Less than 24 hours after being found guilty of 34 crimes, Donald Trump stood in front of a backdrop of American flags and was ready to vent weeks of frustration.
The boxing former president spent 40 minutes unloading lengthy comments, peppered with falsehoods and distortions, to defend himself during Friday’s press conference at Trump Tower in Manhattan.
The event marked the beginning of a new reality: Trump is now the first former president to be convicted of a crime.
“This is all being done by Biden and his people,” Trump said as he opened the news conference, without any evidence to directly blame President Joe Biden for his legal troubles. “This is being done by Washington. No one has ever seen anything like it.”
After a New York jury found Trump guilty of all 34 felony counts of falsifying corporate records surrounding payments he made to an adult film star during the 2016 election, Trump expressed his dissatisfaction and used the Truth Social platform to once again to call for his prosecution. a ‘witch hunt’. In another fundraising email, he referred to himself as a “political prisoner.”
But the press conference offered Trump the first opportunity to air his grievances in detail.
He called Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg a “failure” and again condemned Judge Juan Merchan as ‘in conflict’.
Trump declined to discuss the alleged conflict, saying he could not because of a silence order Merchan imposed on him earlier in the trial. (In the past, Trump and his allies have gone after Merchan over a $15 donation he gave to Biden in 2020, and the fact that the judge’s daughter worked with a Democratic-leaning group.)
The silence order prevented Trump from publicly commenting on witnesses, jurors, court staff and other attorneys (excluding Bragg) and any of their family members, but it did not include a ban on talking about Merchan himself.
“I’m not allowed to talk about it,” Trump said of the perceived conflict. “No one has ever been as conflicted as this.”
Trump violated the gag order on 10 separate occasions during the trial, costing him $10,000 in fines and prompting Merchan to threaten him with jail time.
Trump also claimed that he wanted to testify, something he ultimately did not do because he was afraid he would commit perjury himself. On Friday, he justified the decision by saying that even George Washington would never testify on his own behalf.
“I would have testified. I wanted to testify. The theory is you never testify,” Trump said. “If it was George Washington, don’t testify. Because they will call you out on something you said slightly wrong.
He also called his former attorney Michael Cohen, who was a key witness for the prosecution, a “sleaze bag” but would not use his name directly, again citing the gag order. Cohen was Trump’s longtime lawyer, but he turned on his former boss and ultimately ended up in prison for 13 months after pleading guilty in 2018 to lying to Congress and campaign finance charges related to the work he did for Trump .
Trump also leaned on a theme he has made throughout his campaign, portraying himself as a victim of a rigged system out to get him — and anyone who supports him.
“This is a case where if they can do this to me, they can do this to anyone,” Trump said in opening his remarks. “These are bad people.”
Trump also said he could serve a prison sentence of up to 187 years, but some legal experts told NBC News there is a chance he won’t be jailed at all based on his age, lack of criminal record and other factors. And while each count carries a four-year term, each sentence is expected to be imposed concurrently, rather than consecutively.
Shortly after Trump’s guilty verdicts were read, the expected political battle lines were drawn.
Democrats and notably anti-Trump Republicans quickly took victory laps, proclaiming that justice had been served, while Trump’s already intense Republican base grew even more outraged by what they see as a political persecution and vowed to retaliate.
Rep. Mike Collins, R-Ga., said Republican law enforcement officials need to “get to work.”
“Time for Red State AGs and DAs to get to work,” Collins wrote on X.
After Trump’s press conference Friday, Biden campaign spokesman Michael Tyler issued a statement saying, “Trump is consumed by his own thirst for revenge and retaliation.”
“America just witnessed a confused, desperate and defeated Donald Trump fuss over his own personal grievances and lies about the American justice system, leaving everyone watching with one clear conclusion: this man cannot become President of the United States” , he said.
However, there were concrete signs that, as Trump predicted, a guilty conviction would further strengthen his political base.
The Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee said the verdict led to historic fundraising levels for the GOP operation — more than $34.8 raised in the hours between the verdict and midnight Thursday. While these numbers cannot be independently verified due to delays in campaign finance reporting requirements, an RNC spokesperson told NBC News that the total represented what the joint Trump and RNC fundraising committee raised through the online fundraising platform WinRed.
“From just minutes after the mock trial ruling was announced, our digital fundraising system was overwhelmed with support, and despite temporary delays online due to traffic, President Trump raised $34.8 million from small donors,” a top statement said. Trump campaign officials.
There are also signs that the party’s biggest rainmakers are also willing to rally behind Trump.
After the verdict was read, Trump attended a fundraiser in Manhattan hosted by Pepe Fanjul, a South Florida sugar baron and longtime major Republican donor, a campaign official said.
Shawn McGuire, a partner at hedge fund Sequoia Capital who voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, also publicly announced that he is donating $300,000 to Trump’s campaign efforts.
“In 2016, I drank the media Kook-Aid and was terrified of Trump,” he posted on X. “As such, I donated to Hillary’s campaign and voted for her.”
“Now, in 2024, I believe this is one of the most important elections of my lifetime, and I support Trump,” he added.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
