'Legal expense = legal expense!!!' Trump flips out overnight about his hush money trial
In the wee hours of Saturday morning, Donald Trump went on a multi-post tirade over his Manhattan hush money trial on his Truth Social platform, complaining that he is being unjustly persecuted.
Over a period of several hours, the embattled Trump attacked Judge Juan Merchan, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and President Joe Biden for his most pressing legal woes as he faces 34 felony counts related to hiding payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels in an effort to keep her quiet before the 2016 election.
According to the former president's late-night posting frenzy, the payments to former attorney Michela Cohen -- who asserts he was passing along the money to Daniels — were "legal expenses."
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Trump kicked off his Truth Social posts with, "LEGAL EXPENSE = LEGAL EXPENSE!!!" before adding moments later, "Let’s put the President in jail for 150 years because a LEGAL EXPENSE to a lawyer was called, by a bookkeeper, a LEGAL EXPENSE to a lawyer! What else could you call it. Crooked Joe Biden Witch Hunt. Election Interference. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!"
In that vein, he continued, "I HAVE A GREAT CASE, BUT WITH A RIGGED AND CONFLICTED JUDGE. HISTORY PROVES, HOWEVER, THAT I WOULD BE FAR BETTER OFF WITH A BAD CASE AND A GREAT, FAIR, AND HONEST JUDGE!!!"
Not content with that, an hour later he posted, "The City of New York’s D.A., Alvin Bragg, is trying to prosecute a Federal case, which cannot be done, and where there is NO CRIME, that has been turned down by everyone, including the Federal Elections Commission, SDNY, the D.A.’s Office, and Bragg himself - Until I announced that I was running for President. This case could have been brought 7 years ago, but wasn’t. It is another Crooked Joe Biden Election Interference Hoax!"
That was followed by a post another hour later citing the Wall Street Journal — without a link — where the former president wrote, "THE WALL STREET JOURNAL - OPINION. ALVIN BRAGG HASN’T PROVED HIS CASE IN THE TRUMP TRIAL. THE EVIDENCE SHOWS WHY THE CHARGES SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN BROUGHT. New York Prosecutors rested their hush-money case against Donald Trump this week, but after 20 days in Court, and a trial transcript of 4000 pages, the missing piece is still missing. The question is whether Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg presented the evidence necessary for a conviction, and if we were in the jury room, we’d say NO."
You can see his stream of posts here.