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Former President Donald Trump responded after the jury in his hush-money case was dismissed after hours of deliberating without reaching a verdict.
Jurors were released to deliberate after presiding Judge Juan Merchan, a Democratic donor whose own daughter is a Democratic operative, spent more than an hour providing them with instructions, which they later asked for him to reiterate. He will do so as the court convenes on Thursday.
Trump emerged from the courtroom and attacked the nature of the case as well as the major players behind it. “Take a look at where the people come from. It’s a Biden witch hunt. It’s weaponization,” he said, likely a reference to one of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s lead prosecutors, who is a former Justice Department official under President Biden’s administration. Trump also noted that the prosecution avoided calling certain people to testify “because they would have been very bad witnesses for them.”
“You have a lot of big players, very big players, that would have solved their problem or actually would have given us the win. We already have the win. If we had a fair judge, this case would have been over a long time ago,” Trump said, avoiding naming names because of a Merchan-imposed gag order.
“The other thing, the confusion is, nobody knows what the crime is because there’s no crime,” he continued. “It’s a disgrace. This thing ought to be ended immediately. The judge ought to end it and save his reputation.”
‘WATCH:
Trump: “Nobody knows what the crime is, because there’s no crime … It’s a disgrace. This thing ought to be ended immediately. The judge ought to end it and save his reputation.” pic.twitter.com/TaY0JJonXe
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) May 29, 2024
On his Truth Social page, Trump quoted a number of legal experts and others who believe the trial against him is a complete sham.
“They’re so deeply invested in this lawfare because they believed it was going to neutralize Donald Trump…and it’s only strengthened him…this pile on is completely unjustified,” said former Trump administration official Monica Crowley.
“We were told for, I don’t know, three years, that ‘No one is above the law,’ but they were saying that because they were making sure that Trump was below the Law,” Fox News host Greg Gutfeld said, per another Trump post. “They didn’t raise the bar for him; they lowered it, and so you are prosecuting the current Leading Candidate with an unprecedented theory that is so difficult to follow that nobody knows what’s going on. Wouldn’t you want to streamline this, and make it the best possible, most persuasive argument possible since this is the leading Presidential Candidate?”
Judge Jeanine Pirro: “This is a kangaroo court…It was a sad day for me. I sat with Andy McCarthy and Jonathan Turley and Trey Gowdy, and we were all like ‘This is unheard of.’”
Trump also re-truthed talk show host, author, attorney, and former Justice Department official Mark Levin:
The grotesque trial charade gets even worse this morning.
The Stalinist clown judge directed the jury that they can choose among three areas of crimes to convict the former president:
1. Violations of federal election law (which no one in that courtroom is familiar with, and the judge specifically prevents Brad Smith from testifying about);
2. The falsification of business records; and
3. Tax violations
Of course, the issue for all of the above is the requirement of a criminal intent.
Furthermore, the idea that jurors can pick 1 of the 3, and they don’t have to unanimously agree on which of the three, is another shocking development.
Moreover, the federal campaign violation has still not been defined.
“Judge in Trump case in NYC just told jury they don’t have to unanimously agree on which crime was committed as long as they all at least pick one,” Sen. Marco Rubio wrote in his post on X. “And that among the crimes the can pick from are ones Trump WASN’T EVEN CHARGED WITH!!! This is exactly the kind of sham trial used against political opponents of the regime in the old Soviet Union.”