Donald Trump insisted he hadn't committed any crimes outside of a hearing discussing his upcoming trial for hush money payments made to Stormy Daniels.
The embattled ex-prez paid the adult film star $130,000 on the eve of the 2016 election in order to allegedly keep her from speaking publicly about their 2006 affair. In March 2023, a grand jury voted to indict Trump on 34 criminal counts of falsifying business documents in connection with the payment.
"It’s not a crime. This is not a crime," he told reporters outside of the courtroom. "And when you look at what’s going on outside the streets where violent crime is at an all-time high. I think it’s a very, very — it’s a great double standard."
"What it is, is election interference. It’s being run by Joe Biden, his White House," he continued, repeating claims he's made about several of his ongoing legal cases. "His top person was placed here in order to make sure everything goes right ... This is a terrible time for our country."
"I look outside, I look at history. It’s so different from when I left New York. It’s so different. It’s dirty and it’s crime ridden," the 77-year-old said. "And today you walk down the street, you get mugged or you get shot. And they are doing this where literally legal experts, legal scholars said they don’t understand that there’s no crime and there was no crime here at all."
Trump claimed this case was "just a way of hurting me in the election" because he's "leading by a lot," alleging it wouldn't be happening if he had been doing "poorly" in the polls.
"They figure this is their way of cheating this time," he told the crowd. "This time, they have something that’s really down and dirty that, no, frankly, no country does other than a third world country, a banana republic. So we’re going to do our process."
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As OK! previously reported, Trump is the first current or former U.S. president to ever be criminally charged. He faces a total of 91 felony counts across four jurisdictions.
He is also facing 40 counts related to the alleged mishandling of classified documents discovered at Mar-a-Lago.
In August 2023, Trump was indicted two additional times — once for for his actions surrounding the January 6th Capitol riots and his attempt to overturn the 2020 election in D.C. and a second time for his efforts to overturn the election in Georgia.
He's pleaded not guilty to all charges.
