The tawdriness of it all — a presidential candidate paying off a porn star — was off-putting. But the Trump verdict is instructive.

Not that the guilty verdict means Trump is guilty of a crime. Not all appalling behaviour is criminal. The guilty verdict is not surprising because so fearsome is the power of America’s prosecutorial state that police and prosecutors can usually convict anyone of anything if they are so determined. I wrote about how a Republican justice department did that to the longest-serving Republican senator, <a data-evt-val="{&quot;control_fields&quot;: {&quot;mparticle&quot;: {&quot;keys&quot;: {&quot;click_source_type&quot;: &quot;click_source_type&quot;, &quot;anchor_text&quot;: &quot;anchor_text&quot;, &quot;target_url&quot;: &quot;target_url&quot;, &quot;layout_section&quot;: &quot;layout_section&quot;}, &quot;mp_event_type&quot;: &quot;Navigation&quot;, &quot;extra_keys&quot;: [&quot;click_vertical_position_percentage&quot;, &quot;click_vertical_position_pixels&quot;]}}, &quot;click_source_type&quot;: &quot;in-page link&quot;, &quot;anchor_text&quot;: &quot;Ted Stevens&quot;, &quot;target_url&quot;: &quot;https://nationalpost.com/opinion/think-trump-is-being-railroaded-its-happened-to-others-in-the-u-s&quot;, &quot;layout_section&quot;: &quot;in-page-link&quot;}" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-evt="click" data-evt-typ="click" href="https://nationalpost.com/opinion/think-trump-is-being-railroaded-its-happened-to-others-in-the-u-s" target="_blank">Ted Stevens</a>, when Trump was indicted last year.

U.S. prosecutors can usually convict anyone of anything if they are so determined{ai:summary}<p>Politics #politics</p>

Raymond J. de Souza: What the Trump verdict says about the sorry state of American justice

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