Former President Donald Trump denounced Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and New York Judge Juan Merchan after being convicted Thursday.
A Manhattan jury of seven men and five women convicted Trump on 34 counts of falsification of business records Thursday after nearly 12 hours of deliberations. Trump accused Merchan of being corrupt and said the trial was a “disgrace.”
“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,” Trump said. “The real verdict is going to be November 5th, by the people, and they know what happened here, and everybody knows what happened here. You have a Soros-backed DA, and the whole thing, we didn’t do a thing wrong, I’m a very innocent man and it’s okay, I am fighting for our country, I am fighting for our constitution.”
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“Our whole country is being rigged right now. This was done by the Biden Administration in order to wound or hurt an opponent, a political opponent, and I think it is just a disgrace, and we’ll keep fighting, we will fight to the end and we will win because our country has gone to hell,” Trump continued. “We don’t have the same country anymore, we have a divided mess. We are a nation in decline, serious decline. Millions and millions of people pouring into our country right now from prisons and from mental institutions, terrorists and they are taking over our country. We have a country that is in big trouble. This was a rigged decision right from day one with a conflicted judge who should have never been allowed to try this case, never. And we will fight for our constitution. This is long from over. Thank you very much.”
Merchan came under fire for a perceived bias against Trump in the case. He imposed an expanded gag order on April 1 after Trump criticized the judge’s daughter in multiple posts on Truth Social, including one linking to a New York Post report on Loren Merchan’s firm helping Democrats raise $93 million off the former president’s indictment in the business records case.
Merchan also made a $15 donation to Biden’s presidential campaign in 2020 and two $10 donations to Democratic groups via ActBlue, one to a “Stop Republicans” group and another to a “Progressive Turnout Project,” according to Federal Election Commission (FEC) records.
