Former President Donald Trump on Thursday lashed out over his upcoming trial stemming from hush-money payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels.
Trump attended the hearing Thursday morning where Judge Juan Merchan rejected his motion to dismiss the case and set a trial date for March 25.
“It’s not a crime. This is not a crime,” Trump said, falsely claiming that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is targeting him while “violent crime is at an all-time high.”
“There is no case,” Trump claimed. “We’re here for something that is not a crime. Nobody’s ever seen anything like it.”
Trump also baselessly claimed that the case is “election interference” being “run by Joe Biden” and his White House.
CNN legal analyst Elie Honig called out Trump’s “tired and tiresome claim that this is all coming out of the Biden White House.”
“This is a state case. There’s zero evidence whatsoever that Joe Biden or the administration had anything to do with this prosecution,” he said.
He also pushed back on Trump’s claim that “this is not a crime.”
“There’s a fair debate about how serious this is, but this is a crime if proven as alleged in the indictment,” he said. “There’s some question about whether it would be just a misdemeanor, falsification of business records, or a higher level felony. But under any reasonable construction, if proven, this is a crime.
“And the third thing Donald Trump said that I noted is he said there’s absolutely no case here,” Honig continued. “This is a debatable case. It will be tried to a jury, but this is a case that has a good faith basis. There’s a basis of fact in the indictment. It will be up to a jury.”
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