exposed, which gives her motive for the murders. As a murder suspect, Nicole could be deported back to Australia because she lacks American citizenship. When Eames and Goren arrived to arrest her, she had already fled. ( CI : " Anti-Thesis ")

She eventually meets a man named Gavin Haynes while on the run, seducing and marrying him. Nicole is thus safe from extradition since she becomes an American citizen upon her marriage. She decides to get revenge on Goren for exposing her scheme. To this end, she seduces and sleeps with Doctors Roger Stern and Scott Borman , also stealing two grams of anthrax from Davis' personal collection. She then met a woman named Connie Matson at a bar near a U.S. Air Force base and slept with her to gain her trust. Nicole then persuaded Connie to get some anthrax vaccine boosters so she could buy them from her. ( CI : " Zoonotic ")

When Connie managed to get the vaccines, Nicole killed her by hitting her over the head with a dumbbell, stole the vaccines, and framed Dan Croydon, a deadbeat dad whom Nicole knew would remind Goren of his own father. When Goren relentlessly pursued Croydon, she invited herself into Croydon's apartment, had sex with him, and enticed him to write a note expressing his anger at Goren. When he was finished, she killed him and made it look like a suicide. She then left the vaccines and vial of anthrax on a train to Montreal to prove Croydon's innocence and ruin Goren's reputation. Nicole later met Goren in a diner and taunted him. She also introduced him to Gavin. Goren had her arrested on suspicion of stealing the anthrax and tricked her into revealing her true identity. She is then arrested for murder. ( CI : " A Person of Interest ")

Nevertheless, Haynes stood by Nicole and even used his money to finance her successful defense to the murder charge. ( CI : " Pas de Deux ")

The marriage ended after Nicole said that she was unable to bear children and "didn't see the point" of seeing a doctor about it. Sometime after, Nicole took a new lover, Ella Miyazaki , and began training her to be her accomplice, just as Fremont had trained her. Upon learning that Haynes had revealed her infertility to Goren and Eames, she sent Ella to kill her ex-husband by trapping him in an elevator and stealing his asthma inhaler so he would have an attack and suffocate. However, this attempt was averted by Goren. Eventually, the murder of her own daughter Hannah was revealed, which persuaded Ella to turn on Nicole. When Nicole figured it out, Nicole killed her and she faked her own death. ( CI : " Great Barrier ")

Nicole re-emerged a year later, now working as a librarian and engaged to Dr. Evan Chapel ; however, it is strongly implied that she murdered Evan's brother Larry and made it look like an accidental drug overdose. Goren believed that Nicole was planning to kill Evan's daughter Gwen in order to collect on the girl's trust fund. During the investigation, Goren learned that Evan was, in fact, trying to kill Gwen, and Nicole was trying to protect the girl, whom she had grown to love Goren confronted Wallace and told her that she would always pose a threat to anyone who got close to her, and implored her to help him protect Gwen. Nicole gave Goren evidence implicating Chapel in the murder of his wife and the assault of his daughter but insisted that she could be a good mother to Gwen. She then kidnapped the girl, but, in a rare moment of conscience, left her with her aunt in Arizona. She then left a voicemail for Goren admitting that he was right and cursing him for taking away her last chance at happiness. ( CI : " Grow ")

In 2005, Bernard Fremont was arrested for the murder of Russ Corbett. As he was leaving the courthouse after his arraignment, an unidentified woman stabbed him with a syringe, killing him instantly. Though he would never be able to prove it, Goren believed Nicole to be the assailant. ( CI : " Slither ")

In 2008, she was murdered herself by Dr. Declan Gage , who cut her heart out after manipulating her to murder Frank Goren , Robert's brother. According to Gage, her last words were "Tell Bobby he was the only man I ever loved." While it's never revealed who Bobby was, it's possible she means Goren since his first name is Robert ( CI : " Frame ").

Goren thought about his initial encounter with Nicole during a therapy session with psychologist Paula Gyson . ( CI : " Boots on the Ground ")

Accomplices

• Bernard Fremont
• Mark Bayley
• Ella Miyazaki
• Declan Gage
• Victim: Officer William Davis
• Victim: Monica Chapel
• Attempted Victim: Gwen Chapel

Known Victims

• Unknown dates from 1985 to 1987, Thailand: Eight unnamed men (all seduced by Nicole and killed by Fremont)
• September 12, 2000: Hannah June Bartlett (twisted her arm until it fractured and broke her neck)
• Unknown date in 2001: Elizabeth Hitchens (murdered)
• Franklin Winthrop (bludgeoned with a gavel by Bayley at Nicole's direction)
• Kate Robbins (bludgeoned with a gavel by Bayley at Nicole's direction)
• October 2: Mark Bayley (poisoned with peanut oil in his nicotine gum)
• April 17: Connie Matson (bludgeoned over the head with a dumbbell)
• April 23: Daniel Croydon (strangled and staged his death to look like a suicide)
• May 18: Zach Thaler (injected with a fatal dose of succinylcholine)
• Gavin Haynes (assaulted; Ella attempted to suffocate him in an elevator)
• Ella Miyazaki (crushed her trachea)
• August 2005: Larry Chapel (injected with a fatal dose of potassium chloride under his tongue)
• December 2006: Bernard Fremont (poisoned)
• Frank Goren (injected with a fatal dose of succinylcholine at Gage's direction)
• Robert Goren (stalked and harassed with Gage's conspiracy)
• Her fingerprints are later matched to a murderer named Madeleine Haynes on the French crime series Jo and according to actress Olivia d'Abo and the series creator René Balcer , Madeline is Nicole Wallace with a new alias. Peculiarly, her DNA wasn't a match, meaning she likely used forensic trickery to escape and assume a new identity.
• Viewers were polled to see whether Nicole would die on Great Barrier . East Coast viewers saw Nicole live; the West Coast viewers saw her die.

Appearances

• Season 2 : " Anti-Thesis " • " A Person of Interest "
• Season 4 : " Great Barrier "
• Season 5 : " Grow "
• Season 7 : " Frame "
• Season 10 : " Boots on the Ground " (archive footage)
• 1 Olivia Benson
• 2 Amanda Rollins
• 3 Law & Order: Special Victims Unit

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Trump’s hush money trial strategy: Deny, delay and denigrate

The former president’s lawyers have focused on delaying all four criminal cases. New York is different in one key respect.

The opening of Donald Trump’s first criminal trial on Monday will put to the test a defense strategy his lawyers have been honing for a year — a confrontational gambit that has angered the judge and could cost the presidential candidate dearly when it comes to a verdict.

Fight for every scrap of evidence. Push for every possible delay. The approach has succeeded so far in Trump’s three other pending criminal cases , potentially pushing all of them into or past November’s presidential election. Surprisingly it is in Manhattan, at a courthouse notorious for lengthy delays before many criminal trials, that the former president and presumptive Republican nominee will face his first judgment day.

Trump’s defense strategy in New York is unique from the other three cases in one respect — he aims to deny involvement in the key conversations about hush money payments made through his former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, according to people familiar with his plan, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

Prosecutors who have charged him with falsifying business records say the details of those conversations will help prove that Trump illegally categorized his reimbursement of Cohen as a legal fee, rather than a campaign expense. The purpose of the payments, prosecutors say, was to conceal from voters in 2016 any allegations of an extramarital tryst with Stormy Daniels, an adult-film star.

Trump guilty verdict

In Florida, where Trump is charged with mishandling classified documents — and in D.C. and Georgia , where he is charged with obstructing election results — his lawyers have argued in essence that Trump engaged in the conduct at issue but that the conduct did not amount to crimes. He has pleaded not guilty in all four cases.

Denial is only one part of Trump’s New York strategy ; delay is another. Three times last week his lawyers raced to an appeals court seeking to stall the looming trial; three times their appeals were rejected .

“He believes, as a matter of policy, all the cases should be after the election,” said David Schoen, a former Trump lawyer.

Many people facing trial do everything they can to slow the process down, knowing that witnesses’ memories can fade, prosecutors can change jobs or public interest can evaporate. What Trump brings to such delay efforts is a megaphone and a novel argument — the unprecedented nature of putting a former president and current candidate on trial, and the still-murky possibility of get-out-of-jail free cards should he be reelected.

“Virtually all criminal defendants out on bail seek to delay their trial forever, and judges and prosecutors know that defendants for the most part have to be dragged kicking and screaming to trial,” said Ron Kuby, a veteran defense lawyer in New York.

Subscribe to The Trump Trials, our weekly email newsletter on Donald Trump's four criminal cases

The most surprising thing about Trump’s delay tactics, Kuby said, is that they haven’t worked well in New York compared with those of so many other defendants.

Trump is also trying to denigrate his accusers — including New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan , District Attorney Alvin Bragg , and key witnesses such as Cohen and Daniels.

Again, Trump stands out from other criminal defendants — even famous ones — in that his incessant trashing of the justice system and the people involved in charging him appear to have boosted his standing in polls and rallied his Republican base.

“Attacking the system, the fairness of it, the motives of the people prosecuting you, that is not new,” Kuby said. “But never before in history has somebody been as successful at it as Donald Trump, in terms of massive agreement with his message. I’ve never seen that before in any case with any defendant.”

Merchan has grown increasingly frustrated with Trump’s bids for delays, voicing particular displeasure with Trump’s lead lawyer, Todd Blanche.

When Blanche was hired a year ago, he told other lawyers on the defense team that the immediate goal was to slow all the criminal cases down, according to people familiar with his edict, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.

The lawyers intensified their efforts to draft numerous pretrial motions in every case, poring over each indictment for anything that would drag the process out with responses, hearings, rulings and appeals.

In many court proceedings, opposing lawyers stipulate to basic facts to avoid wasting time on minor details that aren’t really disputed. On Trump’s legal team, a decision was made to stipulate to nothing — and fight over everything, according to the people familiar with the discussions.

One of Blanche’s partners, Emil Bove, took a particular interest in the classified documents case, where Trump’s team has been pleased by Judge Aileen M. Cannon’s pace in making rulings — even when they were not favorable to Trump. The case has been delayed indefinitely while the judge considers motions involving the handling of classified evidence and multiple defense claims that Trump should not have been charged. The legal team plans to wage a battle over every single classified document, people with knowledge of the strategy say.

On Saturday, Trump’s lawyers filed papers asking Cannon to push back a May 9 deadline she recently set for new submissions in the case — arguing that they would need at least a week to prepare inside a highly secure classified evidence room, at a time when they have to be on trial in New York. The filing seeks to push back the deadline until three weeks after the New York trial ends.

Special counsel Jack Smith’s legal team quickly objected to any delay, writing: “Each time the Court sets a new deadline in this case and attempts to keep it moving toward trial, the defendants reflexively ask for an adjournment. That must stop.”

The Georgia case also has been slowed by a host of motions to dismiss and was temporarily derailed by allegations of misconduct by the Fulton County district attorney. Trump’s federal election obstruction case in D.C. is on hold, meanwhile, while the Supreme Court weighs his claim of immunity.

When the Trump defense team strategized over the 2024 court calendar , they were least concerned about the New York case, the people familiar with the conversations said. But they won a temporary reprieve there also, thanks to a different part of their legal strategy: making far-reaching demands for access to potential evidence held by the government.

Originally scheduled to begin in March, the trial was pushed back to mid-April after federal prosecutors — who had previously charged Cohen and examined the Daniels payment — suddenly turned over more than 100,000 pages of material.

Trump’s team had subpoenaed the documentation from federal prosecutors, asking for far more than the local district attorney had originally sought.

Once those stacks of documents were provided, the defense argued that local prosecutors had not lived up to their obligations.

Trump’s lawyers demanded — and were granted — a trial delay to review the material. His lawyers have made similarly far-reaching demands for potential evidence in the other cases, and it remains to be seen whether those efforts will be fruitful for his defense team.

In New York, the strategy came with a cost: Merchan lost patience with Blanche’s accusations of prosecutorial wrongdoing. He demanded to know why the lawyer, himself a former federal prosecutor, had not subpoenaed the material months earlier.

The judge chastised Blanche for what he called “a pattern where I read certain information, I hear certain information and then I hear your interpretation of that, and it’s really different from my interpretation. And this has been frankly going on for months.”

Barring another last-ditch attempt to delay, Trump will walk into Manhattan criminal court on Monday, and lawyers will begin picking a jury.

The defendant’s immense public profile and his sharply polarizing nature will make that process difficult, said Jeffrey Bellin, a law professor at William & Mary and former federal prosecutor in D.C. — not because jurors shouldn’t know who Trump is or have an opinion of him, but because jurors should not let those opinions influence their decision-making.

“I can’t think of a similar American trial in recent times with as difficult of jury selection as this is going to be,” Bellin said. “There are other trials with famous defendants, say, the Bill Cosby trial or cases like that. But there are people who don’t have any strong feelings about Bill Cosby … they’re not going to feel strongly that he’s innocent or guilty, in the way that a lot of people not only know who Donald Trump is but have strong feelings about what should happen in these cases.”

In the city that made Trump famous, but where he is now deeply unpopular, his legal team is aiming as much for a mistrial as anything else, according to people familiar with the defense strategy. Criminal defense lawyers like to say that prosecutors need to convince 12 people in the jury box, but defendants only need to convince one, and that may be especially true in the Trump case.

Trump’s ongoing commentary on the case might be aimed at shaping public perceptions, including for prospective jurors, Bellin said. It carries risks, however. Defendants don’t typically lash out at judges, which can come back to bite them during sentencing. Denigrating the case and those involved in it could also frustrate the jury.

In a civil trial earlier this year in Manhattan, Trump’s demeanor and behavior did not seem to go over well with the jury, which ordered him to pay $83 million to the writer E. Jean Carroll after she accused him of sexually assaulting her and sued him for defamation.

As he sat in the courtroom, Trump occasionally grumbled, complained and fumed — so much so that the judge threatened to throw Trump out for defying his orders to keep quiet while Carroll testified.

Trump is already starting the hush money trial on thin ice with Merchan, who has imposed a gag order prohibiting Trump from criticizing witnesses, court staff members and certain others. Nevertheless, the former president is expected to speak often outside court, as he did during a separate civil business fraud trial brought by Attorney General Letitia James (D).

In that case, James won a judgment of nearly half a billion dollars against him.

Trump New York hush money case

Donald Trump is the first former president convicted of a crime .

Can Trump still run for president? Yes. He is eligible to campaign and serve as president if elected, but he won’t be able to pardon himself . Here’s everything to know about next steps , what this means for his candidacy and the other outstanding trials he faces .

What happens next? Trump’s sentencing is scheduled for July 11. He faces up to four years in prison, but legal experts say incarceration appears unlikely. Trump has 30 days to file notice of an appeal of the verdict and six months to file the full appeal.

Reaction to the verdict: Trump continued to maintain his innocence , railing against what he called a “rigged, disgraceful trial” and emphasizing voters would deliver the real verdict on Election Day.

The charges: Trump was found guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records . Falsifying business records is a felony in New York when there is an “intent to defraud” that includes an intent to “commit another crime or to aid or conceal” another crime.

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White House

Biden has stayed silent on Trump’s trial. The verdict will change that.

Biden will speak at some point after the verdict, whether it be a conviction, acquittal or hung jury.

President Joe Biden intends to initially address the verdict in a White House setting — not a campaign one — to show his statement isn’t political, according to the people, who were granted anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. | Alex Brandon/AP

By Jonathan Lemire

05/24/2024 05:25 PM EDT

Joe Biden plans to break his vow of silence and publicly address the criminal trials Donald Trump is facing when a verdict is reached, four people familiar with internal deliberations told POLITICO.

Biden intends to initially address the verdict in a White House setting — not a campaign one — to show his statement isn’t political, according to the people, who were granted anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

If the jury convicts Trump, Biden’s team will then argue that the result shows Trump is ill-suited for office and that it demonstrates the extremes to which the former president would go to win again. The campaign’s social media team is considering leveraging the line of attack further, with discussions underway about referring to the ex-president online as “Convicted Felon Donald Trump.”

His team is also preparing for a barrage of Republican and Trump attacks if the former president’s acquitted or if there’s a hung jury.

Closing arguments are set for Tuesday and the jury could reach its decision as early as next week. And Biden will speak at some point after that — a definitive decision on timing and setting has not yet been made — no matter the outcome, whether it be a conviction, acquittal or hung jury. The message will be different for specific rulings, but the fundamental point will remain the same: That America’s legal system worked and that the process should be respected.

“This is an important moment and the president first and foremost needs to stress that the American system works, even and especially in an election year,” said one of the four people granted anonymity to discuss those deliberations. “And in a measured way, it becomes part of his argument against Trump too: Do Americans really want this?”

The Biden team’s plans are still being deliberated and could change, the people familiar said. The White House and Biden campaign declined comment.

The first criminal prosecution of a former president has presented delicate politics for the president, especially as his son Hunter faces separate trials over the summer and fall on gun and tax charges. Biden has stayed away from Trump’s trial to avoid perceptions of interference, even as some fellow Democrats have encouraged him to more aggressively spotlight the charges against Trump: that he made a hush money payment to cover up an affair with a porn star in violation of campaign finance laws.

And even though the president will likely discuss a guilty verdict at times on the campaign trail, his team doesn’t view even a conviction as likely to meaningfully change the trajectory of the campaign. Aides do not believe the trial has resonated widely with voters outside the Acela corridor.

But it could make a difference along the margins, and that may matter in a race expected to be extremely close.

“I don’t think [Biden] needs to run to the briefing room to talk about this,” said Jennifer Palmieri, former communications director for President Barack Obama. “But, at some point, he should address the conviction saying that a jury of Donald Trump’s peers have convicted him of a crime and it would do extraordinary damage to the standing of the United States and to the credibility of our democratic system for someone Americans found guilty of a crime to then be elected president.”

The Biden team has long believed that too many Democratic voters have put their faith in a conviction to cripple Trump’s changes and note that a guilty verdict does not inherently prevent the Republican from being elected. The campaign believes that the first presidential debate next month is a far more important moment to jostle the race, and that issues like abortion, inflation and a pair of foreign wars have far more resonance with voters.

Out of more than 100 fundraising emails sent by Biden’s campaign since the New York proceedings kicked off in mid-April, only two mentioned the word “trial” — both messages that noted how good the trial had been for Trump’s fundraising and asked Democratic donors for money to help Biden keep up.

Should Trump avoid conviction, the president’s aides are bracing for the former president to issue a barrage of claims about how he bested an investigation that he has claimed was orchestrated by Biden against him. That outcome could further fire up Trump’s existing supporters.

But just as Biden is poised to break his near-silence on Trump’s trial, many in Democratic politics are urging caution.

“I don’t think it’s important to rub it in,” said Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.). “I don’t think anybody on our side should be reacting with glee. It just should be a tragedy that an American president has been convicted of real crimes.”

Interviews with a dozen of Biden’s allies on the Hill and prominent Democratic strategists unaffiliated with but supportive of his campaign say the president and other Democrats should stay mum if Trump is found guilty — in large part because they believe such a verdict will do the work for him.

Trump’s myriad crimes and ongoing legal troubles are well-known to voters, they argue — and Biden and his surrogates don’t need to remind them. The criminal conviction of a former president looking to return to power is a somber moment that shouldn’t be nakedly wielded for political gain. Does Biden really want to be talking about a porn star or give fodder to Republican claims that he’s weaponizing the government against a political opponent? And, some strategists say, speaking out on Trump’s trial also carries the risk of drawing attention to the legal morass surrounding Hunter Biden.

“If he’s convicted, he will be called by everyone in Democratic politics ‘convicted felon Donald Trump,’” said Matt Bennett, executive vice president for public affairs at the center-left think tank Third Way.

Biden doesn’t “need to engage with it, because everyone else will,” Bennett said. “He is the only person who could in some ways lessen the political impact of this by getting involved, because Trump could then make the case that the verdict is political.”

Not all Democrats are in agreement with a hands-off strategy. After four years with Trump out of the White House, some Biden supporters worry that swing voters need to be reacquainted with the drama that engulfs the country when Trump is in power.

“At some point, people have to get real and say, ‘You really want this man in the Oval Office? Do you really want him representing the people of this country?,’” said Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.).

Biden himself gave the directive a year ago that the entities that the White House controls, which includes the reelection campaign and the Democratic National Committee, were not to publicly discuss any of the criminal investigations into Trump, keeping a clear line between the West Wing and the Department of Justice.

And beyond a few jokes, the Biden team has largely stuck to that edict. Aides said that Biden would continue to remain silent about the three ongoing investigations into Trump — over his handling of classified documents, as well as election interference cases on the federal level and one in Georgia — and those trials will likely not begin before voters cast their ballots.

Additional reporting contributed by Ally Mutnick, Lisa Kashinsky, Brakkton Booker and Jessica Piper.

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Episode list

Law & order: criminal intent.

S9.E1 ∙ Loyalty: Part 1

S9.E2 ∙ Loyalty: Part 2

S9.E3 ∙ Broad Channel

S9.E4 ∙ Delicate

S9.E5 ∙ Gods & Insects

S9.E6 ∙ Abel & Willing

S9.E7 ∙ Love Sick

S9.E8 ∙ Love on Ice

S9.E9 ∙ Traffic

S9.E10 ∙ Disciple

S9.E11 ∙ Lost Children of the Blood

S9.E12 ∙ True Legacy

S9.E13 ∙ The Mobster Will See You Now

S9.E14 ∙ Palimpsest

S9.E15 ∙ Inhumane Society

S9.E16 ∙ Three-in-One

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