Trump’s Big Gun Entourage Torches Merits of ‘Sham’ Business Records Trial Outside Courthouse

Former US Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy speaks outside the Manhattan C
ALEX KENT/AFP via Getty Images
Nick Gilbertson

Former President Donald Trump’s entourage of leading Republicans delivered a fiery press conference outside of his “sham” business records trial in Manhattan on Tuesday.

The midday press conference featured two of Trump’s former 2024 campaign rivals, Gov. Doug Burgum (R-ND) and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, as well as Reps. Byron Donalds (R-FL) and Cory Mills (R-FL).

Burgum, who kicked off the press conference, called the trial “election interference,” emphasizing that it is “tying up the president from being out on the campaign trail.”

He then contended that polling has shown “the American people already acquitted” Trump in the case:

We know that from the polls that have come out — even from New York Times, Rasmussen Interactive this week — President Trump is leading all over the country. And the conclusion you can draw from that is the American people have already acquitted Donald Trump because the things that they’re concerned about — inflation, crime, the border, the economy, all of these things President Trump is leading by huge double digits versus Joe Biden.

“The sooner that this scam trial can be concluded then the sooner that the president can get back to getting out campaigning and talking to the American people,” he added.

Ramaswamy followed, declaring the trial is a “sham.”

“This is not the United States of America. This is some third-rate banana republic. If this were happening in another country, we would be laughing at them as a sham democracy,” he said before focusing on prosecutors and disgraced convict Michael Cohen, who was Trump’s former lawyer:

I am ashamed, as an American citizen, to sit here in a courtroom watching the former leader of the free world, and let’s be honest, likely next leader of the free world, sitting with the indignity in this dingy third-rate courtroom with fourth-rate prosecutors and a fifth-rate lawyer on the stand as a witness who actually is violating attorney-client privilege left and right.

In his remarks, Donalds tore into Justice Juan Merchan, zoning in on his daughter, Loren Merchan.

“The only thing that’s being done wrong is by this judge. His daughter’s making money raising money for Democrats? And all of the fundraising emails and all of the fundraising things are about this trial that his daughter is using. He won’t recuse himself. This is a travesty of justice,” Donalds argued.

He also ripped Bragg.

“You have all of NYPD’s finest down here because of that travesty going on in that courtroom. Meanwhile, the citizens of New York are less safe, and the district attorney of New York is not prosecuting real crime,” he said.

Mills contended that Democrats “want to keep President Trump off the campaign trail” and that “the American people see this for what it is.”

“They’re seeing what’s happening in the swing states across America, and they’re seeing this is draining down assets and resources that could be utilized by the president to continue to forge ahead, to build a stronger economy, to secure our border, and to get our nation back on track,” Mills said.

“This is a sham, and that is the only thing this is,” he added. “Michael Cohen has no credibility, no integrity, and this is weaponization against our president.”

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