News Brief
Hush Money Trial: Trump Calls Case A ‘Scam’ After Unconditional Discharge Despite Conviction
US President-elect Donald Trump
US President-elect Donald Trump on Friday (10 January) criticised the Biden-Harris administration, accusing them of orchestrating a “witch-hunt” against him.
Trump announced plans to appeal his sentencing in a hush money trial, where he received an unconditional discharge despite being found guilty of 34 felony charges.
Posting on the his social media platform TruthSocial, Trump alleged that Democrats, with support from the Justice Department under the Biden-Harris administration, had spent millions over six years to pursue what he described as a “pathetic, unAmerican” witch-hunt against him.
He asserted that their efforts had failed when he was granted an unconditional discharge in the case.
Trump described the charges against him as “completely baseless, illegal, and fake,” claiming that his unconditional discharge proved that there was not a legitimate case against him.
“That result alone proves that, as all Legal Scholars and Experts have said, THERE IS NO CASE, THERE WAS NEVER A CASE, and this whole Scam fully deserves to be DISMISSED,” he said.
In his post, Trump announced plans to appeal the “hoax” case, alleging bias in the legal process.
Trump dismissed the jury that convicted him, asserting that the real jury consisted of the voters who had given him a mandate as the 47th President of the United States.
Judge Juan Merchan on Friday sentenced Donald Trump to an unconditional discharge after a jury convicted him of 34 felony charges, citing the legal protections granted to the presidential office.
This sentence exempts Trump from serving jail time or paying fines.
“The protections [of the presidency] are, however, a legal mandate which, pursuant to the rule of law, this court must respect and follow. However, despite the extraordinary breadth of those protections, one power they do not provide is the power to erase a jury verdict,” Merchan said while issuing his judgement.
The case, which has been ongoing since 2016, involved a $130,000 payment allegedly made by Trump to an adult-film star during his first presidential campaign.
The payment was reportedly intended to prevent her from publicising claims of an affair that occurred a decade earlier.
