Donald Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche said:todayThe former president’s lawyers in the New York case “expect” a guilty verdict, they said Friday. He said the defense plans to appeal.
A jury on Thursday found Trump guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records, as previously reported by the Blaze News. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) filed a lawsuit against the former president last year.
“I do not accept that this was a fair forum to try President Trump.”
“This is a verdict we expected. We intend to appeal, and we will win if we appeal,” Blanche told the news outlet. “Our goal is to appeal quickly and hopefully get an acquittal quickly.”
Branche said Trump’s legal team was not shocked or surprised by the outcome of the trial.
“I didn’t expect to get a fair shake in Manhattan, and I wasn’t,” he told the “Today” show.
Trump’s lawyers explained that there was “a lot of evidence” in the case that should have been presented to the jury but was rejected.
“We asked for evidence, for example, tax records of some of the witnesses. That was one of the prosecution’s theories. We weren’t allowed to offer that. We weren’t allowed to offer the theory of reliance on counsel, which we thought would have helped the defense,” Blanche continued. “The judge limited the cross-examination of witnesses in many ways, as a judge, and that created difficulties.”
Acting Judge Juan Marchan is scheduled to hand down the sentence in July. Trump faces up to four years in prison on each count. Asked whether she thought Bragg would seek prison time for Trump, Blanche said:
“I hope not,” he replied. “According to court guidelines and rules, President Trump would not normally go to jail.”
“He shouldn’t go to jail. I don’t know what the district attorney is going to do,” Blanche added.
He told news outlets that the jury’s verdict does not mean the case is over, and that Trump’s legal team plans to appeal.
“I think the recusal issue is relevant,” Blanche explained. “I think the statute of limitations is relevant, and the context in which this lawsuit was filed is relevant.”
“I don’t think Michael Cohen is the kind of person who can convict someone,” he added of Trump’s former lawyer.
In an interview CNN “All of the jurors knew Donald Trump was a presidential candidate from ‘The Apprentice,’ so I don’t believe this was a fair forum to try President Trump,” Blanche said Thursday night.
CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins disputed Blanche’s claims, saying it was inevitable that jurors would find out about the incident before the trial.
“The law doesn’t say, ‘But if it was inevitable, then it’s just bad luck.’ That’s what the law doesn’t say. The law says a person has the right to a fair trial before a jury. But we believe that everything that’s happened leading up to this trial has made it very difficult for the jury to evaluate the evidence completely independent of what they knew before they came to trial,” Blanche said.
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