Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday said Mother Teresa couldn’t beat the „rigged“ charges against him, signaling the former president isn’t banking on exoneration as a Manhattan jury kicked off deliberations that will determine whether he campaigns as a felon.
Former President Donald Trump said Wednesday that Mother Teresa couldn’t beat the “rigged” charges against him, signaling the former president isn’t banking on exoneration as a Manhattan jury began deliberations that will determine whether he campaigns as a felon.
“But we’ll see,” Mr. Trump said.
Mr. Trump lowered expectations for an acquittal while his eldest child, Donald Trump Jr., said his father would win in November by describing the case as an underhanded attempt to throw the campaign to President Biden. He said attempts to kneecap his father through the legal system will backfire on Democrats.
“No matter the verdict, the American people can see right through this entire fraudulent trial, which is nothing more than election interference,” the younger Mr. Trump said in an exclusive statement to The Washington Times.
He said the Biden campaign spent months claiming election politics had nothing to do with the case but “outed themselves” by holding a press event outside the courthouse with actor Robert de Niro this week “to pressure the jury.”
The jury of seven men and five women started deliberating after state Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan spent an hour instructing them on the law.
“You are the judges of the fact, and you are responsible for deciding if the defendant is guilty or not guilty,” the judge said.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and his team say Mr. Trump used his attorney Michael Cohen to pay hush money to adult film actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election and criminally concealed the effort with a series of reimbursement checks to Mr. Cohen that were mislabeled to conceal a campaign-oriented conspiracy.
Paying hush money or engaging in a nondisclosure agreement is not illegal. Prosecutors said the records were falsified with intent to hide another unidentified crime, perhaps an election or tax crime.
Four hours into deliberations, the jury sent a note to the court requesting a read-back of testimony from key prosecution witnesses, signaling they were diving deeply into the evidence and not making a snap decision.
Moments later, they asked the judge to read back the jury instructions he had given them earlier in the day, a sign that it might have been hard to digest all the arcane parameters of the New York law that requires them to find intent to commit a second crime.
