This week in the saga

Tuesday the summations run into the night — three hours for the defense, five for the People — and he posts through all of it. Wednesday the jury takes the case and the building holds its breath; Mother Teresa, he says, could not beat these charges. Thursday afternoon the buzzer sounds: the foreman stands and says the word thirty-four times. Guilty, on every count — the first former president ever convicted of a crime, and the presumptive nominee of his party. Minutes later he is at the hallway camera calling it a disgrace, and that night the donation site buckles under the rush. Friday, beside the escalator he rode down nine years ago, he declares himself a political prisoner — and by that evening the first twenty-four hours have brought in fifty-three million dollars. CHAPTER 49 CLOSES.