Donald Trump lashed out at the judge overseeing his criminal case after the president-elect's latest attempt to have his conviction quashed was fully rejected.
New York justice Juan Merchan issued a ruling Monday that Trump cannot claim presidential immunity to overturn a jury's guilty verdict on 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal a $130,000 hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels.
The president-elect reacted furiously the following day on Truth Social.
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"BREAKING: In a completely illegal, psychotic order, the deeply conflicted, corrupt, biased, and incompetent Acting Justice Juan Merchan has completely disrespected the United States Supreme Court, and its Historic Decision on Immunity," Trump posted. "But even without Immunity, this illegitimate case is nothing but a Rigged Hoax."
The judge has not yet decided whether the trial's outcome should be set aside due to Trump's inauguration next month, but the former president and his legal team say the verdict should be dismissed after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a separate case that presidents have immunity for official acts they undertake while in office.
"Merchan, who is a radical partisan, wrote an opinion that is knowingly unlawful, goes against our Constitution, and, if allowed to stand, would be the end of the Presidency as we know it," Trump posted. "Merchan has so little respect for the Constitution that he is keeping in place an illegal gag order on me, your President and President-Elect, just so I cannot expose his and his family’s disqualifying and illegal conflicts."
Also on Monday, the Supreme Court once again rejected a request to lift the gag order imposed by Merchan that prohibits Trump from commenting publicly on witnesses, prosecutors, jurors, or court staffers and their family members. The judge himself is not covered under that order.
“The application for stay addressed to Justice [Clarence] Thomas and referred to the Court is denied,” the order stated, with no further comment.
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