Crowds gathered outside Trump Tower for the former president’s planned postconviction remarks on Friday, 31 May, following the jury’s unanimous guilty verdict in his hush money trial. Mr Trump scheduled a post-trial news conference in the same lobby where he descended a golden escalator to announce his 2016 presidential campaign almost nine years ago. He was convicted of falsifying business records to cover up a $130,000 payment made to the porn star Stormy Daniels on his behalf in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election in order to buy her silence over a sexual encounter she claims they had a decade earlier, which Mr Trump denies.