Convicted Felon Trump’s Idiot Lawyer Doubles Down on Absurd Defense

Donald Trump’s attorney Todd Blanche still believes in his failed legal strategy to defend the former president—even though he’ll readily admit that the plan did not cover all the bases.

Hours after the courtroom adjourned Thursday, Blanche ran a media circuit, standing firm that the defense had done “the best we could” while still insisting that the defense strategy had been airtight.

“We never saw… some key figures who got brought up a lot. Why didn’t the defense call any of these witnesses?” asked CNN’s Kaitlan Collins.

“Well, because we happen to live in America,” Blanche chortled. “We don’t have the burden of proof. So, that’s not the point.”

“The question that we asked the jury… is why the prosecution didn’t call those witnesses,” he continued. “As a defense attorney, you don’t go into a case saying, ‘I’m going to fill the holes of the prosecution.’”

It’s wild to claim it simply wasn’t his responsibility to call supposedly crucial witnesses who could have exonerated his client, and Trump himself wasn’t happy with the lapse. In the days leading up to the jury’s decision, Trump torched his attorneys online, claiming that his team had not pursued the legal strategy he wanted and that crucial witnesses had been left on the table.

But Blanche couldn’t defend that narrative either, instead telling Fox News’s Jesse Watters that Trump was “very involved” in his own defense.

“He’s a smart guy, he knows what he’s doing. He jokingly said to us a lot that sometimes he wanted to be the litigator, he wanted to be arguing, because he knows what he’s doing,” Blanche said. “We made every decision together.”

And mind-bogglingly, when Watters asked if he would have done anything differently, Blanche said he “wouldn’t change anything that we did”—apparently including ending with a conviction.

The month-long trial ended in a guilty verdict for Trump, the first criminal conviction of a former president in U.S. history. Trump’s sentencing is scheduled for July 11, just three days before the Republican National Convention.

Convicted felon Donald Trump might need to turn to some of his ex-allies in order to help him out with his newfound legal guilt—namely, “Tiny D” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

Trump’s ability to vote for himself in November will depend on the details of his sentence, which is expected July 11. His vote is further complicated by his choice of permanent residence—Florida—which bars felons from participating in elections. And Florida’s regulations on the issue are particularly restrictive: even if a person is convicted of a felony in another state, as long as the state recognizes the crime, they still won’t be allowed to cast their ballots until they complete their sentence.

Trump has another option, though: DeSantis, whom Trump has also dubbed “Meatball Ron” and “Pudding Fingers,” could make a special exception for his former primary competitor.

New York Justice Juan Merchan could sentence Trump to up to four years in prison. He could also impose probation, supervised release, or order Trump to do community service or pay fines. Trump would need to complete all portions of his sentence before he’d be allowed to vote again in Florida, Alex Saiz, legal director of the Florida Justice Center, explained to Politico.

“Let’s say for whatever reason, Donald Trump gets just a fine and no [prison] sentence. If he doesn’t pay that fine, then he can’t vote until that fine is paid,” Saiz told the publication. “But if he gets given time served and a $500 fine, once he has paid that $500 fine and owes no more money and has no more supervision, then he is eligible to vote in the state of Florida.”

If Trump completes his sentence, he may still be loath to ask DeSantis for help. But considering the fact that DeSantis seems perfectly happy fundraising for the man who once called him a groomer, he may be willing to intervene.

After a Manhattan jury found him guilty on all 34 felony charges in his hush-money trial in New York Thursday, Donald Trump said that the whole thing was rigged against him.

“This was a disgrace, this was a rigged trial by a conflicted judge who was corrupt. It’s a rigged trial, a disgrace,” Trump said to reporters as he left the Manhattan courtroom.

“They wouldn’t give us a venue change, we were at 5 percent or 6 percent in this district, in this area. This was a rigged, disgraceful trial. The real verdict is going to be November 5 by the people, and they know what happened here and everybody knows what happened here,” Trump added.

Trump went on to blame District Attorney Alvin Bragg, calling him Soros-backed, and accused the Biden administration of trying to weaken him to win the election.

The former president’s sentencing is scheduled to take place by Judge Juan Merchan on July 11 at 10 a.m., just four days before the Republican National Convention begins in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His post-trial remarks could affect his sentencing, as a lack of remorse is often considered by judges in criminal cases.

Immediately after the trial, Trump also sent a fundraising email to his followers where he declared himself a political prisoner.

In the event Trump is sentenced to prison time, it’s uncertain how the presumptive Republican presidential nominee will attempt to continue his campaign from behind bars—which some of his followers falsely claim has already been explored by the Secret Service. Trump does have the option to appeal the guilty verdict, which could mean that he wouldn’t have to start serving any sentence until an appeals court makes a decision. An appeal could push the possibility of jail time until after the election.

Read Trump’s full remarks on his guilty verdict below:

This was a disgrace, this was a rigged trial by a conflicted judge who was corrupt. It’s a rigged trial, a disgrace. They wouldn’t give us a venue change, we were at 5 percent or 6 percent in this district, in this area. This was a rigged, disgraceful trial. The real verdict is going to be November 5 by the people, and they know what happened here and everybody knows what happened here. You have a Soros-backed DA, and the whole thing, we didn’t do a thing wrong.

I’m a very innocent man, and it’s OK, I’m fighting for our country, I’m fighting for our Constitution, our whole country is being rigged right now. This was being done by the Biden administration in order to wound or hurt an opponent, a political opponent, and I think it’s just a disgrace and we’ll keep fighting, we’ll fight till the end and we’ll win because our country’s gone to hell.

We don’t have the same country anymore. We have a divided mess, we’re a nation in decline, serious decline, millions and millions of people pouring into our country right now. From prisons and from mental institutions, terrorists and they’re taking over our country. We have a country that’s in big trouble, but this was a rigged decision right from day one with a conflicted judge who should have never been allowed to try this case. Never. And we fight for our Constitution. This is long from over. Thank you very much.

A jury found Donald Trump guilty on all 34 counts on Thursday, marking the first time in U.S. history that a former president has been convicted of a felony.

The jury reached its decision after deliberating for less than 10 hours. Judge Juan Merchan announced that Trump will be sentenced on July 11 at 10 a.m., mere days before the Republican National Convention will take place in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Trump was accused of using his former fixer Michael Cohen to sweep an affair with porn star Stormy Daniels under the rug ahead of the 2016 presidential election. He faced 34 felony charges in the case for allegedly falsifying business records with the intent to further an underlying crime in the first degree.

In order to find Trump guilty of felony-level falsification of business documents, the jurors had to unanimously agree that he did so in order to further an underlying or separate crime. But before entering the jury chamber—and against the best efforts of Trump’s legal team—Merchan ruled that the jury did not need to agree on what the separate or underlying crimes were.

Trump listened to the verdict wearing a deep frown, while his attorneys looked away from their client.

Just before the jury began deliberating Trump’s fate, the former president slammed his own legal defense, seemingly disapproving of the strategy they had chosen. In frantic, back-to-back posts on Truth Social Wednesday morning, Trump suggested that he had wanted an advice of counsel defense, a strategy that negates the element of criminal fraud when the advice stems from “reasonable reliance” on the advice of a person’s legal counsel.

His attorneys had indicated in March that they had no intention of employing that strategy. Instead, they wanted to include evidence that centered around the lawyers in Trump’s decision to dole out hush-money payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels—a strategy that Merchan described as a “presence of counsel” defense and that he ultimately deemed would be too confusing for the jury to navigate.

The outcome will have historic ramifications not just for Trump but for the entire country. If Trump does end up being sentenced to prison, it remains to be seen how the presumptive GOP presidential nominee will attempt to continue his bid for reelection from a jailhouse—a possibility that many of his followers are falsely claiming the Secret Service has already explored.

Regardless, several prominent far-right politicians have already indicated that they will continue to support Trump even if he’s convicted of a felony. In an embarrassing show during an August GOP primary debate, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, biotech investor Vivek Ramaswamy, North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and former Vice President Mike Pence all indicated that they would continue to support Trump as the Republican nominee even if he’s found guilty in his criminal trials. Others have gone even further: In November, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene told Piers Morgan that she would “absolutely” continue to support Trump’s presidency, even “from a prison cell.”

And Americans are right behind them. An April NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll found that nearly two-thirds of Republicans would still vote for Trump even if he was found guilty. Only November will show if they make good on that promise.

This story has been updated.

Less than two weeks after its installation, the pier constructed by the United States to facilitate aid into Gaza has been completely removed after it broke apart in the water.

The Pentagon admitted Thursday that the remaining parts of the $320 million boondoggle were dismantled after the pier was damaged in rough waters off the coast of Gaza on May 28, rendering it unusable. Israel has closed several land crossings, preventing aid from getting into the Gaza Strip, and the Israel Defense Forces have fired on food convoys and looked the other way as settlers have blocked aid from entering the remaining open land crossings. The U.S. has thus far resorted to aerial aid drops and, more recently, the manmade pier to facilitate aid, rather than demand Israel open up crossings and crack down on settler obstruction of aid delivery.

Now, according to Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh, the pier is going offline for at least the next week as it is repaired and rebuilt in Ashkelon. Since its construction, the pier had allowed for only 1,000 tons of humanitarian aid to be delivered to Gaza. According to United Nations World Food Programme chief economist Arif Husain, northern Gaza alone requires 4,500 tons of food a month.

At the beginning of May, prior to Israel’s Rafah offensive, the U.N. declared that northern Gaza had entered “full-blown famine.” The situation has worsened since then. It’s clear that, even when operational, the pier had hardly made a dent in the dire situation. Now, battered, broken, and eventually towed ashore, it stands as a symbol of American fecklessness in the face of Israel’s assault on Gaza.

Asked on Tuesday about the damage sustained by the costly pier, Singh said, “If you want to characterize it as a failure, I leave it to you.”