Donald Trump will 'continue the fight' against his conviction
Former President Donald Trump said on Friday he will appeal the jury verdict that has turned him into a convicted felon.
In remarks at Trump Tower on Friday morning, Trump criticised Thursday’s verdict that found him guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records – as usual, calling it “a rigged trial” – while complaining the proceedings were “very unfair” from the outset, because he was unable to change the venue from Manhattan or the presiding judge.
“This is a case that should not have been brought,” Trump said. “We will continue the fight.”
Trump not only called the trial judge, New York State Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, “a tyrant” but said he “looks like an angel but is really a devil” and that he “can’t put two sentences together.”
Merchan alone has the authority to determine Trump’s punishment and has scheduled the sentencing hearing for July 11.
Under New York State law, Trump’s sentence could range from a conditional discharge (effectively no sentence) or probation to a maximum of four years in prison.
New York guidelines point to a defendant in a case like Trump’s to serve sentences on every count concurrently, not consecutively, according to retired New York State Judge Diane Kiesel and former Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Bridget Fleming.
Under probation, Trump’s travel could require approval or be restricted, and Trump would be required to meet with a probation officer at regular intervals, typically monthly.
If Trump were to continue to reside in Florida, he could apply to transfer his probation from New York State to Florida, Keisel and Fleming said.
In a business case like Trump’s, for a defendant with his profile – a nonviolent, first-time offender in his 70s – a prison sentence would be unusual, according to Kiesel and Fleming.
Home confinement is another option, as is community service and fines.
The false business records disguised the reimbursement in 2017 to former Trump attorney and fixer Michael Cohen for paying $130,000 (£102,000) to adult film star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign to get her to sign a non-disclosure agreement about a 2006 tryst Daniels says occurred with Trump after meeting him at a golf resort in Lake Tahoe, Nevada.
Trump denies the extramarital sexual encounter with Daniels.
“There was no anything. Nothing ever happened,” he said on Friday.
Christina Bobb, Donald Trump's former attorney spoke to ITV News' US Correspondent, Dan Rivers about the impact of the verdict.
Trump also continued to dispute the prosecution portrayal of the cover-up – the super-sized reimbursement to Cohen that amounted to $420,000 (£330,000) – calling it proper legal expenses, an alternative theory rejected by the jury that had been a focus of the closing arguments by defence attorney Todd Blanche.
“I would have loved to have testified,” Trump asserted, but added that he did not do so because “everything that I was ever involved in” could have been questioned.
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“Was he a bad boy here? Was he a bad boy there? And my lawyer said: ‘What do you need to go through it? All you wanted to do was testify simply in this case.’”
Blanche said in a post-verdict interview the defence strategy was to thwart the required unanimous 12-0 verdict by creating reasonable doubt in one or two jurors’ minds.
“We were fighting to win the case, of course, but a hung jury would have been as close to a win, that you know, as we could have gotten. But we were prepared for a conviction – that was expected,” Blanche told CNN.
Cohen said in an interview he was not surprised by the verdict.
“At the end of the day, the facts are what prevailed here," Cohen told MSNBC. “All of the testimony by the other witnesses that I had involvement with corroborated what I have been saying for six years, and all of the evidence, the documentary evidence - emails, text messages, documents themselves - again corroborated what I've been saying for six years."
Discrediting Cohen, a convicted felon partly for lies he told while serving as the top attorney for the Trump Organization and for illegal campaign contributions, including the Daniels hush money deal, was a pillar of the defence case.
Eliza Orlins, a Manhattan public defender who has tried cases for 15 years in the same courthouse where Trump was convicted and followed the Trump trial closely, told ITV News prosecutors from the Manhattan District Attorney’s office succeeded in making Cohen’s star turn on the witness stand palatable to the jury.
“Because Michael Cohen's testimony couldn't just be taken alone at face value and there needed to be corroboration, the DA's office really had to present additional evidence -whether that be witness testimony, documentary evidence - all these other things, and they did do that,” Orlins said.
The testimony of David Pecker, the retired tabloid publisher who colluded with Cohen and Trump during the 2016 campaign to squash embarrassing Trump stories, offered key corroboration.
Pecker was the first prosecution witness and spent roughly as much time on the stand as Cohen, detailing nondisclosure agreements to protect Trump.
The jury’s primary request for testimony readbacks on Thursday concerned Pecker.
The 34 falsified business documents included 11 fake invoices solicited by the Trump Organization for Cohen’s supposed retainer fees; 12 entries in Trump Organization financial ledgers describing the Cohen payments as normal legal expenses; and 11 monthly cheques for $35,000 (£27,000) paid to Cohen throughout 2017.
Orlins said: “It wasn’t about Donald Trump having made the ledger entries. Donald Trump didn't have to have his fingerprints on every single document in order to be found guilty. He had to cause this to have happened, and they presented very substantial evidence that, in fact, he did.”
Trump did personally sign nine of the 11 cheques with his recognisable black Sharpie signature.
None of the jurors, whose identities remain anonymous, have come forward yet to explain their verdict.
They deliberated for roughly 10 hours over two days.
Trump cannot file his appeal until after his sentencing, which is when the guilty verdict officially becomes a conviction, according to Keisel and Fleming.
Filing a notice of appeal is the first step and is required within 30 days of the conviction, and the full appeal must be filed within six months.
His first venue would be the New York State Supreme Court Appellate Division, First Department, for Manhattan and the Bronx.
If Trump were to lose there, his second venue would be the New York State Court of Appeals, in Albany, the state’s highest court.
Even if he weren’t running for president again, Trump would most likely be able to stay his sentence pending appeals.
In a written statement, Biden-Harris 2024 Communications Director Michael Tyler said of Trump’s remarks: "America just witnessed a confused, desperate, and defeated Donald Trump ramble about his own personal grievances and lie about the American justice system, leaving anyone watching with one obvious conclusion: This man cannot be President of the United States.
"Unhinged by his 2020 election loss and spiraling from his criminal convictions, Trump is consumed by his own thirst for revenge and retribution. 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."
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