President-elect Donald Trump is crying foul again over his New York hush-money case, calling the legal system “corrupt” and “broken.”
Judge Juan Merchan, the man who replaced Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D), was the subject of Trump’s ire—after he ordered the criminal sentencing for Friday, Jan. 10, just ten days before he returns to the White House.
In a classically forthright Truth Social post Trump, 78, said Bragg “never wanted to bring this lawless case against me.”
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“He was furious at the way it was handled, and especially angry at MARK POMERANTZ for his behavior, and what he did,” Trump added, referring to Bragg’s alleged feelings towards the former Manhattan District Attorney’s Office prosecutor who worked on an investigation into Trump’s sketchy payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels during his first stint in the White House in 2016.
Mark Pomerantz previously argued that his team built a “solid case” for securing Trump’s conviction on financial crimes way back in 2022. He said the then green Bragg stalled on the case because he was unfamiliar with the details, meaning no conviction was sought. This led to Pomerantz resigning.
Trump’s Sunday evening tale of woe continued, in third person no less: “Ultimately, the Biden/Harris DOJ forced Bragg to concoct anything to embarrass TRUMP. But it was even more so what the CORRUPT and TOTALLY CONFLICTED POLITICAL HACK Judge did, and is doing, on this sham trial.”
He then claimed he is legally not allowed to speak about the judge’s “conflicts of interest,” even after calling Merchan a “TOTALLY CONFLICTED POLITICAL HACK” in the previous sentence.
“I even have, STILL, an Unconstitutional Gag Order where I am not allowed to speak about the Judge’s highly disqualifying Conflicts of Interest. Virtually ever legal scholar and pundit says THERE IS NO (ZERO!) CASE AGAINST ME,” he lamented.
“The Judge fabricated the facts, and the law, no different than the other New York Judicial and Prosecutorial Witch Hunts,” Trump added.
Concluding seamlessly with claims that “IT’S ALL RIGGED,” he signed off with: “That’s why businesses are fleeing New York, taking with them millions of jobs, and BILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN TAXES. The legal system is broken, and businesses can’t take a chance in getting caught up in this quicksand. IT’S ALL RIGGED, in this case against a political opponent, ME!!!”
On Monday, Trump’s lawyers filed a request to halt the sentencing.
“The court should vacate the sentencing hearing scheduled for Jan. 10, 2025, and suspend all further deadlines in the case until President Trump’s immunity appeals are fully and finally resolved, which should result in a dismissal of this case, which should have never been brought in the first place,” Trump’s lawyers said in the filing.
Judge Merchan had rejected a request from the president-elect for the case to be dismissed so as to accommodate his presidency after his sweeping election victory. After that decision, Trump called the judge a “radical partisan” on Truth Social. He argued that presidential immunity means the case should have been thrown out.
Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Trump, said in a statement Monday that the president-elect’s lawyers had “moved to stop the unlawful sentencing in the Manhattan D.A.’s Witch Hunt,” claiming that the “Supreme Court’s historic decision on Immunity, the state constitution of New York, and other established legal precedent mandate that this meritless hoax be immediately dismissed,” according to the Associated Press.
This comes even after Merchan indicated that Trump wouldn’t be jailed. Trump, who would still be the first president to take office convicted of felony crimes, looks set to receive a conditional discharge—where a case gets dismissed if a defendant avoids rearrest.
Trump was convicted in May of 34 counts of falsifying business records as part of an alleged scheme to hide a hush money payment to porn actress Stormy Daniels.
