Historians in the future may well set down the conviction of President Trump in the Stormy Daniels case as an abuse of the justice system by the Democrats for political gain and a long-term stain on American justice. Yet we are not so cynical as to suggest that his conviction on all 34 counts amounts to nothing. It is, on the contrary, no small thing that a jury of New Yorkers concluded beyond a reasonable doubt that the 45th president is a felon.

It has been widely bruited during the course of this trial that a conviction in the case could actually work to President Trump’s advantage. It’s a line of speculation with which we did not truck. We have, though, shared the widely held view that the case has been political from the get go — particularly in the hands of the current district attorney, Alvin Bragg, who’d campaigned for office on the boast that he would go after President Trump.

To us, in any event, the case has been a classic example of the abuse of the prosecutorial power that FDR’s attorney general, Robert Jackson, famously warned of — the practice of finding the man the prosecutor wants to get and then finding crimes with which to get him. In this case, the statute of limitations had already passed on the misdemeanor counts. So a duck-billed-platypus of a law had to be brought in to turn the misdemeanors against him into felonies.

The alchemy required to generate this verdict would make Merlin blush. Misdemeanors were elevated into a felony by a second crime that did not need to be particularized, accomplished by means that the jury was not required to agree on. Judge Juan Merchan’s jury instructions said as much. He told the 12 who voted to convict on all counts that they “need not be unanimous” as to what unlawful means Trump deployed when he engaged in an election conspiracy. 

Expect all that — and other issues — to be raised on appeal. The convictions brought in today, after all, are but the end of the first act of what is likely to be a years-long drama. It’s a twist delivered in the same jurisdiction in which Harvy Weinstein was convicted only to see the verdict against him thrown out four years later by an appeals court that decried the tactics used by prosecutors and permitted by the judge.

Could that be a prelude to the second act in the Trump drama? Already, his attorneys are arguing that Michael Cohen’s testimony was improperly admitted. There was also the airing of the salacious details divulged by the adult film star Stormy Daniels. They could be found to be prejudicial and irrelevant. Trump enjoyed some moderate success on appeal in respect of his civil fraud case. Reversing this verdict, though, will be an uphill climb.    

Judge Merchan’s decision to sentence Trump on July 11, just four days before the start of the Republican National Convention, underscores the political gravity of the verdict today, and its political potency. It will present Trump’s party with a dilemma that has been brewing for months amid the array of state and federal indictments filed against him. There are also three criminal cases yet to be tried, each of which could come to a similar conclusion. 

Will the party quail at the prospect of nominating a convicted felon, 34 times over, as its standard-bearer in November? Polls have suggested that swing state voters who are inclined to support Trump would reconsider that backing in the aftermath of a conviction. Polling found this drop in support was especially pronounced among independent voters whom Trump would need to reclaim the White House in November.

Then again, too, the moment is not without risk for the Democrats — a point well-marked this week by an important editorial in the Wall Street Journal, which has, on the one hand, been critical of the 45th president but also has courageously stood for his constitutional due process. It warned against the possibility that President Biden would opine and gloat at a guilty verdict. What did President Obama say about Mr. Biden’s penchant for blundering?

No doubt the pollsters will be busy in the days to come probing such questions. Trump is already denouncing the verdict as unjust and seeking to blunt its impact. In the end, might the voters turn against the use of “lawfare” by the Democrats, including Mr. Biden and his special prosecutor, Jack Smith, against the GOP front-runner? In that event the prosecution of Trump could turn out to be, whatever else it is, political malpractice.