Former President Trump fumed Wednesday just after his New York City criminal case was turned over to the jury for deliberations, blasting the judge in the case and bemoaning that “Mother Teresa could not beat these charges.”
Trump spoke to reporters gathered outside the courtroom moments after a jury of 12 New Yorkers began deliberating in the former president’s hush money criminal case.
“Mother Teresa could not beat these charges. These charges are rigged. The whole country’s a mess, between the borders and fake elections, and you have a trial like this where the judge is so conflicted he can’t breathe,” Trump said.
“It’s a disgrace. And I mean that. Mother Teresa could not beat those charges. But we’ll see. We’ll see how we do,” he added.
Strategists said it is to Trump’s benefit to create a narrative that the case is stacked against him, lowering the bar in the event he is convicted or allowing him to declare victory against a “rigged” system in the event he is found not guilty.
Trump faces 34 felony charges he falsified business records to conceal a hush money payment made to a porn actress in the final days of his 2016 presidential campaign to keep secret their alleged affair from a decade earlier. The charges are usually brought as a misdemeanor, so to find Trump guilty, jurors must determine Trump acted with the intent to further another crime.
The decision on whether or not to convict Trump – or if the case will end in a hung jury if all 12 jurors can’t unanimously decide on all 34 counts – could come at any time. None of the jurors looked at Trump as they passed by him while exiting the courtroom to begin deliberations.
Trump must remain at the New York courthouse throughout the deliberations, Judge Juan Merchan said. It is typical for judges to ask criminal defendants and attorneys on both sides to remain in the vicinity of the courtroom so they are readily available in case of a note or verdict.
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The former president has for weeks bemoaned that the hush money case is part of an effort by the Biden White House to sink his reelection chances, though there is no evidence President Biden or his team have played a role in the case, which was brought by the state of New York.
Trump has frequently complained that his required attendance at the trial has kept him off the campaign trail, though he has held rallies and fundraisers on days off from the proceedings, and his poll numbers have not suffered during the case.
“So I’ll stay around here,” Trump said Wednesday. “This is five weeks and five weeks of really essentially not campaigning, although I took a big lead in the polls over the last few weeks. Something is going on, because I think the people of this country see that this is a rigged deal.”