essay on power corrupt

Why Power Corrupts

New research digs deeper into the social science behind why power brings out the best in some people and the worst in others

Christopher Shea

“Power tends to corrupt,” said Lord Acton, the 19th-century British historian. “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” His maxim has been vividly illustrated in psychological studies, notably the 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment, which was halted when one group of students arbitrarily assigned to serve as “prison guards” over another group began to abuse their wards.

But new scholarship is bringing fresh subtlety to psychologists’ understanding of when power leads people to take ethical shortcuts—and when it doesn’t. Indeed, for some people, power seems to bring out their best. After all, good people do win elective office, says Katherine A. DeCelles, a professor of management at the University of Toronto, and no few business executives want to do good while doing well. “When you give good people power,” DeCelles says she wondered, are they more able than others “to enact that moral identity, to do what’s right?”

In a study recently published in the Journal of Applied Psychology , DeCelles and her co-authors found that the answer is yes. People’s sense of “moral identity”—the degree to which they thought it was important to their sense of self to be “caring,” “compassionate,” “fair,” “generous” and so on—shaped their responses to feelings of power.

DeCelles and her colleagues developed moral identity scores for two groups, 173 working adults and 102 undergraduates, by asking the participants to rate how important those ethically related attributes were to them. The researchers had some participants write an essay recalling an incident in which they felt powerful, while others wrote about an ordinary day. Then the participants took part in lab experiments to probe how they balanced self-interest against the common good.

The undergraduates were told they shared a pool of 500 points with other people, and they could take between zero and ten points for themselves. The more points they took, the better their odds of winning a $100 lottery. But if they took too many—there was no way of knowing what that tipping point was—the pot would empty and the lottery would be called off.

The participants who had just written about an ordinary day each took roughly 6.5 points, regardless of their moral-identity score. But among those who had been primed to think of themselves as powerful, the people with low moral-identity scores grabbed 7.5 points—and those with high moral-identity scores took only about 5.5.

In surveys, the last group showed a greater understanding of how their actions would affect other people, which is the crucial mechanism, DeCelles says. Power led them to take a broader, more communally centered perspective.

The experiment involving the adults found a similar relationship between moral identity, ethical behavior and innate aggressiveness. Assertive people who scored low on the moral-identity scale were more likely to say they’d cheated their employer in the past week than more passive types with similar moral-identity scores. But among those with high moral-identity scores, the assertive people were less likely to have cheated.

In sum, the study found, power doesn’t corrupt; it heightens pre-existing ethical tendencies. Which brings to mind another maxim, from Abraham Lincoln: “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”

Get the latest Science stories in your inbox.

Dacher Keltner Dacher Keltner

Leave your feedback

• Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/the-science-behind-why-power-corrupts-and-what-can-be-done-to-mitigate-it

The science behind why power corrupts and what can be done to mitigate it

Editor’s Note:  For a recent Making Sen$e segment , economics correspondent Paul Solman spoke with Dacher Keltner, a professor of psychology at University of California, Berkeley known for his research on power. His new book is “The Power Paradox: How We Gain and Lose Influence.” In a previous post, Keltner and Paul discussed how people gain power and esteem in the eyes of their peers. Today, Keltner explains the paradox part — why once we gain power, we lose the very skills that got us there and take more than our fair share. You can watch the full report below.

— Kristen Doerer, Making Sen$e Editor

Dacher Keltner: Power, new studies in economics have shown, comes from sharing resources and bringing out the welfare of others. Power comes from a kind of humble language. There are actually new studies showing if you are humble and respectful, people respect you more. So that’s the rise to power. Here’s the problem: When we feel powerful, we have these surges of dopamine going through our brain. We feel like we could accomplish just about anything. That’s where the power paradox begins, which is that very sense of ourselves when feeling powerful leads to our demise, leads to the abuse of power.

Paul Solman: That’s Paul Piff’s experiment that I participated in playing Monopoly . I was simply designated the more powerful person, and I began to behave in relatively anti-social ways.

Dacher Keltner: You’re a special case, Paul…

Paul Solman:   But it was true. He was calling me on it, saying, “Look how you’re talking.” I had a sense of that I was going to win the game and that I was stronger than he, all because I got $200 when I passed “Go” and he got $100. It absolutely affected my mood.

Dacher Keltner: This is what’s striking when you bring people into the lab, and you randomly give them power. You say, “You’re in charge,” or in that case with the monopoly game, “You have more money,” or perhaps you get to evaluate other people and allocate rewards. Just the random assignment of power, and all kinds of mischief ensues, and people will become impulsive. They eat more resources than is their fair share. They take more money. People become more unethical. They think unethical behavior is okay if they engage in it. People are more likely to stereotype. They’re more likely to stop attending to other people carefully. It’s just this paradoxical quality of power, which is the good in human nature gets us power, and then power leads to the bad in human nature.

Paul Solman: So power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely?

READ MORE: Why Those Who Feel They Have Less Give More

Dacher Keltner: Well, I think Lord Acton was on to something which is that there are dozens of studies showing who’s more likely to speak rudely within an organization? High power people or low power people? High power people. Who’s more likely to have sexual affairs? High power people or low power people? High power people. Who’s more likely to take more resources that aren’t theirs? High power people. You go down the list. It kind of looks like an absolute story.

Paul Solman: What kinds of studies show that people with more power take a lion’s share of the resources?

Dacher Keltner: That’s where I really began my studies of power, Paul. People have this deep sense of fairness. They really have a preference if people have roughly the same amount. And if you look out in the world, you can’t help but notice that people with power seem to be enjoying more resources right? Wealthy nations eat more of the world’s protein. A lot of people are really concerned about executive compensation. Why should this person make 10 million bucks a year and I make 12 bucks an hour?

And I was thinking about how we demonstrate this in the lab, and so we did this crazy study that gained a lot of traction and has come to be known as the “Cookie Monster Study.” We bring three people to the lab, and we randomly assign one person to the role of leader. We say you’re in charge, and then over the course of the experiment, these three students have to write policies for the university. They bring together facts, they write policies, they submit them, and we gather these written products. Half-way into the experiment, we bring a plate of five delicious chocolate chip cookies. We put them down and that’s actually where the experiment really begins. So everybody takes a cookie. They eat very happily and are grateful for it. All groups leave one cookie on the plate because they don’t like to take that last cookie, because you don’t want to be the person who takes the last piece of food. So the key question is who takes that fourth cookie, and indeed, it’s our person in the position of power who reaches out and grabs the cookie and says that’s mine.

Paul Solman: Is it every time that it’s the leader?

Dacher Keltner: Most of the time. Two-thirds of the time it’s our person in the position of power who unconsciously feels entitled to take more of the sweets. One of my grad student came to me and said, “You know, I’m convinced that they’re eating differently.” So we spent several months coding the videotapes of people eating, and we found our person in power is more likely to eat with their mouths open, limps smacking, crumbs falling down on their sweaters. And that set in motion this whole exploration. And it’s so fundamental. Humans are this balance of impulse and our ego, our sense of morality and our sense of what other people think of us, and power shifts this balance. Suddenly when I feel powerful, I can eat the cookies however I want to. I can swear at my colleagues. I can touch people in a way that feels good to me, but not necessarily worry about how it feels to them. That really set in motion this idea that power leads people to feel entitled to take more resources.

READ MORE: Why the secret to gaining power is different today

Paul Solman:   Are there other examples?

Dacher Keltner: One really interesting area of research is work in organizations. We know you create a better team if as a leader you speak in a respectful way. You compliment. You bring out the best, you praise people. You ask good questions. And so researchers have been asking who is more likely to swear in a rude fashion at their work colleagues. And three out of the four acts of rudeness come from people in positions of power in organizations in different sectors. If you’re going to be told you’re an idiot, it’s going to probably come from people in positions of power.

Here’s one of my favorites. I could not believe this finding. Investigators were interested in who’s more likely to shoplift. Shoplifting costs America over $10 billion a year. So the question is who is likely to walk into the store and pocket something that they don’t pay for, and indeed, it is high power, wealthier people who are more likely to shoplift. There are famous car studies with Paul Piff that look at who’s more likely to blaze through a pedestrian zone on the road and think that their time is more important than the safety of the pedestrian? It’s people driving more high power, wealthier cars.

Everywhere you turn, you see this finding that power makes us feel entitled to more.

Watch the viral Making Sen$e report on Paul Piff’s famous car study above.

Paul Solman: So what do you do about it?

Dacher Keltner: I think that that’s the great question of societies. Studies are finding — and it’s very intuitive — that if you make people feel accountable, and you say, “Paul, a committee is evaluating how you allocate these resources,” and you’re in a position of power and now allocate the resources, you become more ethical in how you allocate resources.

Paul Solman:   If I think somebody’s watching.

READ MORE: How do humans gain power? By sharing it

Dacher Keltner: Yeah, and the sense of accountability or the sense of being scrutinized is so powerful. All you have to do in studies now is actually place a geometric arrangement of dots, with two dots at the top and the little dot at the bottom, that kind of resembles the human face. If I am have sense of being watched, I become less greedy and less entitled in taking resources in positions of power. Accountability is really important.

Paul Solman: So if you’re the designated leader in some experiment and you’re beginning to lord it over the others, and there’s a picture that has four dots kind of in the array of a face in the room, you’re less likely to do so?

Dacher Keltner: Yes. Let’s say that I’m in an experiment and I have an opportunity to use resources to my benefit to the cost of other people. If I’m simply aware that other people are going to know of my actions, I act in a much more ethical fashion. I avoid the abuses of power. There are studies that show if I have a chance to take resources, and there’s this geometric arrangement of dots that looks like a human face, I take fewer of the resources for myself. I leave more for the public good. It’s very powerful.

There’s a concern right now that the wealthiest in our society are beyond scrutiny. No one even knows who they are, these people making $300 million a year. We don’t know where they live. We don’t know how their wealth generates, and that basic social condition spells trouble, and it spells a greater likelihood for the abuse of power.

As we think about inequality in the United States, one of the really interesting developments is the efforts that have sprung up to scrutinize the people with the most power. The journalist Michael Massing just wrote this nice essay about why there should be journalism about the one percent and what they’re really doing so that we as a country know what they’re doing with the resources and what we can make of it.

Paul Solman: So your belief is that to the extent that there’s journalism about the top 1 percent and how they behave, it will modify their behavior?

Dacher Keltner: Yes. This really interesting new literature shows that when I’m aware of what other people think of me, when I’m aware of my reputation, I cooperate more in economic gains. I am more likely to sign up for environmentally efficient services. I am more likely to pay taxes. Just this sense that my actions are being scrutinized and my reputation is at stake produces better behavior for the public good or the greater good. And I think that one of the ironies is that if we build up more awareness of the most powerful and the sense that their reputations are at stake, they’ll actually engage in more noble actions. They’ll be more giving to society. They’ll feel better about it. There’s a rich literature behind that, and so there are benefits for them as well.

READ MORE: Money can buy happiness, especially when you invest it in others

Dacher Keltner, Ph.D., is the founding director of the Greater Good Science Center and a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of "The Power Paradox: How We Gain and Lose Influence" and "Born to Be Good" and a co-editor of "The Compassionate Instinct."

Support Provided By: Learn more

Educate your inbox

Subscribe to Here’s the Deal, our politics newsletter for analysis you won’t find anywhere else.

Thank you. Please check your inbox to confirm.

Greater Good Science Center • Magazine • In Action • In Education

Does Power Corrupt Everyone Equally?

“Any man can withstand adversity; if you want to test his character, give him power.” — Abraham Lincoln

I recently watched the movie adaptation of the Stanford Prison Experiment . Like most reviewers , I found it harrowing. But as a psychologist, I also found it revealing. With my eyes glued to the screen in rapt attention, heart racing, I became obsessed with understanding what really was going on, and the lessons we can glean from such an experiment gone so horribly wrong.

The standard story, given by the experimenter Phillip Zimbardo , is that the experiment is a lesson about how everyday people (and groups consisting of everyday people), when given too much power, can become sadistic tyrants. In a recent article for The New Yorker , Maria Konnikova casts some doubt on that conclusion, arguing that the real lesson is the power of institutions to shape behavior, and how people are shaped by those preexisting expectations.

While this is certainly a valuable lesson, I believe another crucial variable at play—rarely mentioned by commentators of the prison experiment or even in psychology textbooks—is the person. Yes, power corrupts. But power does not corrupt everyone equally.

There’s no way the small group of participants in the Stanford Prison Experiment represented the full range of human personality variation. For one, these were young males. Already, there is going to be higher levels of testosterone, on average, than most other populations. But there’s also the issue that these participants actively sought out participation in a study having to do with prison. Research published in 2007 found that people who responded to an ad to be part of a study on “prison life” scored higher on tests of aggressiveness, authoritarianism, machiavellianism, narcissism, and social dominance, and lower on measures of empathy and altruism.

But even among the small sample of young male participants in the Stanford Prison Experiment, there was great variability in how people responded to power. Some guards were particularly cruel, whereas others could barely take the cruelty and offered to go on errands, while still others were actively kind to the prisoners, fulfilling their requests. Let’s also not forget the hero of the film, Zimbardo’s graduate student Christina Maslach, who recoiled in horror at the sight of how the participants were treated in the experiment.

I fear it’s all too easy for us to focus our attention on that one loud, brash person who abuses power while ignoring the majority who were not nearly as cruel. Zimbardo has remarked that he was afraid he would be in for a very long and boring experiment. I suspect that if “Cool Hand Luke” didn’t sign up for the experiment, the experiment would indeed have lasted the full two weeks. People would have generally followed the rules, and we probably wouldn’t have had a movie made after it.

Power isn’t good or evil

Since the Stanford Prison Experiment, we’ve learned a lot more about the psychology of power. Here’s something we’ve found: power isn’t inherently good or evil.

Yes, it’s true that power fundamentally alters perception. As Adam Galinsky and colleagues put it , “powerful people roam in a very different psychological space than those without power.” Power increases confidence, optimism, risk-taking , sensitivity to internal thoughts and feelings , goal-directed behavior and cognition , and creativity .

But these are not necessarily bad outcomes. Put to good use, power can have an incredibly positive effect on people. There are so many compassionate teachers, bosses, politicians, humanitarians, and others who wield power, who genuinely want to make the world a better place.

I think a really important point here is that power amplifies the person . It gives already existing personality dispositions and tendencies a louder voice, and increases the chances that these tendencies will be given fuller expression. Thus, we must consider interactions between the person and the situation. As Galinsky and colleagues point out , “the situation loses its suffocating hold over the thoughts and behavior of the powerful… and they are left with their own opinions, beliefs, attitudes, and personalities to drive their behavior.”

Research shows that activating the concept of power in men with an already-existing disposition toward sexual harassment or aggression increases objectification of women. There’s also an emerging line of research on the “ Dark Tetrad ,” which consists of the darker personality dispositions of narcissism, psychopathy, machiavellianism, and everyday sadism. One study found that when given the opportunity, everyday sadists (those with a higher appetite for cruelty) killed bugs at greater rates than nonsadists, and were more willing to work for the opportunity to hurt an innocent person. Similarly, when narcissists have their ego threatened (e.g., are insulted), they are much more likely to become aggressive , even   against innocent bystanders .

Not just anyone put in a position of power will hurt others, however. Serena Chen and colleagues found that those with an “exchange relationship orientation” (who focus on tit for tat) engaged in more self-serving behaviors when given power, whereas those with a “communal relationship orientation” (who take into account other people’s needs and feelings when making a decision) demonstrated greater generosity when given power.

Putting prosocial goals in charge

More on power.

Dacher Keltner on the power paradox .

Learn about power among primates .

Discover how power differences affect health .

Discover the six habits of highly empathic people

So what, if anything, can we do to decrease the likelihood of power leading to bad behavior?

One interesting reversal to the finding that power amplifies the person is that when people in positions of power are given explicit and salient goals, the situation becomes much more important, and can override people’s innate dispositions. * Perhaps we can refocus people’s tendencies in a positive direction by providing them with clear prosocial goals.

This suggestion acknowledges the fact that no one is all good or all bad; all of us have many sides. Even people who abuse power most certainly have other, more prosocial sides that may be unexplored. We must ask ourselves which side we most want to bring out of a person. Zimbardo’s experiment shines a light on the bad, but I could imagine an equally persuasive study designed in such a way to show the incredible potential for good in just about anyone when given power with prosocial goals.

Another way to bring out more positive outcomes is to simply put more people with prosocial dispositions (e.g., high empathy and compassion) in positions of power and let them carry out their already existing prosocial goals (e.g., desire to reduce violence, feed the hungry, etc.).

There are so many humane people in this world. In fact, most people are humane. Let’s not let the minority who abuse power make us forget this fact. I think the media as well as psychologists could do a lot more to highlight the more uplifting and hopeful segments of humanity. As Jimmy Carter once said, “What are the things that you can’t see that are important? I would say justice, truth, humility, service, compassion, love. You can’t see any of those, but they’re the guiding lights of a life.”

Recognizing that power is not inherently good or bad, we can try to stack the deck as much as possible to harness the incredible power of power. As Galinsky and colleagues so eloquently write :

Perhaps human accomplishment is as much about the cans and cannots as it is the haves and the have-nots. Although power is often thought of as a pernicious force that corrupts those who possess it, it is the protection from the situational influence demonstrated here that helps powerful individuals surmount social obstacles and reach greater heights of creativity to express the unpopular ideals of today that can lead others to the horizons of tomorrow.

* This is another valuable lesson of the Stanford Prison Experiment: the power of goals from authority figures. Experimenters like Zimbardo are in a position of power themselves, and are responsible for not abusing that power. This was also a lesson of the famous Milgram experiment. In the Stanford Prison Experiment, there was no ethical oversight. Zimbardo took on the role of the prisoner superintendent, and explicitly told the guards to gain control over the prisoners. In some cases, he encouraged the priosoners to abuse the guards. In a telling attempt to replicate the Stanford Prison Experiment, the BBC found that the prisoners worked together to overthrow the guards, who were ambivalent about their roles in the first place. The difference between the experiments? The experimenters were held accountable, as the BBC study had an ethical committee that continually monitored the study to make sure it didn’t get out of hand. Also, there was even some uncertainty about roles. At least in the beginning, prisoners were told that they might be able to become guards. Research shows that in environments in which authority is unstable, or at least perceived as unstable, being in a position of low power can actually be empowering. As one group of researchers put it, “For low power individuals, power instability is empowering, leading them to act and behave as high power individuals… Having unstable low power leads to feelings of confidence and self-efficacy, especially when low power individuals can gain power by being creative. They may be more confident about their abilities and also perceive that they have the ‘power to change their situation.” I agree with other psychologists that the original message of the Stanford Prison Experiment—that groups are bad, and that people in power automatically abuse power—is far too simplistic.

(C) 2015 Scott Barry Kaufman, All Rights Reserved

About the Author

Scott barry kaufman.

Scott Barry Kaufman, Ph.D., is scientific director of The Imagination Institute in the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania. He conducts research on the measurement and development of imagination, creativity, and play, and teaches the popular undergraduate course Introduction to Positive Psychology. Kaufman is author of Ungifted: Intelligence Redefined and co-author of the book Wired to Create: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Creative Mind (with Carolyn Gregoire).Follow on Twitter @sbkaufman .

You May Also Enjoy

The Socially Intelligent Superpower

Power Sickness

The Power Paradox

Playing with Power

Who is Gifted?

When Does Power Hurt Romance?

• Contributors
• Valuing Black Lives
• Black Issues in Philosophy
• Blog Announcements
• Climate Matters
• Genealogies of Philosophy
• Graduate Student Council (GSC)
• Graduate Student Reflection
• Into Philosophy
• Member Interviews
• On Congeniality
• Philosophy as a Way of Life
• Philosophy in the Contemporary World
• Precarity and Philosophy
• Recently Published Book Spotlight
• Starting Out in Philosophy
• Syllabus Showcase
• Teaching and Learning Video Series
• Undergraduate Philosophy Club
• Women in Philosophy
• Diversity and Inclusiveness
• Issues in Philosophy
• Public Philosophy
• Work/Life Balance
• Submissions
• Journal Surveys
• APA Connect

The Psychology of Political Power: Does Power Corrupt or is it Magnetic to the Most Corruptible?

In January 2022, I attended a conference on ‘Political Power, Morality and Corruption’. A Socratic dialogue with fellow scholars led me back to one question that epistemologically haunts political theory and philosophy to date—Does power corrupt or is it magnetic to the most corruptible? The cornerstone that this question posits on is antithetical to the idea of power duality as malefic or benefic. Instead, this problem statement is trying to explore and exact the fundamentals of political power. While the former part of the question is striving to deconstruct the soma of power itself, the latter construct of the question is focusing on the agency of an individual with political power.

Now, if you have read Frank Herbert’s  Chapterhouse Dune (1920 – 1986), he writes, “All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible. Such people have a tendency to become drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted.” Rather than saying absolute power corrupts absolutely, Herbert reveals a common metaphysical denominator: corruptibility, that fundamentally connects all those with political power. However, his sematic interpretation gives birth to more questions than answers. Suppose we take Herbert’s argument in consideration and assume that the most corruptible are indeed attracted to power. In that case, the global political infrastructure as we know today, is then built on the building block of corruption by its very virtue. For example, the 4th edition of the Global Corruption Index (GCI 2021)  covered 196 countries and territories, and provided a comprehensive overview of the state of corruption around the world based on 43 variables. This extensive data revealed that only 52 countries have a low corruption index, with Finland and Norway leading the way. On the other hand, the rest 144 countries are suffering from profane corruption. Using Herbert’s interpretation of power and corruption, should we conclude that political corruption, which is about privatization of average citizens and the use of the public sphere to promote private interests, is the foundational political infrastructure of these 144 countries? And if this assertion is true, does it mean that every government representative of these 144 countries are fundamentally corrupt? Herbert’s simplistic interpretation of the problem statement creates a moral conundrum of either this or that, rather than exploring the connection between the two variables—power and corruption.

Power does not corrupt. It amplifies and reveals a leader’s predispositional traits .

For decades, social psychologists were convinced that power corrupts. One of the key demonstrations of this assertion was the classic Stanford Prison Simulation Experiment (Zimbardo, 1971), where volunteers were randomly assigned to play the role of prisoners or prison guards. As the day passed by, it was observed that the students who were given the role of prison guards became sadistic and exercised their power to subjugate prisoners by taking away their clothes and forcing them to sleep on concrete floors. This subduing was absolute barbaric and callous in nature. The results were shocking. However, the Stanford Prison Experiment failed to explore one crucial variable—the behavioural and cognitive pattern of students who willingly participated and were recruited to be a part of ‘study of prison life.’ So, Thomas Carnahan and Sam McFarland (2007) conducted an experiment, “Revisiting the Stanford Prison Experiment: could participant self-selection have led to the cruelty?” They wanted to study what kind of people participate and are drawn to the likes of the Stanford Prison Experiment. The research revealed that “volunteers for the prison study scored significantly higher on measures of the abuse-related dispositions of aggressiveness, authoritarianism, Machiavellianism, narcissism, and social dominance and lower on empathy and altruism, two qualities inversely related to aggressive abuse.”

What Carnahan and McFarland’s experiment revealed was that power doesn’t corrupt, but it is a phenomenon that is monopolized by the agency of an individual. Power amplifies and exposes cognitive and behavioral predispositions that already exists within you. It merely reveals your innate tendencies, but it does not corrupt. Let’s take another example of a democratic statesman who wants to introduce a new healthcare bill for his people, but is unexpectedly confronted with an ethical conundrum—he can either strengthen his political power and wealth by collaborating with pharmaceutical giants and increase the prices of the medicines in concern (demand-supply chain), or he can metamorphosize his proposed bill into reality and benefit his subjects. What will he do? Since he already has procured political power and is deliberating on actualizing his healthcare bill to empower people, power here has not corrupted him. In fact, the argument that power corrupts collapses because if power indeed corrupts, this democratic statesman would not have proposed a healthcare bill for the welfare of his people to begin with. However, if he decides to enact the bill in favor of pharmaceutical moguls to increase his wealth and political status quo, it would be due to his predispositioned behavioral and cognitive schema for corruptibility. How he responds to this ethical conundrum will mirror his political psyche. It has nothing to do with power being essentially corruptible. Power only amplifies and exposes a leader’s predispositioned traits. 

Friedrich Hayek   makes a similar point in his chapter ‘Why the worst get on top’ in  The Road to Serfdom (1943), where he highlights that individuals who rise to the top in the government are those who want to wield power and those who are most ruthless in using power. He writes, “Neither the government administration of a concentration camp nor the Ministry of Propaganda is suitable places for the exercise of humanitarian feelings. Yet, positions like these create a totalitarian state. So, when a distinguished American economist concludes that the probability of people in power disliking the possession and exercise of power is low, is similar to falsely assuming that the probability of an extremely tender-hearted person to desire a position of a whipping-master in a slave plantation is high.”

Recently, psychologists have re-investigated this phenomenon and theorised that rather than being a corrupting influence, power amplifies leaders’ innate tendencies. For example, extensive research in ‘Leader corruption depends on power and testosterone’   by Samuel Bendahan, Christian Zehnder, Francois P. Pralong, and John Antonakis used incentivized experimental games to manipulate leaders in power. Here, leaders had complete freedom to decide monthly pay-outs for themselves and their followers. Now, leaders could have made a prosocial decision to benefit the public good. However, they chose to abuse their power by invoking antisocial decisions, which reduced the total pay-outs of their followers but boosted the leaders’ earnings with a high margin. The researchers write, “In Study 1 ( N  = 478), we found that both amount of followers and discretionary choices independently predicted leader corruption. Study 2 ( N  = 240) examined how power and individual differences (e.g., personality, hormones) affected leader corruption over time; power interacted with endogenous testosterone in predicting corruption, which was highest when the leader power and baseline testosterone were both high. Honesty predicted initial level of leader’s antisocial decisions; however, honesty did not shield leaders from the corruptive effect of power.” 

Concluding with Caligula—The Mad Roman Emperor!

After years of witnessing the most barbaric purges, treason laws, exiles, execution, and corruption of all time during Tiberius’s rule, Caligula (37—41 AD) was seen as a breath of fresh air when he took the throne. After going through despondent years of constant fear, Caligula’s initiation was perceived as a hope for a flourishing Roman republic. At first, Caligula lived up to the expectations of the Roman people. He brought back many people exiled by Tiberius and ceremoniously burned the records of the infamous Treason Trails held by Sejanus under the order of Tiberius. This act was celebrated and made Caligula popular and well-liked among the Senate. He then took a step further and eliminated unpopular hefty taxes, initiated constructions of harbors that created massive employment opportunities for Roman citizens, and staged lavish events like chariot races, gladiator shows, and theatre plays to entertain his people. He was indeed a breath of fresh air after Tiberius. 

But, after seven months of his rule, things changed for the worst. Caligula started to use and abuse his political powers so dauntlessly that it pushed Rome into a dark age of political and economic instability. He went on a rampage of committing murder, adultery, and acts of debauchery. His eccentricities became more murderous, including restating the very Treason Trials that he had ended. Dressed in silk robes and covered in jewels, Caligula pretended he was a god. He made it mandatory for his senators to grovel and kiss his feet and seduced their wives at lavish dinner parties. He wanted his statue to be erected in the temple at Jerusalem, which at the point, would have been highly controversial in a region that was already prone to revolt against the Romans. Luckily, Herod Agrippa, who ruled Palestine then, convinced him not to do so. Additionally, since Caligula was spending vast amount of money on his lavish lifestyle, he emptied Rome’s treasury. To reverse this damage, he started blackmailing Roman leaders and senates, and confiscated their properties and wealth. 

There is no denying that there was a method to Caligula’s political madness, but power didn’t corrupt him. If it did, the first initial seven months of ruling Rome after Tiberius, Roman republic would not have experienced economic, political, and cultural growth. However, power certainly did amplify and expose his innate characteristics of corruptibility and debauchery. Caligula’s madness of abusing political power and tyrannical reign grew out of control. An assassination plot structured against him and he was murdered after being stabbed over 30 times by a cabal of Praetorian guards in 41 A.D. This reminds me of what Robert Caro mentioned in his book  The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson (2012), “Power always reveals. When a man is climbing, trying to persuade others to give him power, concealment is necessary. But, as soon as the man obtains more power, camouflage becomes less necessary.” To conclude, it is not that the power corrupts or is magnetic to the most corruptible. The truth is—power only reveals who you truly are.

• Parul Verma

Parul Verma is a political analyst and a human rights activist. Using political philosophy, her work analyses power relation between State-subject, transnational conflict, peace-building and peace-keeping in relation to Israel-Palestine, Northern Ireland and Kashmir. She has also written extensively on corporate governance and violence against women in India. Her work has been published in more than 20+ academic journals and international media establishments. Her part-time job involves talking gibberish to her two naughty rabbits – Whiskey and Beer! For any query or feedback, contact her at parul_edu[at] icloud.com .

• Editor: Maryellen Stohlman-Vanderveen
• Frank Herbert
• Philosophy of Psychology
• political power
• social psychology

RELATED ARTICLES

Recently published book spotlight: rapture, “what do you do”, that odious question, digital ideology, friedlaender fever, luflot: the first philosopher-powered chatbot, engineering and embodiment.

It would seem that power is an intoxicant like alcohol, reducing the inhibitions against anti-social behavior. But politicians are also embedded in a more structured system than simple social interaction and they have gradually built that system to increase their power.

Politicians over the decades have built a warehouse of intoxicants and in the past two years they have been drunk on that power.

“Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys” as the P. J. O’Rourke wrote. This is not simple cynicism. Those in power tend to think that their moral and intellectual superiority make them eminently qualified to do what they think is best, with decisions made in that alcohol laden warehouse of government. They have also funneled power to other institutions in order to amplify their own power. The last two years have revealed just how little power the individual has in the face of political power. Power emasculates restraint – just like alcohol.

“The so-called paradox of freedom is the argument that freedom in the sense of absence of any constraining control must lead to very great restraint, since it makes the bully free to enslave the meek. The idea is, in a slightly different form, and with very different tendency, clearly expressed in Plato.” – Karl Popper

LEAVE A REPLY Cancel reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Notify me of follow-up comments by email.

Notify me of new posts by email.

WordPress Anti-Spam by WP-SpamShield

Currently you have JavaScript disabled. In order to post comments, please make sure JavaScript and Cookies are enabled, and reload the page. Click here for instructions on how to enable JavaScript in your browser.

Advanced search

Posts You May Enjoy

Responses to liberalism, alexis dianda, the cosmos: black like me, apa announces spring 2024 prize winners, recently published book spotlight: simone weil’s political philosophy, recently published book spotlight: the man-not, what are you reading…on wonder.

How Power Corrupts the Mind

Pity the despot.

While at Columbia University, Andy J. Yap set up a simple experiment . After manipulating his subjects into powerful or weak states (in the lab, psychologists are the most powerful ones of all), Yap asked them to guess the height and weight of others both in person and from photographs.

"When people feel powerful or feel powerless, it influences their perception of others," said Yap, who is now a postdoctoral researcher at MIT.  According to their understanding, w e judge the power of others relative to our own: When we feel powerful, others appear less so --and powerlessness and smallness often go together in our minds. 

It is true that CEOs  tend to be taller than the average person, and there are estimates that for each inch a person is above average height, they receive $789 more a year. Sure enough, in the study, the powerful people judged others to be shorter than they really are.

Yap's conclusion nicely illustrates what we've always known anecdotally: Power gets to our heads. A decade of research on power and behavior show there are some predictable ways people react to power, which can be simply defined as the ability to influence others. While power in governments and across the world can come at incredible costs, in a lab, it's surprisingly simple. Asking a person to recall a time he or she felt powerful can get them in the state of mind. There's also the aptly named "dictator game," in which a participant is made powerful by putting them charge of doling out the compensation for another participant.

Researchers have even found you can make someone feel power just by posing them in a dominant, expansive body position. Like athletes, for example: Arms  outstretch , back arched . Even blind athletes have been known, upon victory,  to strike the same pose . They didn't learn it by seeing anyone do it. There's something fundamental.

Power isn't corrupting; it's freeing, says Joe Magee, a power researcher and professor of management at New York University. "What power does is that it liberates the true self to emerge," he says. "More of us walk around with kinds of social norms; we work in groups that exert all pressures on us to conform. Once you get into a position of power, then you can be whoever you are."

This manifests in several different ways. For one, the powerful are seen to be less likely to take into account the perspective of others. In one experiment participants were primed to feel powerful or not, and then asked to draw the letter "e" on their foreheads. The letter can be drawn so it looks correct to others, or correct to the person drawing. In this case, high-powered people are two to three times more likely to draw an "e" that appears backwards to others. That is, they were more likely to draw a letter that could only be read by themselves.

Power lends the power holder many benefits. Powerful people are more likely to take decisive action. In one simple experiment , it was shown that people made to feel powerful were more likely to turn off an annoying fan humming in the room. Power reduces awareness of constraints and causes people act more quickly. Powerful people also tend to think more abstractly, favoring the bigger picture over smaller consequences. Powerful people are less likely to remember the constraints to a goal. They downplay risks, and enjoy higher levels of testosterone (a dominance hormone), and lower levels of cortisol (a stress hormone).

"People who are given more power in the lab, they see more choice," Magee says. "They see beyond what is objectively there, the amount of choice they have. More directions for what actions they can take. What it means to have power is to be free of the punishment that one could exert upon you for the thing you did." Which paves the way for another hallmark of the powerful--hypocrisy. Our guts are right about this one. On a survey , powerful study participants indicated that they were less tolerant of cheating than the less powerful. But then when given the opportunity to cheat and take more compensation for the experiment, the powerful caved in. The authors explain how these tendencies can actually perpetuate power structures in society:

This means that people with power not only take what they want because they can do so unpunished, but also because they intuitively feel they are entitled to do so. Conversely, people who lack power not only fail to get what they need because they are disallowed to take it, but also because they intuitively feel they are not entitled to it.

Where there's hypocrisy, infidelity seems to follow. While stories of politician infidelity are high profile and more therefore salient -- think Mark Sanford flying to South America to be with a lover while telling aides he was hiking the Appalachian trail, or Arnold Schwarzenegger's secret son -- there is evidence that the powerful are more likely to stray into an affair. In a survey of 1,500 professionals, people higher ranked on a corporate hierarchy were more likely to indicate things like "Would you ever consider cheating on your partner?" on a seven-point scale (this was found true for both men and women). Dishonesty and power go hand-in-hand. In his most recent research, Yap found that just by posing people in the outstretched, power position, they would more likely to take more money than entitled for their time. (Posing like this for two minutes was also found to increase testosterone and lower cortisol hormone levels. So if you want to feel powerful, make yourself big.)

Though it's not that the powerful are bad people. "There is a tendency for people to assume power holders are uncaring, they're cold, they don't care about the little people," says Pamela Smith, a power researcher at the University of California San Diego. But that's not always the case. It depends on who gets the power. "You put someone in an experiment, temporarily, in a high-powered role, and what you find is that people who say they have pro-social values, the more power they have, the more pro-social they are. The people who say they have more self-centered values tend to be more selfish the more power they have."

So what can the most powerful among us do with this information? The researchers I spoke with suggested that it could at least create self-awareness. If we realize, when in power, what it might be doing to our minds, perhaps we can correct ourselves. Perhaps.

How Power Corrupts Leaders

Why and how does power corrupt leaders.

Posted August 8, 2009 | Reviewed by Lybi Ma

• What Is a Career
• Find a career counselor near me

Most people have heard the line, "Power corrupts." (Or the longer version, "Absolute power corrupts absolutely." The question I'm often asked is "Why and how does power corrupt leaders?"

The answer is complex, but fairly clear. Leadership , at its core, is all about power and influence. Leaders use their power to get things done. A simple distinction is between two forms of power. Socialized power is power used to benefit others. We hope that our elected officials have this sort of power in mind and are primarily concerned with the best interests of their constituents.

The other form of power is called personalized power, and it is using power for personal gain. Importantly, these two forms of power are not mutually exclusive. A leader can use his or her power to benefit others, but can also gain personally (there are no poor former U.S. Presidents). The obvious problem is when personalized power dominates and the leader gains, often at the followers' expense.

Yet, leaders can delude themselves that they are working for the greater good (using socialized power), but engage in behavior that is morally wrong. A sense of power can cause a leader to engage in what leadership ethicist Terry Price calls "exception making" — believing that the rules that govern what is right and what is wrong does not apply to the powerful leader "for other people, this would be wrong, but because I have the best interests of my followers at heart, it's OK for me to...." During Watergate, the argument was made that President Nixon could not have acted illegally because "the President is above the law."

Leaders can also become "intoxicated" by power — engaging in wrong behavior simply because they can and they can get away with it (and followers are willing to collude and make such exceptions "It's OK because he/she is the leader"). Some have suggested that President Clinton engaged in a sexual dalliance with intern Monica Lewinsky simply "because he could."

Power has advantages and disadvantages for leaders.

On the positive side, power makes leaders more assertive and confident and certain of their decisions. This enables them to move forward on chosen courses of action. Leaders must use power to "get the job done."

On the negative side, the more people possess power, the more they focus on their own egocentric desires and the less able they are to see others' perspectives.

And then there are individual differences. Some people are simply power hungry and prone to use their power to subjugate others — they are "leaders from hell"...but that is another post.

Follow me on Twitter : twitter.com/#!/ronriggio

Ronald E. Riggio, Ph.D. , is the Henry R. Kravis Professor of Leadership and Organizational Psychology at Claremont McKenna College.

• Find a Therapist
• Find a Treatment Center
• Find a Psychiatrist
• Find a Support Group
• Find Online Therapy
• United States
• Brooklyn, NY
• Chicago, IL
• Houston, TX
• Los Angeles, CA
• New York, NY
• Portland, OR
• San Diego, CA
• San Francisco, CA
• Seattle, WA
• Washington, DC
• Asperger's
• Bipolar Disorder
• Chronic Pain
• Eating Disorders
• Passive Aggression
• Personality
• Goal Setting
• Positive Psychology
• Stopping Smoking
• Low Sexual Desire
• Relationships
• Child Development
• Self Tests NEW
• Therapy Center
• Diagnosis Dictionary
• Types of Therapy

At any moment, someone’s aggravating behavior or our own bad luck can set us off on an emotional spiral that threatens to derail our entire day. Here’s how we can face our triggers with less reactivity so that we can get on with our lives.

• Emotional Intelligence
• Gaslighting
• Affective Forecasting
• Neuroscience

Essay on Power Corruption

Students are often asked to write an essay on Power Corruption in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Power Corruption

What is power corruption.

Power corruption means when someone with a lot of control or authority starts to use it in bad ways. This person might make unfair decisions, take more than their share, or hurt others to stay in charge.

Why Does Power Corrupt?

People with power often start to think they are better than others. They might stop listening to advice or think rules don’t apply to them. This can lead to making choices that only help themselves.

Effects of Power Corruption

When someone in power is corrupt, it can make things worse for everyone. People lose trust in leaders, and society can suffer. It’s not just about money; it’s about fairness and safety too.

Stopping Power Corruption

To stop power corruption, we need clear rules and ways to check on people in power. Everyone should be treated the same by the law, and bad behavior must have consequences to prevent corruption.

250 Words Essay on Power Corruption

Power corruption means when someone with a lot of control or authority starts to use it in a bad way. Imagine a class monitor who starts taking extra cookies just because they can. That’s a simple example of power corruption. When people get power, sometimes they forget to think about what’s right and wrong.

Why Power Corrupts

People often say, “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” This means the more power you have, the easier it is to use it badly. A person may start thinking they’re better than others or that rules don’t apply to them. This can lead to unfair treatment and bad decisions.

When someone with power is corrupt, it can hurt a lot of people. For example, if a mayor uses the city’s money for their own fun instead of fixing parks or schools, the whole town suffers. Kids might not have a nice place to play or good books to learn from.

To stop power corruption, there need to be rules that even powerful people must follow. Also, everyone should be able to speak up if they see someone using power in the wrong way. Think of it like a game where even the referee has to play fair.

In short, power corruption is when powerful people make bad choices that can hurt others. It’s important to have rules and brave people who can help keep power in check. This way, everyone gets treated fairly, and power is used for good things.

500 Words Essay on Power Corruption

Power corruption is when someone with a lot of control or authority starts to use it in bad ways for their own gain. Imagine you have a class monitor who is supposed to make sure everyone follows the rules. But instead, they start breaking the rules themselves and let their friends do it too because they think no one can stop them. That’s a simple example of power corruption.

Why Does Power Corruption Happen?

People often become corrupt with power because they think they won’t get caught or punished. They might start thinking they are better than others and deserve more. It’s like when someone cheats in a game to win because they want the prize all to themselves. They might start out with good intentions, but as they get more power, they begin to change and make selfish choices.

When someone with power is corrupt, it hurts everyone. Think of a teacher who only helps certain students because they give her gifts. This isn’t fair to the other students, right? In the same way, power corruption can lead to unfair treatment, and people lose trust in those who are supposed to be leaders. It can also make problems in society worse because the person with power isn’t trying to fix them anymore.

How to Spot Power Corruption

To spot power corruption, you should look for signs like someone suddenly having lots of things they couldn’t afford before or making rules that only help them and their friends. It’s like noticing that the class monitor always gets extra time on the computer while no one else does. If you see things that don’t seem right or fair, it could be a sign of corruption.

Stopping power corruption is tough but not impossible. One way is to make sure there are clear rules about what leaders can and can’t do. It’s like having a rule that the class monitor can’t pick only their friends for fun activities. Another way is to have checks, where other people can check what the person with power is doing. This is like having a teacher watch over the class monitor.

Everyone’s Role

Everyone has a role in fighting power corruption. Just like in a classroom where all students can help by being honest and speaking up if they see something wrong, in society, everyone can help by being aware and not letting the corrupt behavior slide. If people work together and support each other, they can make a big difference in keeping power in check.

In conclusion, power corruption is when someone misuses their authority for selfish reasons. It can make things unfair and break people’s trust. To fight it, there need to be rules and ways to check on those with power. Everyone can help by being alert and brave enough to speak up against unfairness. By understanding and acting against power corruption, even students can help make sure that everyone plays by the rules.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

• Essay on Power And Privilege
• Essay on Power And Authority
• Essay on Power Abuse

Apart from these, you can look at all the essays by clicking here .

Happy studying!

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

• SUGGESTED TOPICS
• The Magazine
• Newsletters
• Managing Yourself
• Managing Teams
• Work-life Balance
• The Big Idea
• Data & Visuals
• Reading Lists
• Case Selections
• HBR Learning
• Topic Feeds
• Account Settings
• Email Preferences

Power Can Corrupt Leaders. Compassion Can Save Them

• Rasmus Hougaard,
• Jacqueline Carter,
• Louise Chester

Being in charge changes how your brain works.

Leaders are at risk of being corrupted by power. It’s not that power makes people want to be less empathetic; it’s that taking on greater responsibilities and pressure can rewire our brains, and, through no fault of our own, force us to stop caring about other people as much as we used to. But it does not have to be this way. Such rewiring can be avoided—and it can also be reversed. Compassion is the key. While empathy is the tendency to feel others’ emotions and take them on as if you were feeling them as well, compassion is the  intent  to contribute to the happiness and well-being of others. Compassion, therefore, is more proactive, which means that we can consciously make a habit of it. And, by doing so, we can counter the loss of empathy that results from holding power, and in turn enable better leadership and human connections at work. The authors offer practical ways of enhancing your compassion.

In 2016 John Stumpf, then the CEO of Wells Fargo, was called before Congress to explain a massive scandal. For more than four hours, Stumpf fielded a range of questions about why the bank, which had over $1.8 trillion in assets, had created 2 million false accounts, and, after the fraud was discovered, fired 5,300 employees as a way of redirecting the blame. The recordings of the hearing are a shocking but illustrative case study of how leaders are at risk of being corrupted by power.

• Rasmus Hougaard is the founder and CEO of Potential Project , a global leadership development and research firm serving Accenture, Cisco, KPMG, Citi, and hundreds of other organizations. He is the coauthor, with Jacqueline Carter, of Compassionate Leadership: How to Do Hard Things in a Human Way and The Mind of the Leader: How to Lead Yourself, Your People, and Your Organization for Extraordinary Results .
• Jacqueline Carter is a senior partner and the North American Director of Potential Project. She has extensive experience working with senior leaders to enable them to achieve better performance while enhancing a more caring culture. She is the coauthor, with Rasmus Hougaard, of Compassionate Leadership: How to Do Hard Things in a Human Way and The Mind of the Leader – How to Lead Yourself, Your People, and Your Organization for Extraordinary Results .
• Louise Chester  is the UK Director of Potential Project. Since 1994, her mindfulness training helped her sustain challenging, senior leadership roles in both investment banking and fund management industries.

Partner Center

Phrase Finder

• Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely

What's the meaning of the phrase 'Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely'?

The proverbial saying ‘power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely’ conveys the opinion that, as a person’s power increases, their moral sense diminishes.

Origin – the short version

“Absolute power corrupts absolutely” is the best known quotation of the 19th century British politician Lord Acton. He borrowed the idea from several other writers who had previously expressed the same thought in different words.

Origin – the full story

Absolute monarchies are those in which all power is given to or, as is more often the case, taken by, the monarch. Examples of monarchs who corrupted their power include Roman emperors, who declared themselves gods, and Napoleon Bonaparte, who declared himself an emperor.

“Absolute power corrupts absolutely” arose as part of a quotation by the expansively named and impressively hirsute John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, first Baron Acton (1834–1902). The historian and moralist, who was otherwise known simply as Lord Acton, expressed this opinion in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton in 1887:

“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.”

The saying “Absolute power corrupts absolutely” was coined by the English historian Lord Acton in 1887.

The text is a favourite of collectors of quotations and is always included in anthologies. If you are looking for the exact “power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely” wording, then Acton is your man.

Although Acton coined the phrase, but he didn’t invent the idea. Something similar had been said by another English politician with no shortage of names – William Pitt the Elder, Earl of Chatham . Pitt said this in a speech in 1770:

“Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it”

Acton is likely to have taken his lead from the writings of the French republican poet and politician Alphonse de Lamartine. An English translation of Lamartine’s essay France and England: a Vision of the Future was published in London in 1848 and included this:

It is not only the slave or serf who is ameliorated in becoming free. The master himself did not gain less in every point of view, for absolute power corrupts the best natures.

Whether it is Lamartine or his anonymous English translator who can claim to have coined ‘absolute power corrupts’ we can’t be sure. What we can be sure about is that it came before Lord Acton’s more famous version. Whether Acton was aware of Lamartine’s essay we can’t now tell.

“Absolute power corrupts absolutely” is one of the proverbial sayings that seems to be proved correct by experience of people’s actual behaviour.

It was coined by the English nobleman Lord Acton in 1857, using similar ideas expressed by several of his contemporaries.

See also: the List of Proverbs .

See also: Quotations .

Related phrases and meanings

Browse more phrases.

• Pound of flesh
• Pour oil on troubled waters
• Power dressing
• Praying at the porcelain altar

About the Author

Gary Martin

Phrases & Meanings

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T UV W XYZ

American Animals Australian Bible Body Colour Conflict Death Devil Dogs Emotions Euphemism Family Fashion Food French Horses ‘Jack’ Luck Money Military Music Names Nature Nautical Numbers Politics Religion Shakespeare Stupidity Entertainment Weather Women Work

Power and Corruption in Animal Farm

“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others,” is a quote from George Orwell’s novel, Animal Farm, that conveys a sense of the central themes of class, power and corruption, and language and propaganda that play out in the novel (112). Through the experiences and society created by a group of farm animals, Orwell is really suggesting that human society is flawed in many of the same manners that play out as themes in his book. Concerns over the separation of class, power and corruption wielded by those in positions of authority, and usage of language to manipulate and persuade others drive the storyline as Orwell supports how these themes translate to the human experience.

“Somehow it seemed as though the farm had grown richer without making the animals themselves any richer-except, of course, for the pigs and the dogs,” demonstrates how the animals are separated by class where some reap more benefits than others (Orwell 129). As the animals struggle to produce for the humans, not all the animals are treated the same or get the same rewards, so there is a class system among the animals. While some animals are aware of the inequality, others are not, which is how it plays out in human society. Orwell is trying to tell mankind to treat people fairly or society will suffer. If all the animals were equally productive and reaped the same benefits, then there wouldn’t be a plot to the novel. The separation of class is an important element in the upheaval that occurs in the book that highlights power and corruption.

“Napoleon is always right,” is a quote that demonstrates Orwell’s use of power and corruption in the novel (Orwell 56). No one can be completely right all the time, yet the animals look to Napoleon to solve all of their problems and they don’t think much past that. Orwell is highlighting how mankind blindly follows those in power because of the power they wield, but without thought to their motives. He is suggesting that society could benefit from thinking more about who people are instead of the power that they hold. There are good and bad people everywhere and just because they make it to a position of authority doesn’t mean they are right for the position. He is telling us to think for ourselves. Yet, as with the animals, not all the people are capable of thinking and understanding at the same level, so does this even work? Perhaps there is a need for authority, whether corrupt or not, to guide those who cannot think for themselves. Either way, Orwell is providing us a glimpse into the problems associated with blindly following power and authority when corruption is involved.

Orwell uses the seven commandments to highlight how language is used to manipulate and control the animals (Orwell 24-25). He continues this use of persuasive language throughout the novel to show how words can be used as propaganda to persuade others. This is much the same as human society. Propaganda is used to make people buy products through commercials, or endorse political ideas. Again, Orwell is suggesting the importance of thinking things through and not blindly following others. Words can be used to compliment, to hurt, or to persuade, so words should be considered very carefully.

George Orwell’s Animal Farm highlights themes that are shared by human society. Class, power and corruption, and language and propaganda are all concerns that can cause disruption and unhappiness. He points out that society is sort of built on a separation of class and an assignment of power to guide those who cannot guide themselves. He makes an interesting point for consideration that perhaps there is no society without these themes playing out, so that they are essentially a necessary evil. He is also concerned with fair treatment of all and leaves us to ponder if society can ever become fair.

Cite this page

Power and Corruption in Animal Farm. (2021, Jul 05). Retrieved from https://supremestudy.com/power-and-corruption-in-animal-farm/

"Power and Corruption in Animal Farm." supremestudy.com , 5 Jul 2021, https://supremestudy.com/power-and-corruption-in-animal-farm/

supremestudy.com. (2021). Power and Corruption in Animal Farm . [Online]. Available at: https://supremestudy.com/power-and-corruption-in-animal-farm/ [Accessed: 31 May. 2024]

"Power and Corruption in Animal Farm." supremestudy.com, Jul 05, 2021. Accessed May 31, 2024. https://supremestudy.com/power-and-corruption-in-animal-farm/

"Power and Corruption in Animal Farm," supremestudy.com , 05-Jul-2021. [Online]. Available: https://supremestudy.com/power-and-corruption-in-animal-farm/ . [Accessed: 31-May-2024]

supremestudy.com. (2021). Power and Corruption in Animal Farm . [Online]. Available at: https://supremestudy.com/power-and-corruption-in-animal-farm/ [Accessed: 31-May-2024]

Power and Corruption in Animal Farm. (2021, Jul 05). Retrieved May 31, 2024 , from https://supremestudy.com/power-and-corruption-in-animal-farm/

This paper was written and submitted by a fellow student

Our verified experts write your 100% original paper on any topic

Having doubts about how to write your paper correctly?

Our editors will help you fix any mistakes and get an A+!

Leave your email and we will send a sample to you.

Please check your inbox

Sorry, copying content is not allowed on this website

Please indicate where to send you the sample.

• English Literature
• Short Stories
• Literary Terms
• Web Stories

Discuss the theme of the corrupting influence of power in William Shakespeare’s Macbeth

Table of Contents

William Shakespeare’s tragic play “ Macbeth ” explores the theme of the corrupting influence of power. The play delves into the consequences of unchecked ambition and the transformation of Macbeth, the protagonist, from a noble and loyal subject to a ruthless tyrant.

Theme the corrupting influence of power in Macbeth:- As Macbeth gains power and authority, he succumbs to its corrupting force, leading to his downfall and the destruction of those around him. This essay will analyze the various aspects of power portrayed in the play and examine how Shakespeare illustrates the gradual corruption of Macbeth’s character through his thirst for power.

The Temptation of Ambition

From the beginning of the play, Macbeth’s ambition is aroused when he hears the prophecies of the three witches, predicting that he will become the Thane of Cawdor and eventually the king. This prophecy ignites his desire for power, and the seed of corruption is planted. Macbeth’s initial hesitation to commit regicide demonstrates his moral conscience, but his wife, Lady Macbeth, manipulates him, questioning his masculinity and urging him to seize the opportunity. 

Also Read:-

• Analyze the use of metaphor in Langston Hughes Mother to Son
• How does Virginia Woolf use the concept of perception in Mrs. Dalloway
• Discuss the theme of the search for meaning in Albert Camus The Plague
• Discuss the theme of redemption in Charles Dickens A Tale of Two Cities

Theme the corrupting influence of power in Macbeth:- His ambition and desire for power become overpowering, and he ultimately succumbs to temptation, showing that power can corrupt even the noblest of individuals.

The Deterioration of Macbeth’s Morality

As Macbeth ascends to the throne, his actions become increasingly immoral and ruthless. His initial murder of King Duncan is a pivotal moment that marks his descent into corruption. The regicide not only establishes Macbeth’s thirst for power but also reveals his willingness to commit heinous acts to maintain it. The murder of his friend Banquo and the Macduff family further exemplify Macbeth’s moral deterioration. He becomes consumed by paranoia and fear, eliminating anyone he perceives as a threat to his reign. The corrupting influence of power has transformed Macbeth from a virtuous and honorable man into a merciless and bloodthirsty tyrant.

The Erosion of Relationships

Power not only corrupts Macbeth’s character but also erodes his relationships with others. His relationship with Lady Macbeth, initially a partnership based on mutual ambition, disintegrates as the couple descends into guilt and madness. Lady Macbeth’s guilt manifests in her sleepwalking and obsessive hand-washing, while Macbeth becomes increasingly isolated and detached from reality. Additionally, Macbeth’s tyrannical rule alienates his subjects, who turn against him, and even his most loyal allies abandon him. The corrupting influence of power not only destroys Macbeth’s moral compass but also erodes the bonds he once held dear.

The Inevitable Downfall

Despite his accumulation of power, Macbeth’s downfall is inevitable. The corrupting influence of power blinds him to the consequences of his actions and isolates him from his allies. As Macbeth faces opposition from Malcolm and Macduff, his arrogance and overconfidence lead to his demise. 

Also Read:- William Shakespeare Biography and Works

Theme the corrupting influence of power in Macbeth:- The witches’ prophecies, which initially fueled his ambition, prove to be misleading, and his misplaced trust in their promises contributes to his downfall. Macbeth’s final realization of the futility of his actions and the loss of everything he holds dear serves as a cautionary tale about the corrupting nature of power.

Macbeth “Summary”

Macbeth is a tragic play written by William Shakespeare around 1606. Set in Scotland, it tells the story of Macbeth, a brave and loyal general, whose ambition is ignited by supernatural forces, leading him to commit heinous acts in his quest for power and ultimately resulting in his downfall.

Theme the corrupting influence of power in Macbeth:- The play begins with Macbeth and his friend Banquo encountering three witches, also known as the Weird Sisters, who prophesy that Macbeth will become the Thane of Cawdor and eventually the king. Encouraged by these prophecies, Macbeth becomes consumed by his desire for power and decides to take matters into his own hands.

With the support of his ambitious wife, Lady Macbeth, Macbeth plots and murders King Duncan, who is a guest in their castle. Macbeth is plagued by guilt and paranoia after committing the regicide, but he is also driven to eliminate anyone who poses a threat to his position. He orders the murder of Banquo, who suspects Macbeth’s involvement in Duncan’s death, as well as Banquo’s son, Fleance.

Theme the corrupting influence of power in Macbeth:- As Macbeth spirals deeper into madness, he seeks guidance from the witches again, who provide him with more prophecies that further fuel his delusions. He becomes increasingly ruthless, ordering the slaughter of Macduff’s family and engaging in a final battle against the forces that oppose him.

However, Macbeth’s tyrannical reign and his reliance on the witches’ prophecies ultimately lead to his downfall. Lady Macbeth, burdened by guilt and haunted by the consequences of their actions, descends into madness and dies. Macbeth learns of her death and is filled with despair, yet he resolves to fight to the bitter end.

Theme the corrupting influence of power in Macbeth:- In the final battle, Macbeth faces Macduff, who was born through a cesarean section and thus fulfills the witches’ prophecy that “none of woman born shall harm Macbeth.” However, Macduff reveals that he was “untimely ripped” from his mother’s womb, making him the exception. Macduff kills Macbeth, restoring order and rightful rule to Scotland.

Macbeth serves as a cautionary tale about the corrupting influence of ambition and the consequences of unchecked power. The play explores themes of guilt, fate, and the nature of evil, showcasing Shakespeare’s profound understanding of human psychology and the destructive potential of ambition.

William Shakespeare’s play “Macbeth” vividly portrays the corrupting influence of power through the tragic transformation of its protagonist. Macbeth’s journey from a noble and virtuous individual to a ruthless and tyrannical ruler exemplifies the destructive nature of unchecked ambition. 

Theme the corrupting influence of power in Macbeth:- As Macbeth gains power, his morality deteriorates, leading him to commit heinous acts and disregard the values he once held dear. The erosion of his relationships and the isolation he experiences further emphasize the corrupting influence of power. 

Theme the corrupting influence of power in Macbeth:- Ultimately, Macbeth’s downfall serves as a cautionary tale, reminding audiences of the consequences of succumbing to the allure of power without considering the moral implications. Shakespeare’s exploration of the theme of the corrupting influence of power in “Macbeth” continues to resonate with audiences, prompting reflection on the fragile nature of human morality and the dangers of unbridled ambition.

Q: What is the main theme of “Macbeth”?

A: The main theme of “Macbeth” is the corrupting influence of power. The play explores how unchecked ambition and the pursuit of power can lead individuals to commit immoral and destructive acts, ultimately resulting in their downfall.

Q: What are some examples of Macbeth’s corruption throughout the play?

A: Macbeth’s corruption is evident in his transformation from a loyal and honorable subject to a ruthless tyrant. Some examples of his corruption include his initial hesitation to commit regicide but ultimately succumbing to his ambition, his willingness to murder King Duncan and others to secure his position, his increasing paranoia and fear that lead to the elimination of potential threats, and his gradual detachment from morality and reality as he becomes more consumed by power.

Q: How does power affect Macbeth’s relationships?

A: Power erodes Macbeth’s relationships throughout the play. His relationship with Lady Macbeth, initially based on mutual ambition, deteriorates as guilt and madness consume them both. Macbeth’s tyrannical rule isolates him from his subjects, who turn against him, and even his loyal allies distance themselves. The corrupting influence of power not only destroys Macbeth’s moral compass but also erodes the bonds he once held dear.

Q: What is the overall message or moral of “Macbeth”?

A: The overall message of “Macbeth” is a cautionary one about the corrupting nature of unchecked ambition and the pursuit of power. The play warns against the consequences of sacrificing one’s morality and disregarding the well-being of others in the relentless pursuit of personal gain. It serves as a reminder of the fragility of human morality and the destructive path that can result from succumbing to the allure of power without ethical restraint.

Related Posts

Top 10 English Novels of All Time Summary and Themes

The 48 Laws of Power Summary Chapterwise by Robert Greene

What is precisionism in literature.

Attempt a critical appreciation of The Triumph of Life by P.B. Shelley.

Consider The Garden by Andrew Marvell as a didactic poem.

Why does Plato want the artists to be kept away from the ideal state

MEG 05 LITERARY CRITICISM & THEORY Solved Assignment 2023-24

William Shakespeare Biography and Works

Discuss the theme of freedom in Frederick Douglass’ Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

How does William Shakespeare use the concept of power in Richard III

Analyze the use of imagery in William Shakespeare’s sonnets

Who wrote “the boy behind the curtain”, what is the significance of the title “the slap”, which australian author wrote “big little lies”, what is the premise of “the secret garden” by frances hodgson burnett.

• Advertisement
• Privacy & Policy
• Other Links

© 2023 Literopedia

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Remember Me

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Are you sure want to unlock this post?

Are you sure want to cancel subscription.

• Entertainment
• Environment
• Information Science and Technology
• Social Issues

Home Essay Samples Social Issues Evil

Macbeth: How Power Can Corrupt People

*minimum deadline

Cite this Essay

To export a reference to this article please select a referencing style below

• Women's Right to Vote
• Food Shortage
• Institutional Racism
• Montgomery Bus Boycott

Related Essays

Need writing help?

You can always rely on us no matter what type of paper you need

*No hidden charges

100% Unique Essays

Absolutely Confidential

Money Back Guarantee

By clicking “Send Essay”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement. We will occasionally send you account related emails

You can also get a UNIQUE essay on this or any other topic

Thank you! We’ll contact you as soon as possible.

Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Macbeth — Corruption Of Power In Macbeth

Corruption of Power in Macbeth

• Categories: Macbeth Power

About this sample

Words: 506 |

Published: Mar 13, 2024

Words: 506 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

Cite this Essay

Let us write you an essay from scratch

• 450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
• Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Get high-quality help

Verified writer

• Expert in: Literature Life

+ 120 experts online

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Related Essays

1 pages / 463 words

2 pages / 1090 words

3 pages / 1194 words

4 pages / 1712 words

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers.

121 writers online

Still can’t find what you need?

Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled

Related Essays on Macbeth

Macbeth, written by William Shakespeare, is a tragic play that explores themes of ambition, power, and moral corruption. The protagonist, Macbeth, is initially portrayed as a brave and noble soldier, but his unchecked ambition [...]

Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. Edited by Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine, Folger Shakespeare Library, 2011.

The concept of a tragic hero has been a prominent element in literature, epitomized by Shakespeare's Macbeth. In this essay, we will explore the definition of a tragic hero and how it profoundly applies to Macbeth. We will [...]

A. Restate the thesis statement and summarize the main points discussed in the essay. Macbeth's downfall is attributed to his ambition, moral decay, and psychological decline, leading to his tragic end.B. Final thoughts: The [...]

Death plays a big part in the play Macbeth by William Shakespeare, one of these death scenes is the death of Lady Macbeth. In Act 5, Scene 5, Macbeth hears a scream and turns to his servant and asks what it is, he is told that [...]

Tragedy is a serious play in which the main character is characterized to have some psychological weakness, thereby going through a series of misfortunes that lead to his destructive end. Aristotle in his Poetics posited that [...]

Related Topics

By clicking “Send”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement . We will occasionally send you account related emails.

Where do you want us to send this sample?

By clicking “Continue”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy.

Be careful. This essay is not unique

This essay was donated by a student and is likely to have been used and submitted before

Download this Sample

Free samples may contain mistakes and not unique parts

Sorry, we could not paraphrase this essay. Our professional writers can rewrite it and get you a unique paper.

Please check your inbox.

We can write you a custom essay that will follow your exact instructions and meet the deadlines. Let's fix your grades together!

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

• Instructions Followed To The Letter
• Deadlines Met At Every Stage
• Unique And Plagiarism Free

What Sealed Trump’s Fate

I n H.G. Wells’ science-fiction classic The War of the Worlds , aliens from Mars invade Earth. The military resists, but human technology is no match for Martian tripods and death rays. Within weeks, the aliens have routed the defenders and seem poised to conquer the planet. And then, mysteriously, they die. It turns out they had no resistance to the ubiquitous bacteria of our world. They were slain, Wells writes, “after all man’s devices had failed, by the humblest things that God, in his wisdom, has put upon this earth.”

That’s what came to mind when I heard that a New York jury had convicted Donald Trump of 34 felonies. What seemed like an unstoppable force was brought low by the humblest of state laws. And while 34 felony convictions may in fact not stop Trump, the trial does tell us something important about the strengths and weaknesses of America’s constitutional structure.

Read More: Trump Is Now a Felon. What Voters Do With That Information Will Write This Era’s History

Back in 2016, some people hoped the Electoral College would stop Trump. Hamilton Electors , they were called. Didn’t happen. Then impeachment was going to do it, not once, but twice. Again, no dice. And finally, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, written to protect us from oath-breaking insurrectionists, came riding to the rescue only to be rejected by a unanimous vote of the Supreme Court.

These attempts to stop Trump all had a couple of things in common. The first is that they used the tools that the Constitution gives us to prevent bad people from occupying the office of the President. These tools are the heavy artillery, the sophisticated devices painstakingly crafted to protect us from crooks, demagogues, and would-be tyrants. The second is that they all failed—ignominiously.

That’s not because they weren’t built correctly or designed for these circumstances. Historians and constitutional scholars who weighed in on Section 3 and the impeachment tended to agree that Trump presented exactly the threat they were to counter. (The Hamilton electors scheme was a bit more fringe, but some experts supported it too.) The problem is that safeguards built into the political system are only as good as the politicians who apply them. The Constitution is no better than the Court that interprets it. The black smoke of partisanship and self-interest (perhaps all too similar to Wells’ War of the Worlds ) only has to corrupt a few of the governing  elite for our constitutional defenses to fail.

Trump benefited from that failure, but he didn’t cause it. Our constitutional system did. The electoral college, gave us Trump as President even though nearly 3 million more Americans chose Hillary Clinton. The Senate didn’t just refuse to convict in the Trump impeachments; it blocked Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland and gave us the Trump supermajority Supreme Court. And if you think the Supreme Court is a defender of democracy, think again. Our noble Senate, our hallowed Supreme Court, our sacred Constitution—none of these things protected us from Trump. On the whole, they enabled him.

The reason Trump was finally held accountable was not that he ran afoul of the special rules that govern the highest reaches of our political system, the sorts of things that ordinary Americans are not subject to. (Ordinary citizens, for example, don’t have to worry about impeachment, or section three, or faithless electors.) It was not that the enlightened members of our government stood up against him. It was, however, that he couldn’t handle the obligations that law-abiding citizens shoulder as a matter of course in their day-to-day lives. It was that 12 ordinary Americans in an unglamorous trial courtroom ruled that he had broken the laws that everyone else has to follow.

We often think of our system of governance as defined by things the Constitution creates, structures like the Senate, the Supreme Court, or the electoral college, and processes like impeachment. But the negative space matters too—and that is the background of state law. State law, not federal law or the Constitution, is the primary regulator for most Americans. State law creates the environment in which we all live; it is, you could say, in the air we breathe.

When campaigning for the Republican nomination in 2016, Trump said that he could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and not lose any votes. Not for the shooting, maybe. But most people would go to jail for that, and it’s possible that 34 felony counts will drive home a point that some have missed. Most Americans are not involved in more than 4,000 lawsuits . They do not overstate their net worth, market questionable training programs as their own university , or run businesses that engage in tax fraud . That the most ordinary of laws finally caught up to Trump may drive home how distant the divide is between him and the regular Americans he claims to champion. State law that applies equally to all did what the special rules of the Constitution could not.

More Must-Reads from TIME

• How Selena Gomez Is Revolutionizing the Celebrity Beauty Business
• TIME100 Most Influential Companies 2024
• Javier Milei’s Radical Plan to Transform Argentina
• How Private Donors Shape Birth-Control Choices
• The Deadly Digital Frontiers at the Border
• What's the Best Measure of Fitness? 
• The 31 Most Anticipated Movies of Summer 2024
• Want Weekly Recs on What to Watch, Read, and More? Sign Up for Worth Your Time

Contact us at [email protected]

Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely

Meaning of “absolute power corrupts absolutely”.

The proverb , “Absolute power corrupts absolutely” means that whenever a person has power over other people or things, it makes him/her corrupt. It morally destroys their nature and fills them with destructive pride. However, if the person saves himself from this abuse of power, he or she is a humble person. In other words, the phrase also means, ‘power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.’

Origin of “Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely”

This famous sentence is attributed to Lord Acton. It is stated that John Edward Acton, the first baron, has expressed this opinion in his letter written to Bishop Mandell. The letter was written in 1887. The original statements go thus; “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.” However, it is stated that Lord Acton is not the primary originator of this quotation.

In fact, the primary originator of this quotation is an English politician, William Pitt the Elder, Earl of Chatham and former Primer Minister of England from 1766-1778. He is stated to have said in the parliament that “Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it”, which is closest to the phrase, “absolute power corrupts absolutely”.

Examples in Literature

Examples #1.

Power Corrupts and Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely by Muzahidul Reza

Once in jungle a rat was very frightened by a cat Somehow it escaped from the attack, There the rat met a Saint and prayed To be a large cat, So, it was turned into a cat And it began to kill rats, But dogs often used to chase it, Being unhappy it prayed to be a mighty dog, So it was then turned into a big dog And it began to torture the cats, But tigers began to chase it So, again it prayed to be a tiger, Finally the Saint turned it into a tiger, This tiger began to feel very mighty That made it so proud of power, Ill thoughts entered its brain heavily It planned to attack and kill the Saint; Some evidences made the Saint understand Instantly he turned it into the pre-rat.

Muzahidul Reza, an English poet from Bangladesh, wrote serious and political poems and made a name in the South Asian English literature. Muzahidul Reza has beautifully woven the concept of power around the tale of a rate that meets a saint. The saint fulfills his desire of becoming something more significant. The saint sees that he is abusing the power of being a big animal than before instead of using it for helping other creatures. It dawns upon him that power corrupts any creature. Therefore, the title of the poem is apt that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Examples #2

Absolute Power by Luke Kilpatrick and colleagues and sung by Parkway Drive and

“The truth drops like a bomb The truth drops like a bomb The battle is on The hate runs deep, but our hopes cut deeper Now we walk through the valley in the shadow of the reaper Money talks, and it’s speaking in tongues They put a price on our soul like they had already won Now open wide, I see their jaws locked tight Silent in the moment like prey in the floodlights The signal is static, baptised in fire Now we see how they talk with a mouth full of barbed wire Absolute power, absolute power, absolute power Absolute power corrupts absolutely Absolute power, absolute power, absolute power Absolute power corrupts The truth drops like a bomb The truth drops like a bomb The battle is on The truth drops like a… Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

This is the last part of the lyric “Absolute Power” sung by Parkway Drive. In these lines, the singer shows that there is always a battle between hope ad love. However, the true battle for the game of power. Therefore, the singer realizes that “absolute power” corrupts and makes people behave immorally.

Examples #3

Pythias by Frederik Pohl

“Laurence Connaught was an honest man and an idealist, I think. But what would happen to any man when he became God? Suppose you were told twenty-three words that would let you reach into any bank vault, peer inside any closed room, walk through any wall? Suppose pistols could not kill you? They say power corrupts; and absolute power corrupts absolutely. And there can be no more absolute power than the twenty-three words that can free a man of any jail or give him anything he wants. Larry was my friend . But I killed him in cold blood, knowing what I did, because he could not be trusted with the secret that could make him king of the world.”

These two paragraphs have been taken from the short story ‘Pythias,’ written by Frederik Pohl. In a Poe-like style , the writer unravels the hidden mystery of the murder of a character , Laurence Connaught by Dick whom he saves shortly before his death. Dick is telling the audiences that Connaught has literally become God as he knows everything about him. It means that Connaught has power over him for which he has to kill him. He uses the saying in the second paragraph and attributes it to ‘they,’ which means that the character does not know the origin of the saying but knows its nature.

Examples in Sentences as Literary Devices

Examples #1: “ The entire film is based on the antagonist of the film, and the theme is ‘absolute power corrupts absolutely’. We hope the viewers will get the message.”

Examples #2: “You know, William, how power corrupts. The minister thinks he can do anything he wants just like they say absolute power corrupts absolutely. We have to stop him.”

Examples #3: “Power corrupts, anyone who does not like to be corrected, and absolute power corrupts absolutely is like having a spade and using it needlessly.”

Examples #4: “Since Lizzy became the class president she changed, it looks like absolutely power corrupts absolutely.”

Examples #5: “He always consider this maxim that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. That is why he does not give more power to his subordinates than necessary for smooth working.”

Related posts:

• The Power of the Dog
• Top 10 Power Ballads
• A Bad Penny Always Turns Up
• A Fool and His Money Are Soon Parted
• A Different Kettle of Fish
• A Word in Your Shell-Like Ear
• Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here
• According to Hoyle
• After the Fact
• A Pig in a Poke
• Abracadabra
• Accidentally on Purpose
• Ars Longa, Vita Brevis
• An Englishman’s Home Is His Castle
• An Apple A Day
• As Soon As Possible
• As Alike As Two Peas in a Pod
• As Fit As A Butcher’s Dog
• As High As a Kite
• All Things Come to Those Who Wait
• As Pure As The Driven Snow
• As Pleased As Punch
• As Thick As Thieves
• Ashes To Ashes
• Bag and Baggage
• Be All and End All
• Bats in the Belfry
• Beat Around the Bush
• Bean Counter
• Big Fish in a Small Pond
• Beggars Can’t Be Choosers
• Bite the Bullet
• Best Bib and Tucker
• Beware the Ides of March
• Beyond the Pale
• Blood Is Thicker Than Water
• Blood and Thunder
• Blue Plate Special
• Bottom Drawer
• Brand Spanking New
• Black on Black
• Break The Ice
• Bring Home the Bacon
• Cannot Be Overestimated
• Camera Cannot Lie
• Chaise Lounge
• Charity Begins At Home
• As different as Chalk And Cheese
• Charley Horse
• Champ At The Bit
• Cherchez La Femme
• Cheek By Jowl
• Chick Flick
• Chickens Come Home To Roost
• Children Should Be Seen And Not Heard
• Chip On Your Shoulder
• Sticks And Stones May Break My Bones
• Stinking Rich
• Apple of My Eye
•  The Road Less Traveled
• The Pen is Mightier Than the Sword
• ‎Clutch At A Straw
• Cock a Hoop
• The Game is Afoot
• Come What May
• A Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing
• There Are More Ways than One To Skin A Cat
• Tit for Tat
• Stranger Danger
• A Vicious Circle
• Tie the Knot
• The Best Laid Schemes of Mice and Men
• Whistle Down the Wind
• Cop An Attitude
• Cry Havoc And Let Slip The Dogs Of War
• Curiosity Killed The Cat
• Curry Favour
• Davy Jones’ Locker
• Designer Stubble
• The More the Merrier
• A Wild Goose Chase
• Doff Your Hat
• The Devil’s Advocate
• The Devil To Pay
• The Devil is in the Details
• Dog In The Manger

Post navigation

• Newsletters
• Account Activating this button will toggle the display of additional content Account Sign out

A Federal Judge Delivers Another Urgent, Scathing Warning About the Supreme Court

It takes a lot of courage for a lower court judge to criticize the Supreme Court, but Judge Carlton Reeves has long felt a responsibility to speak candidly to the public about threats to their civil rights. In an opinion on Monday, he calls for the abolition of qualified immunity—a noxious legal doctrine that insulates violent and corrupt government officials, especially law enforcement, from accountability. He embedded this call to action in a broader critique of the Supreme Court’s selective application of precedent—with a focus on the cavalier reversal of Roe v. Wade —as well as its pernicious distrust of democracy. Reeves’ opinion warns all who wish to listen that a broad array of our constitutional liberties are in serious and imminent jeopardy.

A Barack Obama appointee, Reeves sits on a U.S. District Court in Mississippi. His latest opinion was sparked by facts that he sees all too often and has written about before : the egregious violation of a criminal suspect’s constitutional rights as an innocent person wrongly charged with a crime. It began when detective Jacquelyn Thomas of Jackson, Mississippi, accused Desmond Green of murder. The detective’s only evidence was a statement made by Green’s acquaintance, Samuel Jennings—after Jennings was arrested for burglary and grand larceny, and while he was under the influence of meth. Thomas allegedly encouraged Jennings to select Green’s picture out of a photo lineup after he identified someone else as the killer. Allegedly, she also misled the grand jury to secure an indictment, concealing Jennings’ drug abuse as well as the many inconsistencies and inaccuracies in his statement.

Jennings later recanted, admitting that, in his meth-addled state, he’d provided a bogus tip. A judge finally dismissed the charges. By that point, Green had spent 22 months in jail, serving pretrial detention. The facility was violent. The food was moldy. He slept on the floor. His cell was infested with snakes and vermin.

Green then sued Thomas, accusing her of malicious prosecution in violation of the Constitution . Thomas promptly asserted qualified immunity to defeat the lawsuit. This doctrine protects government officials from liability unless they run afoul of “clearly established” law. In other words, there must be an earlier case on the books with similar, “particularized” facts that explicitly bars the official’s actions. If there is no near-identical precedent that unambiguously prohibits those acts, qualified immunity kicks in, the lawsuit is tossed out, and the case never even reaches a jury.

This shield has allowed a repulsive amount of wrongdoing by police and prosecutors to go totally unpunished. Cops are permitted to brutally beat, murder , steal from , and conspire against innocent people because the rights they violate are, ostensibly, not “clearly established.” Courts regularly apply the doctrine when there is a tiny discrepancy between a previous case and the facts at hand as an excuse to let the officer off scot-free. And over the past few decades, SCOTUS itself has expanded qualified immunity to new extremes . The result, as Reeves wrote, is “a perpetuation of racial inequality”: Black Americans experience more violations of their civil rights than any other class, yet qualified immunity denies them a remedy in even the most appalling circumstances.

Here, though, Reeves refused to let the doctrine devour the Constitution. He concluded that there is sufficient on-point precedent to show that Thomas’ malicious prosecution, if proved, violated Green’s “clearly established” rights. So the case may go to trial. That, however, was not the end of his analysis—because, as he pointed out, the concept of qualified immunity is unlawful, unworkable, and indefensible.

The first problem is that judges made up the doctrine as a special favor to other employees of the government. Congress, as Reeves explained, gave individuals the power to sue state officials in federal court through the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, enacted after the Civil War so newly freed Black Americans could sue racist and abusive local police. Congress did not establish anything like “qualified immunity” in the statute. Rather, the Supreme Court invented the doctrine in 1967 , purporting to protect cops who commit illegal arrests in “good faith,” and imposed it unilaterally on the nation. It then crept, kudzu-like , into other areas of law.

“The People never enshrined qualified immunity in the Constitution,” Reeves wrote. “Our representatives in Congress never put it into the statute or voted for it. No President signed it into law. If anything, it represents a kind of ‘trickle-down’ democratic legitimacy.” In recent years, the Supreme Court has not bothered to account for qualified immunity’s origins, but rather maintains it on the basis of respect for precedent: It exists already, so it might as well keep existing.

And here is where Reeves goes for the jugular: The Supreme Court has tossed out far more defensible and entrenched precedent on the basis of far feebler excuses. How can it justify keeping qualified immunity around while recklessly destabilizing vast areas of settled law it doesn’t like?

SCOTUS has suggested that law enforcement officers have come to rely on qualified immunity, creating a “reliance interest” that counsels keeping the doctrine. But when the court overruled Roe in 2022’s Dobbs decision, Reeves wrote, the majority rejected that “kind of vague, ‘generalized assertion about the national psyche.’ ” Instead, Reeves wrote, the justices “thought voters should resolve reliance interests, not judges.” He then repurposed Dobbs ’ most notorious lines : “After all, just like women, law enforcement officers and their unions ‘are not without electoral or political power.’ ” Law enforcement officers, like women, can “affect the legislative process by influencing public opinion, lobbying legislators, voting, and running for office.” If courts can’t protect women’s bodily autonomy, he asked, why should they do the bidding of police unions?

Dobbs , Reeves went on, “also reflects the Supreme Court’s desire to remove itself from the center of a hot-button issue and return it to the electoral process.” Police reform, like abortion, is undoubtedly a “controversy on issues of life and death, where passions run high.” Yet even after Dobbs , SCOTUS “has not yet seen fit to return this contested issue to the democratic process,” Reeves opined. “It is not clear why.” After all, “the current court is certainly not shy about overturning precedent.” And the list of cases on the chopping block “seems to grow every year.” Teachers’ unions and racial minorities have watched the court gut precedent that shielded them for decades. Why should cops get favored treatment? Merely because of SCOTUS’ “policy-based choice” to “privilege government officials over all others.”

Reeves has a complex history with reproductive rights. He was the district court judge who struck down the Mississippi law that the Supreme Court later upheld in Dobbs when overruling Roe . His emphatic opinion famously accused the Mississippi Legislature of misogynistic “gaslighting,” analogizing the state’s defiance of Roe to its earlier defiance of Brown v. Board of Education . It’s evident that, to Reeves, the Supreme Court’s embrace of democracy in Dobbs rings hollow alongside its rejection of democracy in so many other areas, including the Second Amendment. (In a pointed footnote, he called out the court for treating the right to bear arms as a uniquely absolute, unlimited freedom —while greenlighting the erosion of other liberties that it values less.)

The judge folds together these rather scathing observations by reminding us that the Supreme Court’s creation and expansion of qualified immunity is, itself, a rejection of democracy. The Framers, after all, envisioned jury trials as a bulwark of democratic power, a check by “We the People” on government abuse. It was, Reeves wrote, designed to be exercised “one dispute at a time, day after day, rather than on fixed election days.” Unfortunately, an arrogant “judicial supremacy has too-often deprived the people of their proper role” in deciding whether public officials should be liable for their unconstitutional acts. Qualified immunity “reflects a deep distrust of ordinary people” in direct conflict with the Constitution. “In the same way we trust the collective judgment of voters in elections, we must trust the judgment of jurors in deciding cases,” Reeves wrote. They can resolve “tensions and contradictions case by case, as the evidence dictates.” All judges must do “is tell jurors the truth.”

Will the Supreme Court listen? The conservative justices seem disinclined to reevaluate their cynical, selective concerns about precedent and democracy. But with this opinion, Reeves has given the public yet another reason to question these justices’ increasingly dubious wisdom and integrity. Just as importantly, other judges may take note of Monday’s critique and follow Reeves’ suggestion of narrowing qualified immunity wherever possible. They might even join him in calling for its eradication, forcing SCOTUS to either stand by its handiwork or reevaluate it. The judge’s simple suggestion boils down to this: If we’re going to do democracy, let’s actually do democracy—not whatever partisan, half-baked substitute this Supreme Court is trying to pass off to the people.

Here comes the spiral: A criminally guilty Donald Trump is a dangerous Donald Trump

Donald trump's criminal liability now becomes a liability for the nation, by chauncey devega.

On Thursday, the jury in Donald Trump’s New York hush-money trial issued their verdict: Guilty on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. The former president's sentencing is scheduled for early July.

Donald Trump, is quite predictably, very upset and enraged . On Wednesday, as Trump was leaving the courthouse, he complained, wallowing in self-pity, that the trial was “very unfair” and “Mother Teresa could not beat those charges, but we’ll see. We’ll see how we do.” Trump spent the day on his Truth Social disinformation platform ranting and raging about the legal "witch hunt” against him. Of course, none of this is true. Donald Trump is finally being held somewhat responsible for his decades-long crime spree.

A group of  Donald Trump’s political cultists have reportedly been crying and praying  outside of the Manhattan courthouse. To have 12 everyday Americans find him guilty must be disconcerting for both Trump and his MAGA political cult members.  On this, John Gallagher writes :

While much has been made of the magnitude of the moment – the first president ever to undergo a criminal trial – what emerged during the beginning of the trial was not how big the trial was but how small it made Trump look. The courtroom is tired and shabby, the antithesis of the garish surroundings that are so important to Trump. The room itself is cold, leaving Trump at the mercy of a malfunctioning HVAC system. For someone who insists on ostentatious displays of wealth and control, the setting itself is precisely the kind of place that Trump would never deign to set foot in, let alone spend weeks in. Then there was the problem that Trump can’t rage at his enemies, real or perceived. He had to sit there and take it as would-be jurors variously described him as “selfish,” “negative,” and “self-serving.” Then there were the social media posts of jurors, which are sometimes read in court by Trump’s own lawyers. One particularly choice post said, “I wouldn’t believe Donald Trump if his tongue were notarized.”… For someone for whom that image is everything, the trial really shake Trump’s very being. He could not escape the courtroom without appearing diminished, less than he wants people to believe he is. If he’s convicted, he will be in an even worse place, as the thought of jail by many accounts frightens him.

Trump’s rage was an expression of his deep foreboding and knowledge that he was likely going to be convicted.

On Thursday, shortly after he was convicted, Trump sent out a fundraising email declaring that he is now a “political prisoner."  Later in the day, Trump sent out another fundraising email — this one even more venomous and vile:

BREAKING FROM TRUMP:  JUSTICE IS DEAD IN AMERICA! I was just convicted in a RIGGED TRIAL meant to interfere in our elections. Their sick & twisted goal is simple: Pervert the justice system against me so much, that proud supporters like YOU will  SPIT  when you hear my name. BUT THAT WILL NEVER HAPPEN! Friend - NOW IT’S TIME FOR ME & YOU TO SHOVE IT BACK IN THEIR CORRUPT FACES! Today is a  DARK DAY   in history, but your response right now will shine brighter than the 1,000 suns. Only with your support can we STOP these people from  DESTROYING  our country. But I know with you by my side, WE WILL WIN! WE WILL MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

Again, Donald Trump is distorting the facts, outright lying, and attempting to get money from his MAGA political cultists while also encouraging their violence and insurrection.

In a statement delivered outside the courthouse after his verdict, Trump told the world, “ This was a disgrace….This was a rigged trial by a conflicted judge who's corrupt. It's a rigged trial, a disgrace. They wouldn't give us a venue change. We were at 5% or 6% in this district, in this area. This was a rigged, disgraceful trial. The real verdict is gonna be Nov. 5, by the people. And they know what happened here, and everybody knows what happened here . . . we didn't do a thing wrong. I'm a very innocent man. It's okay. I'm fighting for our country. I'm fighting for our Constitution. Our whole country is being rigged right now. This was done by the Biden administration, in order to wound or hurt a political opponent. And I think it's just a disgrace. And we'll keep fighting. We'll fight 'til the end, and we'll win."

We need your help to stay independent

In all, Donald Trump’s hush-money trial is truly historic. It is the first time a former or current president has been put on trial for criminal offenses (felonies). As such, this is the first time a jury has found a former President of the United States criminally guilty. 

Whatever the outcome, the 2024 election will be historic in many other ways as well with Donald Trump being the first president to attempt a coup, a convicted felon, a sex assaulter as confirmed by a court of law, and now a person under court supervision. No law prevents a felon from running for office and being elected president. Moreover, however unlikely, Donald Trump could win the 2024 election while in prison. He could then orchestrate his release.

The verdict in Trump’s hush-money trial is not a triumph or something to celebrate.  At the Atlantic, Charles Sykes writes : "For the moment, Trump’s fate is in the hands of a New York jury. But ultimately, his fate will be up to the voters, won’t it? Millions of voters seem disengaged from this year’s campaign.  A New York Times analysis  of recent polling found that Trump’s current lead rests with voters “who aren’t paying close attention to politics, who don’t follow traditional news and who don’t regularly vote.” Young voters  seem especially dismayed  about the election and cynical about the stakes. But Trump continues to tell us who he is and what he intends to do. We’ve been warned, and nobody—including that jury—is coming to save us before November."

Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter , Crash Course.

In all, the spectacle of Donald Trump’s criminal trial(s), like the Trumpocene more generally (and how we arrived at this societal crisis) is further evidence of how the American people are being targeted by what  Henry Giroux describes as a “disimagination machine(s)” :

These tools of indoctrination relentlessly churn out manufactured ignorance and a shallow notion of self-interest, promoting a depoliticized notion of individualism. Additionally, these machineries of misinformation undermine the moral imagination’s power to empathize with the claims of others while undercutting the courage of individuals to see beyond the socially induced fog of a culture of immediacy. In this context, critical inquiry and thinking are divorced from the public imagination as sources of resistance. One consequence is that individuals and the larger public are thwarted from envisioning a future that advances democratic values of social and economic justice.

Ultimately, we should be very weary and suspicious of anyone with a public platform in the news media, punditry, and/or political class, who claims, with absolute certainty, to know what will happen to the country after Trump’s conviction in the hush-money trial. There are too many variables at play.

It is already happening. On Thursday, NBC news reported that Judge Juan Merchan has been targeted with death threats from Trump’s MAGA people.

How will Donald Trump’s conviction and status as a felon will impact how the American people will vote in the 2024 election? Again, we do not know. But with Trump’s historic conviction, there is at least the reasonable hope that he will have a more difficult time of winning the 2024 election and becoming the country’s first dictator. That final decision will be made not in a courtroom by a jury and a judge, but in the voting booth by the American people.

about this topic

• "Trump is all dominance, all the time”: New research reveals "his most formidable political asset"
• Trump is conditioning MAGA for the next stage
• Trump's courthouse clown show can't hide it: There's barely any MAGA support in the streets

Chauncey DeVega is a senior politics writer for Salon. His essays can also be found at  Chaunceydevega.com . He also hosts a weekly podcast,  The Chauncey DeVega Show . Chauncey can be followed on  Twitter  and  Facebook .

Related Topics ------------------------------------------

Related articles.

Donald Trump was convicted on felony charges. Will he go to prison?

A New York jury's historic conviction of Donald Trump on felony charges means his fate is now in the hands of the judge he has repeatedly ripped as "corrupt" and "incompetent."

Two experts told NBC News that it's unlikely Trump will be imprisoned based on his age, lack of a criminal record and other factors — and an analysis of thousands of cases found that very few people charged with the same crime receive jail time. But a third expert told NBC News he believes it is "substantially" likely Trump could end up behind bars.

Trump was convicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records , a class E felony that is punishable by a fine, probation or up to four years in prison per count. During the trial, Judge Juan Merchan threatened to put Trump behind bars for violating his gag order, but it’s unclear whether the former president will face similar consequences now. It's expected that any sentence would be imposed concurrently, instead of consecutively.

Former federal prosecutor Chuck Rosenberg, an NBC News analyst, said it's unlikely that Merchan would sentence Trump, 77, to any jail time, given his age and his status as a first-time, nonviolent offender. "I’d be very surprised if there's any sentence of incarceration at all," Rosenberg said. “Of course, he did spend a good bit of time insulting the judge who has the authority to incarcerate him.”

The next step for Trump at this point is his sentencing, which is set for July 11. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg would not comment Thursday on what type of sentence he’d seek, saying his office would do it’s speaking in court papers in the weeks ahead.

Arthur Aidala, a former prosecutor in the Brooklyn district attorney's office who's now a defense lawyer, said the judge will most likely use some of the time before sentencing to research similar cases to determine what the median sentence is.

"He wants to know before he sentences someone what the typical sentence is," Aidala said, and would consider other factors, like Trump's age and lack of a criminal record, while also taking into account the lack of injury caused by the crime. Aidala said he believes whatever punishment Merchan comes up with would be "a non-jail disposition."

An analysis conducted by Norm Eisen, who worked for House Democrats during Trump’s first impeachment, found that roughly 1 in 10 people who have been convicted of falsifying business records are imprisoned and that those cases typically involved other crimes.

Ron Kuby, a veteran New York criminal defense lawyer, took a different view.

“Judge Merchan is known for being a harsh sentencer when it comes to white-collar crimes committed by people who have wealth and privilege and power,” he said.

Kuby added he believes "it is substantially likely Judge Merchan will sentence Trump to jail or prison time," despite the logistical and practical complications that locking up a person with Secret Service protection would entail.

Kuby said that's because the criminal scheme went on for over a year and included a number of bad acts on Trump's part.

“It’s an entire course of conduct he was involved with — not just one bad decision,” he said.

Trump, however, most likely doesn't have to worry about missing the Republican National Convention, where he's expected to accept the party's nomination, even though it's taking place just days after his sentencing. Kuby said he'd most likely be able to remain free while he appeals the conviction.

Trump's behavior during the trial, including his flouting Merchan's gag order by making comments about witnesses and the jury, isn't likely to be a factor in the sentencing decision, Kuby said. It's also highly unlikely that comments that appeared to be aimed at sidestepping the gag order by Republican officials who attended the trial as Trump's guests will figure into Merchan's reasoning, Kuby added.

"If the judge is smart, he'd stay away from that," Kuby said. "The best way for judges not to get reversed in a sentencing is to stick to the facts and circumstances of the crimes and conviction."

Rosenberg said that despite Trump’s frequent criticisms of Merchan, which he likened to “a batter who’s been yelling at the umpire from before the first pitch,” Merchan appeared to run “a clean and fair trial.”

Rosenberg and Kuby agreed that Trump would appeal the verdict. Kuby said that could delay Trump's serving whatever punishment Merchan doles out for years, even if the appeal is ultimately unsuccessful.

His first appeal will be to the state Appellate Division, a midlevel appeals court, and it will almost certainly not decide the appeal until after the November election, Kuby said. If he loses there, he could then appeal to the state's highest court, the Court of Appeals. A loss there would be followed by a request to the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case.

If all that fails, Kuby said, he could then try turning to federal court in another attempt to eventually get the case before the Supreme Court.

The appeals process typically takes a long time — Kuby said he had one client who staved off prison time for six years — but there's another potential complicating factor in this case.

"If he becomes president of the United States, he cannot be incarcerated in a state prison" while he's in office, Kuby said, because it could prevent him from fulfilling his constitutional duties. If he lost his appeals, "by the time he leaves office — if he leaves office — he'd be ready to be incarcerated," he said.

Dareh Gregorian is a politics reporter for NBC News.

Adam Reiss is a reporter and producer for NBC and MSNBC.

Live Updates: Trump Lashes Out After Conviction in Misleading Speech

Donald J. Trump, the first U.S. president to become a felon, excoriated prosecutors and the judge in his criminal case and ran through a litany of false statements as he spoke to reporters and a small crowd of vetted supporters at Trump Tower in Midtown Manhattan.

• Share full article

Michael Gold and Matthew Haag

Here’s what to know after Trump’s conviction.

Donald J. Trump sought to turn the enormous public interest in his criminal conviction to his advantage on Friday, taking over the gilded lobby of Trump Tower in Manhattan to deliver a rambling 33-minute speech laden with baseless attacks on the prosecution team and the presiding judge and other falsehoods and misleading claims, while boasting about receiving a windfall in campaign contributions. He also said he would appeal the conviction.

Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee and the first person who has served as commander in chief to become a convicted felon, derided the trial as “rigged,” made numerous false statements about what had taken place in court and called the judge “a devil.” The speech came one day after he was found guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up a sex scandal that threatened to derail his 2016 presidential campaign.

President Biden said a few hours later that Mr. Trump’s remarks were reckless, dangerous and irresponsible. Mr. Trump, who did not testify in the trial, had been “given every opportunity to defend himself,” Mr. Biden said.

“Our justice system has endured for nearly 250 years, and it literally is the cornerstone of America,” Mr. Biden said at the White House. “The justice system should be respected.”

Mr. Trump’s sentencing is set for July 11. He faces probation or up to four years in prison.

Here is what else to know:

At Trump Tower on Friday , Mr. Trump continued to attack people who testified against him in the seven-week trial, specifically his former fixer, Michael D. Cohen, the star witness for the prosecution. He also admitted that he had gotten “very upset” with his lawyers.

The guilty verdict gave President Biden’s campaign a fresh way to frame the 2024 election : a stark choice between someone who is a felon and someone who is not. The verdict is likely to focus attention on Mr. Trump in a way that Mr. Biden’s supporters have long hoped it would.

Though Mr. Trump has promised to appeal , any such effort will take time, and New York’s appellate system could take years to dispose of the case. Read more about what comes next in the legal process .

Despite his felony conviction, Mr. Trump can still run for president . The Constitution sets very few eligibility requirements, and there are no limitations based on character or criminal record. If elected, Mr. Trump could not pardon himself because presidential pardon power does not extend to state cases.

Mr. Trump’s campaign said it had raised $34.8 million after the verdict , shattering online records for Republicans. That money will help him close the gap with Mr. Biden, who has so far held the financial advantage.

Alvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, risked his reputation by indicting Mr. Trump in a case that some prominent Democrats said wasn’t strong enough to have brought against a former president. Instead, Mr. Bragg cemented his place in history as the first prosecutor to convict a former president.

Matthew Haag

6 weeks, 22 witnesses: Highlights from Trump’s trial.

For weeks in a Lower Manhattan courthouse, prosecutors brought one witness after another who testified about various aspects of a broad scheme to help Donald J. Trump get elected president by buying damaging stories about him and concealing them from the American public.

On Thursday, the jury agreed with the prosecution’s case , finding Mr. Trump guilty on all charges that he faced: 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with that effort. Mr. Trump is now the first person who has served as commander in chief to be convicted of a crime.

Central to the case was a $130,000 payment made days before the election to a porn star, Stormy Daniels, who said she had had sex with Mr. Trump a decade earlier, and his reimbursements to his former fixer, Michael D. Cohen, who had paid her off. Mr. Trump was convicted of falsifying business records to try to hide his payments to Mr. Cohen.

The Trump Manhattan Criminal Verdict, Count By Count

Former President Donald J. Trump faced 34 felony charges of falsifying business records, related to the reimbursement of hush money paid to the porn star Stormy Daniels in order to cover up a sex scandal around the 2016 presidential election.

Here are the highlights of the criminal trial, which spanned seven weeks, featured 22 witnesses and detailed trysts, celebrity gossip , financial documents and hush-money deals.

A Scheme to Influence the 2016 Election

In the first weeks of the trial, witnesses called by the prosecution portrayed a clandestine scheme involving Mr. Trump, Mr. Cohen and the supermarket tabloid The National Enquirer, who worked to bury damaging allegations about Mr. Trump while promoting positive coverage of him and negative coverage of his rivals.

That testimony began with David Pecker , the tabloid’s former publisher and the first witness who took the stand. Mr. Pecker described a mutually beneficial relationship with Mr. Trump that dated to when Mr. Trump hosted the popular reality television show “The Apprentice.”

The Links Between Trump and 3 Hush-Money Deals

Here’s how key figures involved in making hush-money payoffs on behalf of Donald J. Trump are connected.

But there was a shift in that relationship that started shortly after Mr. Trump announced his presidential campaign in 2015. On the stand, Mr. Pecker detailed a pivotal meeting in August 2015 at Trump Tower in Midtown Manhattan. There, he said, Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen asked him how he could “help the campaign.”

“I said what I would do is I would run, or publish, positive stories about Mr. Trump, and I would publish negative stories about his opponents,” Mr. Pecker testified.

Mr. Pecker detailed three specific deals reached to help Mr. Trump before the election.

One involved a doorman at a Trump Organization property who shared an apparently false rumor that Mr. Trump had fathered a child out of wedlock. The Enquirer reached a deal in 2016 to pay the man $30,000 for the tip, effectively burying the story.

The next deal involved Karen McDougal, a Playboy model who said she had a monthslong affair with Mr. Trump that started in 2006. Mr. Pecker said he spoke with Mr. Trump about her and with Mr. Cohen about how to handle her claim. Mr. Trump called her a “nice girl,” Mr. Pecker testified.

The Enquirer’s parent company, American Media Inc., ended up paying $150,000 to buy the rights to her story and then bury it, a tactic known as “catch and kill.” Mr. Pecker said on the stand that the The Enquirer had no intention of printing Ms. McDougal’s account and that the deal was intended to help Mr. Trump’s campaign.

The Silenced Porn Star

The heart of the case, as well as the criminal scheme to influence the election, was the silencing of Ms. Daniels .

Around the same time Ms. McDougal’s hush-money deal was made, Mr. Pecker said, The Enquirer had been discussing buying the silence of Ms. Daniels to assist Mr. Trump.

When Ms. Daniels testified during the trial, she said under oath what she has been saying for years: that she met Mr. Trump at a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe, Nev., in 2006 and had sex with him in his hotel room.

Ms. Daniels said that she had considered going public about her account, which Mr. Pecker heard about in 2016 and flagged to Mr. Cohen. But Mr. Pecker declined to pay Ms. Daniels after making the two other deals on Mr. Trump’s behalf. “I am not a bank,” Mr. Pecker recalled saying.

Mr. Pecker and the tabloid’s editor, Dylan Howard, connected Mr. Cohen with Ms. Daniels’s lawyer, Keith Davidson , to negotiate a hush-money deal. Near the end of October 2016, and just days before the election, Mr. Cohen wired Ms. Daniels $130,000 from a newly formed entity he had created at First Republic Bank, funded with a home equity line of credit.

Lawyers for Mr. Trump accused Ms. Daniels of being motivated by money and seeking to profit from the alleged encounter. “Not unlike Mr. Trump,” she responded on the stand .

The Damaging Testimony of White House Aides

Among the 20 witnesses called by the prosecution were two close aides to Mr. Trump when he was president: Hope Hicks, a campaign aide who became the White House communications director, and Madeleine Westerhout , who served as the director of Oval Office operations.

Ms. Hicks testified about concerns within Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign about potentially damaging headlines surfacing before the 2016 election. Most memorably, she described the seismic impact the release of the so-called “Access Hollywood” tape , in which Mr. Trump was recorded bragging about grabbing women’s genitals, had on his campaign.

As soon as the tape was disclosed in October 2016, Ms. Hicks said, she knew it would be “a massive story.” A few weeks later, Mr. Cohen, particularly concerned about the effect the revelations would have on female voters , negotiated a hush-money deal with Ms. Daniels.

Ms. Hicks described Mr. Trump as a micromanager and acknowledged that it seemed unbelievable that Mr. Cohen would pay hush money to Ms. Daniels on his own accord, and without Mr. Trump’s buy-in.

Ms. Westerhout described her involvement in setting up a key meeting between Mr. Cohen and Mr. Trump in the Oval Office in February 2017. It was after that meeting that Mr. Trump started to reimburse Mr. Cohen for his payoff to Ms. Daniels. The associated checks, invoices and ledger entries, which were disguised as routine legal expenses, are the documents that spurred the charges.

Once Mr. Trump’s Lawyer, Now the Prosecution’s Star Witness

Mr. Cohen took the stand as the final witness called by the prosecution. He confirmed many details provided by Mr. Pecker and others about the broad scheme to help Mr. Trump’s campaign and hurt his political rivals. And he spoke about the rush to silence Ms. Daniels just before voters went to the polls.

Mr. Cohen said that Mr. Trump made it clear to him in late October 2016, just before the election, that he wanted Ms. Daniels to be paid off. “He expressed to me, ‘Just do it,’” Mr. Cohen said.

He also described a conversation with Mr. Trump and Allen Weisselberg, then the Trump Organization’s chief financial officer , in which he said Mr. Trump was apprised of the plan for Mr. Cohen to pay Ms. Daniels and then be repaid.

The checks started to flow to Mr. Cohen in early 2017 and continued throughout the year, eventually totaling $420,000. The total accounted for reimbursement of the hush money, other debts and tax concerns.

“Once I received the money back from Mr. Trump, I would deposit it and no one would be the wiser,” Mr. Cohen testified .

Lawyers for Mr. Trump focused their defense on attacking Mr. Cohen’s credibility, portraying him as a serial liar bent on taking down the former president. But the 12 jurors found his testimony credible and convicted Mr. Trump after 10 hours of deliberations.

Advertisement

Michael Gold

Trump shared a grid of screen captures from broadcasts of this morning’s news conference on social media, all of which show him standing in front of a group of American flags. Trump is known to obsess over images of himself, and even as many of the on-screen graphics highlighted his conviction, the photos were markedly distinct from the images of Trump that were spread during his trial, showing him sitting at the defense table in court.

Luke Broadwater

Reporting from Washington

Johnson says the Supreme Court should step in to overturn Trump’s conviction.

Speaker Mike Johnson on Friday urged the Supreme Court to intervene in former President Donald J. Trump’s appeal of his felony conviction, by overturning the decision and granting him immunity from prosecution.

“I do believe the Supreme Court should step in,” Mr. Johnson told Fox News during an interview the morning after Mr. Trump became the first former president to be convicted of any crime. “Obviously, this is totally unprecedented.”

Mr. Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records after a Manhattan jury considered allegations that he participated in a scheme to pay hush money to a porn star to cover up an affair before the 2016 presidential election.

Speaking on Fox, Mr. Johnson said he knew some of the justices on the Supreme Court personally and believed that they shared his view that Mr. Trump was a victim of unfair and politically motivated prosecutions. He also suggested that the legal system was biased against Mr. Trump and other conservatives.

“So I think they’ll set this straight,” Mr. Johnson said, “but it’s going to take a while.”

He added later: “I think this court will do the right thing, because they see the abuse of the system right now.”

Mr. Johnson has long been a steadfast supporter of Mr. Trump. After Mr. Trump lost the 2020 election, Mr. Johnson played a leading role in recruiting House Republicans to sign a legal brief supporting a lawsuit seeking to overturn the results.

The Supreme Court ultimately rejected the suit , but not before Mr. Johnson persuaded more than 60 percent of House Republicans to sign onto the effort. He did so by telling them that the initiative had been personally blessed by Mr. Trump, and that the former president was “anxiously awaiting” to see who in Congress would defend him.

Since becoming speaker, Mr. Johnson has traveled to Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s private club and residence in Florida, to hold a joint news conference with him. Mr. Johnson also visited him in New York during his criminal trial to show loyalty and support and condemn the proceedings.

In the interview on Fox, Mr. Johnson also boasted about the National Republican Campaign Committee’s fund-raising numbers, which he said were the highest since he won the gavel last fall.

“There’s good reason to be motivated,” Mr. Johnson said of Republican base voters. “This entire thing is absurd.

Looking to capitalize on base outrage about the conviction, Mr. Johnson said House Republicans set up a new website — supportDJT.com — where G.O.P. donors could send them money to help defend Mr. Trump.

“We broke records on our fund-raising platforms last night,” Mr. Johnson said. “We’ll continue to do that.”

William K. Rashbaum ,  Ben Protess and Michael Gold

Trump’s declaration that he will appeal sets off a long legal journey.

After a five-year investigation and a seven-week trial, Donald J. Trump was convicted on Thursday of falsifying records to cover up a sex scandal. But that will not be the last word on the case.

Mr. Trump declared on Friday that he would appeal the landmark verdict, suggesting his lawyers had several grounds.

“We’ll be appealing this scam,” he said at a rambling news conference at Trump Tower in Manhattan. “We’ll be appealing it on many different things. He wouldn’t allow us to have witnesses or have us talk or allow us to do anything. The judge was a tyrant.”

The appeals process is not swift, and could take months or more to resolve, all but ensuring that Mr. Trump will remain a felon when voters head to the polls in November.

Before the appellate process even begins, the former president’s lawyers will likely file a motion to set aside the verdict. The bar for that is high, usually involving newly discovered evidence, evidence of juror misconduct or an egregious error by the judge. Legal experts say such a bid would be highly unlikely to succeed.

Then, on July 11, the judge who oversaw the trial will issue Mr. Trump’s punishment. He could sentence Mr. Trump up to four years in prison or impose only probation.

The sentencing, whatever it might be, will trigger Mr. Trump’s long and winding appeals process, starting a 30-day clock for him to file a notice of appeal.

That notice is just a legal stake in the ground. Mr. Trump will then mount his actual appeal, which could proceed on either of two tracks, depending on the sentence he receives.

If he receives prison or jail time, Mr. Trump will likely be released on bail pending the appeal, and his lawyers would have 120 days to file their brief with New York State’s Appellate Division, First Department. If his sentence is probation, his lawyers have six months to file with the court, a deadline that is often extended.

The next step is for the prosecution to respond, which likely would happen several months later.

Once the case is finally in the First Department’s hands, a decision could still take months to emerge. Given the length of the trial — and thus the length of the transcript to be reviewed — the panel of five appellate court judges likely would not hear arguments until next year, and might not issue a decision until late 2025 or even early 2026.

And those judges won’t necessarily have the final say.

If the Appellate Division upholds the conviction, Mr. Trump can seek leave to appeal to the New York Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court. If the conviction is overturned, Mr. Bragg’s office can also seek to take the case to the Court of Appeals.

Mr. Trump might also have a final option: the United States Supreme Court.

That would be a long shot, legal experts said. But in an appearance on Fox News on Friday, the speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, argued that the nation’s highest court should take up Mr. Trump’s cause.

“I think that the justices on the court, I know many of them personally, I think they’re deeply concerned,” said Mr. Johnson, a Trump ally. “I think they’ll set this straight, but it’s going to take a while.”

In the wake of the verdict, Mr. Trump appeared to grasp the daunting journey ahead. On Thursday, moments after his conviction, he said somberly: “This is long from over.”

Maggie Haberman and Michael Gold

Trump rails against his guilty verdict, claiming ‘sick people’ are behind his prosecution.

It was billed as an event where Donald J. Trump would deliver remarks about his criminal conviction.

Instead, the former president and presumptive Republican nominee gave a discursive mini-rally on Friday filled with misleading statements about what had taken place inside a Manhattan courtroom a day earlier and familiar campaign attacks against President Biden and his Democratic allies.

“This is a case where if they can do this to me, they can do this to anyone,” Mr. Trump said of the prosecutors from the office of the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, who won a conviction against him. “These are bad people. These are in many cases, I believe, sick people.”

Then, he began to go back and forth between the trial and the standard stump speech he uses to broadly portray immigrants crossing the border as violent, mentally ill criminals.

After seven weeks of holding the media’s gaze from the start of jury selection until the reading of his guilty verdict, Mr. Trump on Friday spoke and spoke and spoke in the lobby of Trump Tower, jumping from one topic to another for 33 minutes in front of the photographers and television cameras gathered in a crescent shape around his podium. A few dozen supporters, all of them employees who work in the building, flanked his other side.

Mr. Trump complained about the charges against him and then about his own lawyers, whom he verbally brutalized privately throughout the trial. “Falsification of business records in the first degree — it sounds so bad,” Mr. Trump said. “I said, ‘Wow.’ And even my own lawyers, I get very upset with them, because they don’t say what it is.”

He again claimed that he had wanted to testify on his own behalf but said he ultimately opted not to, after concluding he that would have faced many questions aimed at catching him in a lie.

“I would have loved to have testified; to this day I would have liked to have testified. But you would have been — you would have said something out of whack, like, ‘It was a beautiful, sunny day,’ and it was actually raining out,” Mr. Trump said.

He smeared witnesses whom he never named, insisting that he remains bound by a gag order that prevents him from doing so. He criticized Michael D. Cohen, the key witness against him, without naming him, but also insisted he was an “effective lawyer” and that he wasn’t a “fixer,” as he’s been described.

But Mr. Cohen did almost no legal work for Mr. Trump during the period of time he was being paid money that was logged as legal expenses. Those expenses were actually a reimbursement for a hush-money payment to a porn star, prosecutors had argued in the trial. The jury agreed.

The setting on Friday signaled a kind of shift as Mr. Trump campaigns to return to the White House. Though he has held a handful of rallies while on trial, Mr. Trump’s public remarks for much of the past six weeks were limited to a drab, sterile courtroom hallway that emphasized his status as a criminal defendant.

The return to the marble and brass décor of Trump Tower and to lines from his stump speech felt like an announcement — that his first criminal trial was over, and that he was now free to return to the trail, albeit as a convicted felon. At the start of his remarks, Mr. Trump strode past the escalator that had carried him, in 2015, to his campaign announcement, a descent and a decision that set up the events at the heart of his conviction.

Mr. Trump, who has been indicted four times in four different jurisdictions, described himself as being tarred because he is fighting for the country, once again portraying himself as being the victim of political persecution.

“I’m doing something for our Constitution,” he said. “It’s very important, far beyond me. And this can’t be allowed to happen to other presidents, should never be allowed to happen in the future.”

Mr. Trump used the opportunity to delve into territory that may be less politically advantageous for him to highlight: the investigation conducted by a congressional committee about his behavior in the lead up to the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. His advisers generally prefer he not discuss the events surrounding that attack by a pro-Trump mob, which they see as a political risk.

Mr. Trump at one point talked about the trial through the lens of Christian morality, arguing that witnesses whose accounts backed his were “literally crucified” by the judge, whom Mr. Trump said “looks like an angel, but he’s really a devil.”

Mr. Trump cast his conviction as part of a larger moral question facing the country, after a prosecution that he and his supporters — and, privately, some Democrats — view as flawed. “This is bigger than Trump. This is bigger than me,” he said. “This is bigger than my presidency.”

Mr. Trump often suggests that something he has been accused of doing is something that many other people have done as well, and he leaned on that argument again on Friday.

“I could go through the books of any business person in the city, and I could find things that in theory, I guess, ‘Let’s indict him, let’s destroy his life,’” Mr. Trump said.

Mr. Trump said he would appeal the verdict on several grounds, a decision previewed by his lawyer, Todd Blanche, the day before. “We’ll be appealing this scam,” Mr. Trump said. “We’ll be appealing it on many different things.”

Less than 24 hours after a jury made history by making Mr. Trump the first former president to be a convicted felon, Mr. Trump sought to downplay the importance of the verdict. He concluded his remarks by suggesting the only judgment that mattered to him was the one at the ballot box.

“Remember, Nov. 5 is the most important day in the history of our country,” Mr. Trump said. “Thank you.”

Nicholas Nehamas

President Biden’s restrained comments on Trump's conviction suggest that he and his campaign plan to stay the course they have carefully followed so far: Leave biting attacks on Trump’s legal troubles to allies and outside groups while emphasizing the rule of law. Campaign aides say abortion, democracy and the economy will remain the focus of the president’s re-election message.

Michael M. Grynbaum

News organizations cut away from Trump’s misleading speech.

Several major networks cut away from former President Donald J. Trump on Friday during an appearance that had been promoted as a news conference at Trump Tower devolved into a rambling and misleading speech.

It was the latest example of television journalists having to weigh the news value of a major political moment — in this case, the criminal conviction of a former president — against the challenges of reporting on a candidate who regularly speaks in falsehoods.

Mr. Trump’s unfiltered remarks were carried live by cable news channels and NBC, which broke into its usual daytime programming to cover his appearance. In the minutes before he began speaking, MSNBC, CNN and Fox News all aired anticipatory camera shots of an empty lectern.

Mr. Trump began by speaking in his usual discursive, dissembling manner. He unleashed a litany of false statements about his Manhattan trial, attacking witnesses, calling the judge the “devil” and falsely accusing President Biden of being involved in the prosecution.

NBC aired Mr. Trump for 20 minutes before the anchor Lester Holt cut in. “We were told this was going to be a news conference,” he told viewers, before bringing on two legal analysts to dissect and fact-check the remarks. “There is no evidence that Biden was behind any of this,” Mr. Holt said.

ABC and CBS did not interrupt their regular shows.

On MSNBC, where anchors have sometimes refused to air Mr. Trump live, the former president’s appearance aired for about 20 minutes before the network broke away. Later, an on-screen graphic read: “Trump Post-Verdict Remarks Riddled With Lies and Attacks.”

CNN broadcast Mr. Trump for 18 minutes before cutting to a fact-checking segment. Several networks told viewers they would return to Mr. Trump’s appearance once he began speaking with reporters, but the former president did not take press questions. The New York Times, on its website, had a livestream of Mr. Trump’s appearance for about six minutes before cutting the feed and continuing to publish written updates on its blog.

Fox News aired Mr. Trump’s appearance in its entirety.

During the 2016 campaign, Mr. Trump infuriated television journalists when he teased a “major announcement” related to his past lies about Barack Obama’s place of birth. Networks took his remarks live, but the appearance quickly turned into a campaign rally.

“We got played, again, by the Trump campaign,” John King of CNN said at the time .

Michael D. Shear

President Biden said that Trump was “given every opportunity to defend himself” and that he has the right to appeal. “This jury was chosen the same way every jury in America has been chosen. It was a process that Donald Trump’s attorney was part of. The jury heard five weeks of evidence — five weeks — and after careful deliberation, the jury reached a unanimous verdict.”

Trump, for his part, did not mention the jury once in his 33-minute remarks today, pitting the verdict on prosecutors and a judge who he assailed as corrupt. Yesterday, he suggested it was impossible for him to get a fair jury in heavily liberal Manhattan.

President Biden said the verdict in Trump’s trial reaffirmed “the American principle that no one is above the law” and he criticized the former president and his allies for their complaints about the outcome. “It’s reckless, it’s dangerous, it’s irresponsible for anyone to say this was rigged just because they don’t like the verdict,” Biden said in brief remarks at the White House before providing an update of efforts to resolve violence in the Middle East. “Our justice system has endured for nearly 250 years and it literally is the cornerstone of America. Our justice system, the justice system should be respected.”

Maia Coleman

Nearly 40 minutes after concluding his remarks, Trump exited the building from a side entrance on 56th Street and got into a black car, raising a hand in a short wave as he did. The quiet exit seemed to disappoint a gaggle of anxious photographers and several of the remaining protesters, most of whom have dispersed in the last hour.

Reid J. Epstein

Michael Tyler, a spokesman for President Biden's campaign, said that Trump’s remarks today showed that he was “confused, desperate, and defeated” following his felony conviction. “Trump is consumed by his own thirst for revenge and retribution,” Tyler said. “He thinks this election is about him. But it’s not. It’s about the American people: lowering their costs, protecting their freedoms, defending their democracy.”

Neil Vigdor

Trump’s campaign is not the only one trying to seize on the verdict to raise money. Shortly, after the former president finished speaking, the Biden campaign posted its own fund-raising appeal on social media, trying to connect Trump’s defiant response to his conviction to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. “Donald Trump is threatening our democracy,” the Biden campaign wrote.

The setting of this news conference was quite striking: On his way to the lectern, Trump walked past the escalators that essentially carried him from being a celebrity real estate developer in his hometown to political candidate. It was very hard not to think of that announcement the entire time he was speaking.

Several potential contenders to be Trump’s running mate rushed to fill an echo chamber on social media while the former president was speaking: Elise Stefanik, Marco Rubio and Byron Donalds. Their words closely tracked with Trump’s, calling the verdict a sham and attacking the criminal justice system.

That concluding line seems to signal an important shift in this phase of the Trump campaign: His first criminal trial is over, and, now a convicted felon, he is free to return to the trail.

He concluded his remarks by pivoting away from the case and shifting his focus to Election Day, much as he did yesterday when he said “the real verdict” would come then. “Nov. 5 is the most important day in the history of our country,” he said.

Jonah Bromwich

Trump has been reframing his legal struggles as political matters all year, but this refrain seems one of his more explicit attempts to assert the primacy of politics over the law.

Maggie Haberman

Trump has gone from having sustained attention on him for seven weeks during the trial to seeing it end with his conviction, and he’s holding the gaze here as long as he can.

After 33 minutes, Trump walks away without answering questions from the dozens of reporters here .

Jonathan Swan

We’re now in the phase of the speech when Trump is falsely claiming that kids can’t have Little League games any more because undocumented immigrants are setting up too many tents.

In a sort of bid to tie things together, Trump concludes his remarks on immigrants with “we’re losing our country,” then immediately tries to pivot to the verdict, saying “I really think this was an event that took place yesterday with the judge.” The two things are not related.

Trump seemed to be seeking to draw a connection between his points about migrants and the judge in his case. Justice Merchan was born in Colombia but raised in Queens, the same borough as Trump. The former president's effort to tie Merchan’s background to the migrant crisis may speak to some of his supporters. But it could also be a very risky road to tread, given that Merchan will be assessing Trump’s conduct come July, when he is scheduled to be sentenced.

Trump is now falling back on very familiar territory: his screed against migrants who are crossing the border illegally, who he broadly depicts as criminals, mentally ill people and terrorists. Border authorities have said most of those crossing are families fleeing poverty or conflict.

The events related to the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, by a pro-Trump mob is actually not something Trump’s advisers like him talking about all the time, and is always the risk with these press conferences.

Trump is now doing a sweeping rejection of all investigations into him, including the investigation into his efforts to thwart the transfer of power after he lost the 2020 election.

Jesse McKinley

Trump says he will be appealing the verdict, as was expected. Here's a look at what happens next .

“Now, let me give you the good news,” Trump says, before citing the fund-raising numbers his campaign reported last night. The supporters who were brought from upstairs cheered and applauded.

Trump is partially right about his fund-raising: His base rallied behind him last night, pouring money into his campaign. But in an election that’s likely to be decided by a slim margin, we’ll have to see what impact this has on the small faction of voters in the middle.

Trump seems to be just gearing up and digging in, despite being expected to speak relatively briefly.

Trump, was of course, barred from speaking during court proceedings, and to an extent limited even in his hallway remarks, in part given the needs of the Secret Service. Here, he seems unbound and ready to take advantage of being out of court.

Trump admits he got “very upset” with his lawyers. As we’ve reported, he has often been brutal with them behind the scenes in the courthouse.