President-elect Donald Trump delivered a defiant statement prior to the announcement of his sentence in the New York hush money case brought against him by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg on Friday in which he called the case against him a “political witch hunt” and “setback” for the state’s legal system.
Trump was convicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records last spring for his role in covering up hush money payments made to former porn star Stormy Daniels during his 2016 presidential campaign, who alleges that she had an affair with him in 2006.
Here’s what Trump had to say shortly before Judge Juan Merchan sentenced the president-elect to an unconditional discharge
Yes. Thank you, Your Honor. This is been a very terrible experience. I think it’s been a tremendous setback for New York and the New York court system. This is a case that Alvin Bragg did not want to bring and he thought it was, from what I read and from what I hear, that inappropriately handled before he got there. A gentleman from a law firm came in and acted as a district attorney, and that gentleman, from what I heard, was a criminal or almost criminal in what he did. It was very inappropriate, it was a somebody involved with my political opponent. Part of the records that we’re talking about. They’re saying I just noticed, or where he said I was falsifying business records. Well, the falsification of business records, as they said, was calling a legal expense in the books where everybody could see them, a legal expense. In other words, that legal fees or a legal expense were put down as legal expense by accountants. They weren’t put down by me, they were put down by accountants. I didn’t call them construction, concrete work. I didn’t call them electrical work. I didn’t call them anything. They’re called a legal fee or a legal expense a legal expense. And for this I got indicted. It’s incredible, actually. Now, if you look my attorney alluded to it, the top legal scholars and legal pundits in this country, the ones that are quoted all the time on television that are making their views felt and highly respected people, have said everyone, virtually everyone that I know, I haven’t seen any to the contrary, not one, and none of these people are not exactly friends of mine, to put it mildly.
But they all said this is a case that should have never been brought, it’s an injustice of justice. Very respected, Jonathan Turley, Andy McCarthy, Judge David Rivkin, a wonderful man who just passed away, by the way, Greg Jarrett, Elie Honig from CNN of all places, CNN said that, Paul Ingrassia, Alan Dershowitz. They all said this is not a case that should be brought. It’s not-, Think about it. Legal expenses are down as legal expenses and and I get indicted for business records, everybody should be so accurate. It’s been a political witch hunt.
It was done to damage my reputation so that I’d lose the election and obviously that didn’t work. And the people of our country got to see this firsthand because they watched the case in your courtroom. They got to see this firsthand, and then they voted and I won and got the largest number of votes by far of any Republican candidate in history and won, as you know, all seven swing states
Won conclusively all seven swing states and won the popularity-, the popular vote by millions and millions of votes. And they’ve been watching your trial. So they understood it. I wasn’t allowed to use the lawyer-client privilege or the reliance on counsel who had a lawyer that made this deal. And he admitted that, and he was also a totally discredited person. We weren’t allowed to use the information from the southern district that totally discredited him, it wasn’t allowed to be put in.
And that was terrible. Unbelievable. And this is a man who’s got no standing. He’s been disbarred on other matters, unrelated, and he was allowed to talk as though he were George Washington. But he’s not George Washington. He shouldn’t have been allowed. The southern district did a book of approximately 28 pages where they — I’ve never seen anything like it — they excoriated-, you wouldn’t let it be put into evidence. So he was able to testify as a witness, and I think it’s a disgrace to the system.
I was under a gag order. I’m the first president in history that was under a gag order where I couldn’t talk about aspects of the case that are very important. I guess I’m still under, so probably I won’t do it now. I assume I’m still under a gag order. But the fact is that I’m totally innocent. I did nothing wrong. They talked about business records and the business records were extremely accurately counted.
I had nothing to do with them, any of them. That was done by an accountant or a bookkeeper who I think gave very credible testimony and was corroborated by everybody that was asked. And with all that’s happening in our country today with a city that’s burning to the ground, one of our largest, most important cities burning to the ground ,with, with wars that are uncontrollably going on, with all of the problems of inflation, and attacks on countries, and all of the horrible things that are going on.
I got indicted over calling a legal expense a legal expense. It was called a legal expense. I just want to say, I think it’s an embarrassment to New York, and New York has a lot of problems, but this is a great embarrassment. I believe that this and other cases that was brought, were brought — as you know, the DOJ is very much involved in this case. It’s because that’s the political opponent they’re talking about.
The DOJ is very involved, you have a gentleman sitting right there from the DOJ, who was from the DOJ office. He was also involved with the New York State attorney general’s case. And he went from there to here. He went around and did what he had to do to get them to move on me.
But in the meantime, I won the election in a massive landslide, and the people of this country understand what’s going on. And this has been a weaponization of government. They call it lawfare. Never happened to any extent like this, but never happened in our country before. And I’d just like to explain that I was treated very, very unfairly. And I thank you very much
