Former President Trump’s lawyer, Todd Blanche, strengthened his belief that his client is innocent in the hush-money case, arguing following the verdict that it was difficult for his team to get a fair trial.
“I strongly believe — I mean, I believe that wholeheartedly — that the jury should have acquitted President Trump,” Blanche said in an interview with CNN’s Caitlin Collins on Thursday.[…]I left my job to do what I’ve been doing the last few weeks and my belief in what happened today and to do what I believe in. The facts are showing and that won’t change.”
Trump was found guilty on Thursday of all 34 counts of falsifying business records, becoming the first former U.S. president to be convicted. The charges stem from his payment to his former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, to porn actress Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about her alleged affair with the former president.
In a separate interview on Fox News Channel’s “Jesse Watters Primetime,” Blanche said she didn’t believe Trump received a fair trial.
“So we’ve been arguing for over a year that you can’t get a fair trial in Manhattan, you can’t get a fair trial before a judge, and in many ways that’s turned out just as we expected,” he said, adding, “What happens at trial is you get to trial and all the decisions made in the weeks and months leading up to trial are going to matter – what evidence you can present, what evidence you can’t present.”
“And when we went to court, we realised we weren’t being treated fairly,” he added.
Pointing to the jury, Blanche said there was a “bias” that the defense “could not overcome.”
“Every member of the jury knew Donald Trump as a president or as a candidate from ‘The Apprentice,’ so we cannot accept that this was a fair place to hold a trial,” he told CNN, objecting to holding the trial in New York City.
After the verdict, Trump insisted he was “a completely innocent man.”
“This has been a fraudulent verdict from day one. This case was decided by a judge with a conflict of interest who should never have been allowed to try this case. It should never have been allowed,” Trump said. “We will fight for the Constitution. This case is far from over. Thank you very much.”
The judge set the ruling for July 11, just days before the Republican National Convention, where Trump is expected to be formally nominated as the GOP’s 2024 presidential candidate.
