Former President Trump on Monday laced into the New York judge handling his hush money trial after his former attorney, Michael Cohen, spent hours on the witness stand.
Trump was asked as he exited the courtroom why a handful of elected officials had joined him at the courthouse, with Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) and the attorney general of Iowa among them.
“They think it’s a terrible thing that is happening to democracy in this country,” Trump responded. “We have a lot of them, they want to come. I say, just stay back and pass lots of laws to stop things like this.”
Trump proceeded to read from a document for roughly five minutes that contained commentary from Republican lawmakers, legal pundits and commentators on cable television who expressed skepticism about the case or otherwise defended the former president.
Among those Trump cited were Vance, Fox News contributor Andy McCarthy, Fox News host Mark Levin and Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen.
“It’s really a very sad day for the country. It’s sad for New York,” Trump said. “We have a corrupt judge, and we have a judge who’s highly conflicted and he’s keeping me from campaigning. He’s an appointed New York judge. He’s appointed.”
In the closing minutes of Cohen’s testimony on Monday, Trump was making edits to a document, crossing out various lines of text while making additions to other sections. That document was on the top of the stack of papers from which Trump was reading in the hallway.
Trump on Monday came face-to-face with Cohen, who is the prosecution’s star witness in a case that charges Trump with falsifying 34 business records over a $130,000 hush money payment Cohen sent to a porn actor to keep her quiet about an alleged affair with the then-2016 candidate.
Cohen and Trump have since ferociously turned on each other, but Cohen’s first day in court was largely more subdued than expected.
Trump is not allowed to comment on witnesses under a gag order, and the judge last week directed Cohen to stop speaking publicly about the case ahead of his testimony.
