Trump Had Good Fortune So Far With His Four Cases. Then Came a Verdict.

Donald J. Trump’s run of luck in his criminal cases has expired.

Before the conviction on Thursday in Manhattan, the former president had drawn what some of his closest advisers regarded as a defense lawyer’s equivalent of an inside straight: something close to perfection. Mr. Trump had lost civil cases with costly damages, but the four criminal cases that threatened his freedom were stumbling along so badly that his advisers were often incredulous at his good fortune.

In the Florida case in which he was charged with obstruction of justice and unlawfully holding onto classified documents, a Trump-nominated judge had spent so much time puzzling over minor issues that the trial would almost certainly be delayed beyond the presidential election in November.

In the Georgia case, the prosecutor who had charged Mr. Trump as part of a conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election was caught in a romantic affair with the man she had hired to help her prosecute Mr. Trump.

And with the federal charges over his efforts to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power, the Supreme Court has significantly narrowed the chances of a trial before the election, having taken up the presidential immunity arguments put forth by Mr. Trump’s lawyers.

His streak ended minutes after 5 p.m. on Thursday, as 12 jurors found Mr. Trump guilty on all 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up a sex scandal that could have imperiled his 2016 presidential campaign.

As the verdict was announced by the jury foreman, there was almost no reaction from Mr. Trump’s two rows of friends, family and aides. Mr. Trump sat slack and glum at the defense table. On the bench behind him, his son Eric shook his head from side to side. The courtroom was silent as the foreman repeatedly announced, “Guilty. Guilty.”