NEW YORK: Donald Trump lashed out in rambling, angry comments Friday at his “sick” opponents and “fascists” after what he called a “very unfair” trial that made him the first former US president to become a convicted felon.
The 77-year-old Republican, who is neck and neck with President Joe Biden in the 2024 White House race, confirmed he would appeal.
“We’re going to be appealing this scam,” he said.
Trump was speaking at what was billed as a press conference in the upscale lobby of his signature Trump Tower property in Manhattan.
But after taking to the podium, he launched into an extraordinary 35 minutes of insults, non-factual claims and non-sequiturs that reflected his seething anger. He then left without taking questions.
Judge Juan Merchan, who presided over his trial, is a “tyrant,” Trump said, claiming that Merchan “literally crucified” witnesses.
“This man who looks like an angel, but he is really a devil,” he said in the remarks, which were carried live by all the major US television networks.
In addition to complaining that the jury trial was unfair, Trump frequently veered off into attacks on Biden and illegal immigrants, who he said were speaking “languages unknown” and include many terrorists, as well as “a lot of people” released from prisons.
“They’re coming in from all over the world into our country, and we have a president and a group of fascists that don’t want to do anything about it, because they could right now, today, he could stop it. But he’s not. They’re destroying our country,” Trump said.
On Thursday, a jury found him guilty on all 34 charges of falsifying business records to hide a hush money payment meant to silence porn star Stormy Daniels from publicizing an alleged sexual encounter that he feared would be fatal to his 2016 presidential campaign.
Prosecutors successfully laid out a case alleging the hush money and the illegal covering up of the payment was part of a broader crime to prevent voters from knowing about Trump’s behavior just as he was about to face Hillary Clinton.
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