OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Former President Donald Trump is winning even more support from a key voting bloc after he was convicted in Manhattan this week on 34 counts related to a hush money payment made to adult film star Stormy Daniels, a.k.a. Stephanie Clifford, ahead of the 2016 election.
UFC champions and other stars from the fighting community quickly came out in support of former President Donald Trump after an outrageous guilty verdict in a New York City court, the Western Journal reported on Friday.
UFC champion Michael Chandler posted photos of himself with the former president on Instagram. “You’ve been in my corner, now I’m in yours,” he wrote. “You know where I stand…and you know who I stand with. See you at the top!”
View this post on Instagram
Retired UFC champion Tito Ortiz posted a new profile picture on his X account, showing him triumphantly holding an American flag while wearing fight trunks that read “Trump 2024.”
#NewProfilePic #Trump2024 pic.twitter.com/sqx4r8kc5y
— Tito Ortiz (@titoortiz) May 31, 2024
Also, former boxing champ Ryan Garcia took to the X platform to write: “Donald T, If you are reading this, We are with you. Stay strong.”
In another post, he added photos of him with Trump, writing, “Just like that, the new president. He will still win. Just watch.”
Just like that, the new president
He will still win
Just watch 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/v2NiEs6Sab
— RYAN GARCIA (@RyanGarcia) May 30, 2024
Several legal experts have criticized the verdict, saying that the case was premised on imaginary “crimes” that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg concocted. In addition, several experts—most of them attorneys—noted that the crimes Trump was charged with were, at best, misdemeanors, but Bragg elevated all of them to felonies.
Other legal eagles criticized what they saw as obvious bias in presiding Judge Juan Merchan, who repeatedly ruled against Trump’s defense lawyers.
Legal expert and constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley said following Trump’s guilty verdict in his hush money trial on Thursday that there are grounds for an easy reversal on “procedural and constitutional” grounds.
Turley spoke to Fox News outside the Manhattan courtroom moments after Trump became the first former U.S. president to be convicted on felony charges.
“I think the level of reversible error here really is quite considerable. It runs the waterfront of procedural to constitutional problems, including federal constitutional violations,” Turley began. “I don’t even see how you can meet the unanimity requirement in the way that this thing was instructed.
“Yeah, they were unanimous that some crime was committed on the secondary crime, but it’s apparently between the jurors and God as to what that crime was unless there is going to be some release of a jury form. We have not seen that jury form,” he continued, referencing a document that could explain on what basis jurors found Trump guilty.
“I think that, in the end, we were going to have a reversal. I’m fairly confident of that. Now, in the New York appellate system, they have a rule for Trump. They are very good lawyers in the New York system and credible people who want the system to work the way it is designed,” Turley continued. “I am eternally an optimist. I was an optimist about a hung jury. And I’m an optimist now about the appellate judges.
“I think at some point, people will step forward and say enough. You know, hating this man is not enough to forget the lack of the evidence. And once again, I do not blame this jury. They were given instructions that made it very easy to convict. And some of them might not have seen a real option not to, given how low these standards seem,” he added.