Former President Donald Trump launched a fiery attack Friday on Judge Juan Merchan and star prosecution witness Michael Cohen a day after being convicted of 34 criminal counts — even insisting “nothing ever happened” between himself and porn star Stormy Daniels despite being under a gag order ahead of sentencing.
Merchan “looks like an angel, but he’s really a devil,” Trump said, also slamming the judge as a “tyrant,” “crooked” and “crazed” in a 33-minute diatribe at Trump Tower in midtown Manhattan.
“We have a judge who’s highly conflicted. You know what the confliction is. Nobody wants to write about it, and I’m not allowed to talk about it. If I do, he said, I get put in jail,” the 77-year-old presumptive Republican presidential nominee said.
“So we’ll play that game a little bit longer. We won’t talk about it, but you’re allowed to talk about it. I hope you do because there’s never been anybody so conflicted as this.”
Trump is under orders not to attack trial witnesses and relatives of Merchan, whose daughter Loren works in Democratic politics — but the 45th president did so anyway without identifying his targets.
“I am under a gag order — a nasty gag order,” Trump said, acknowledging at one point that it was “dangerous” for him to be so vocal ahead of his July 11 sentencing date.
“I’m not allowed to use the name because of the gag order, but you know, he [Cohen] is a sleazebag. Everybody knows that. Took me a while to find out,” Trump said.
Cohen arranged to pay Daniels $130,000 in exchange for her signing a pre-election non-disclosure agreement barring her from discussing an alleged 2006 tryst with Trump, and jurors found that the ex-president illegally falsified business records by labeling the reimbursement of Cohen as a legal expense.
“At the time, he was a fully accredited lawyer,” Trump said of Cohen, referring to his subsequent disbarment following his 2018 guilty plea tax fraud and other crimes.
“You know, they like used the word ‘fixer.’ He wasn’t a ‘fixer.’ He was a lawyer at the time,” Trump said, claiming that the funds were properly labeled.
“It’s not sheetrock construction or any other thing. It’s a legal expense… a bookkeeper, without any knowledge from me, correctly marked it down in the books.”
Trump claimed he broke with Cohen because “I didn’t like that when I became president, he went around and made deals with companies — when I heard that, he was gone.”
“We’re living in a fascist state,” the former president claimed, touting polling data that shows him leading Biden ahead of their Nov. 5 rematch and crowing about how his campaign had raised $34.8 million in the six hours since his conviction.
The prosecution was brought “in total conjunction with the White House and the DOJ, just so you understand,” Trump contended.
“This is all done by Biden and his people — maybe his people, more importantly, I don’t know that Biden knows too much about it because I don’t know if he knows about anything. But he’s nevertheless the president, so we have to use his name.”
Trump has repeatedly pointed out that the case was prosecuted by Michael Colangelo, who served as the No. 3 official in the Biden Justice Department before taking a job at the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, an elected Democrat.
“If they can do this to me, they can do this to anyone,” he claimed.
“We had a DA who is a failed DA. Crime is rampant in New York, violent crime, that’s what he’s really supposed to be looking at.
“Yesterday in McDonald’s, you had a man hitting them up with with machetes…. and Bragg is down watching a trial on what they call crimes.”
Trump began his remarks focusing on major election issues such as record illegal immigration, taxes and green energy policies under the Biden administration — claiming that “we have a president and a group of fascists” behind the policies.
“I wanted to testify. But you never testify because as soon as you testify — anybody, if it were George Washington, don’t testify because they’ll get you on something that you said slightly wrong, and then they sue you for perjury,” he said.
“They were able to use people — salacious, by the way, and nothing ever happened. There was no anything. Nothing ever happened,” he claimed. “They were as salacious as could be and it had nothing to do with the case, but it had to do with politics.”
At one point, the 77-year-old Trump said: “I don’t feel 77 … I’d like them to say, ‘Gee, we have to have a little sorrow for this man,’ because they just don’t say that about me. But I think I’m probably better off that way.”
Trump also attacked Biden, 81, as “the dumbest president we’ve ever had” and noted that he as vice president interacted with his son Hunter Biden’s business associates from countries including China and Russia.
“He’s a Manchurian Candidate. You take a look at the way he treats, China, Russia, so many others,” Trump said.
The ex-president concluded his remarks by saying he was “honored” by his prosecution before walking off without taking reporter questions.
“It’s my honor to be doing this,” Trump said. “It really is. It’s a very unpleasant thing, to be honest, but it’s great, great honor.”
In response, the Biden campaign issued a statement saying that “America just witnessed a confused, desperate, and defeated Donald Trump ramble about his own personal grievances and lie about the American justice system, leaving anyone watching with one obvious conclusion: This man cannot be president of the United States.
“Unhinged by his 2020 election loss and spiraling from his criminal convictions, Trump is consumed by his own thirst for revenge and retribution. He thinks this election is about him. But it’s not. It’s about the American people: lowering their costs, protecting their freedoms, defending their democracy,” added comms director Michael Tyler.
“That’s what Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are fighting for. Donald Trump is sowing chaos, attacking the rule of law, and fighting for the only thing in the world he gives a damn about: Donald Trump.”
Trump was expected to depart his eponymous skyscraper later Friday for his club at Bedminster, NJ, where he is likely to spend the weekend.
