Minutes after being found guilty in the Stormy Daniels affair, Donald Trump spoke out as he left the courtroom on Thursday in New York, calling the verdict of his trial “shameful.”
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According to the former president, the trial led by a “corrupt” judge was “rigged”, and everything was already determined in advance.
The billionaire continues to maintain, after being found guilty of the 34 counts, that he “did nothing wrong” and that the “real verdict” will be determined on November 5, “by the people”, on the day of the American presidential election.
“They know what happened here, everyone knows what happened here,” he repeats. I fight for our country, for our Constitution.
Photo AFP
He then accuses the Biden administration of having orchestrated the trial in order to tarnish the reputation of a political opponent.
“We will fight until the end and we will win,” continues the real estate magnate. Our country has become a living hell, we no longer have the same country, it’s a mess that is now divided, a nation in decline.”
The former president’s team also became active on Donald Trump’s social network.
Mr. Trump also wished himself a “victory on November 5,” calling on voters to “save America” in a publication on Truth Social.
“This is the last battle,” he said in a promotional video also posted on his Truth account after the verdict. With you by my side, we will demolish the deep state, we will expel those who promote war in our government, we will get rid of the globalists,” he lists while calling on Americans to donate funds to finance his campaign.
“The WinRed site went down”
The Republican’s campaign website began redirecting people to a fundraising page on which Mr. Trump boasts of being a “political prisoner.”
However, the fundraising page was no longer functional after just a few minutes, due to a potentially massive influx of Donald Trump supporters on the WinRed donation platform.
“The American people are very lucid in the face of the sham lawsuit brought by this crook Joe Biden. So many Americans felt touched and wanted to donate to President Trump’s campaign that the WinRed site went down,” Donald Trump’s campaign team said on X.
The site remained inoperable for almost an hour.
The verdict makes Donald Trump the first US president to be criminally convicted, but does not prevent him from campaigning or potentially being elected on November 5. He should receive his sentence before then, on July 11.
His Democratic rival, Joe Biden, who was reluctant to discuss the trial in New York, also sought to take advantage of the billionaire’s conviction to raise funds.
“There is only one way to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office: at the polls,” the outgoing president’s campaign team launched on X, shortly after the verdict. “Donate to our campaign today,” the post adds.
An “egocentric”, according to Biden
Donald Trump regularly describes his legal setbacks as a battle against the forces of evil that are the “deep state” – a nebulous entity which, according to followers of conspiracy theories, acts behind the scenes of the government – and the Biden administration.
The Republican likes to portray himself as a martyr to the cause, ready to sacrifice his freedom for the good of his supporters.
In April, he made the link between his situation and that of Nelson Mandela, the South African anti-apartheid activist who remained imprisoned for 27 years. The billionaire had shortly before pushed the comparison to Jesus Christ.
Joe Biden’s campaign team then declared: “Can we imagine being so self-centered that we come to compare ourselves to Jesus Christ and Nelson Mandela in the space of less than one week?”.
– With the collaboration of Agence France-Presse
Watch Donald Trump’s full speech in the main video.
