The Manhattan trial was a tool used to attempt to sabotage Donald Trump’s run for US President, Greg Abbott has said
The New York trial that convicted presidential nominee Donald Trump was a sham perpetrated by the incumbent US president Joe Biden to strike out against a political opponent, Texas Governor Greg Abbotts lambasted the verdict.
A Manhattan jury on Thursday found Trump guilty of all 34 counts of falsifying business records, making Trump the first former president in US history to be convicted of a felony. Prosecutors alleged that Trump illegally covered up a hush money payment his former attorney Michael Cohen, made to adult film star Stormy Daniels in the weeks before the 2016 election to ensure her silence about an alleged affair from a decade prior. Trump has denied he had an affair with Daniels and his legal team said they will appeal the verdict. The Republican presidential nominee’s fellow party members have taken to social media to slam the verdict.
“This was a sham show trial. The Kangaroo Court will never stand on appeal,” Greg Abbott wrote on X (formerly Twitter) early on Friday. “Americans deserve better than a sitting U.S. President weaponizing our justice system against a political opponent— all to win an election,” he declared, calling on voters to “fire” Joe Biden in November.
Another GOP member and House Speaker Mike Johnson also slammed the trial as “lawfare.” “Democrats cheered as they convicted the leader of the opposing party on ridiculous charges, predicated on the testimony of a disbarred, convicted felon,” he said, referring to Cohen’s part in the trial. The “weaponization” of the US justice system is “a hallmark of the Biden Administration,” and “further evidence that Democrats will stop at nothing to silence dissent and crush their political opponents,” Johnson wrote on X.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton reiterated that his support of Donald Trump is “stronger than ever” following the “sham trial.” “As Attorney General of Texas, I will unleash every tool at my disposal to fight this blatant corruption and political persecution spewing from New York and the Biden administration,” he pledged on X.
Even some of the Republicans who previously expressed doubt about Trump’s eligibility to run in the 2024 US presidential election were seemingly united in their assessment of the verdict. Senator John Cornyn had endorsed Trump late last year, despite earlier suggesting the former president wouldn’t be able to win the 2024 elections. The “verdict is a disgrace,” he wrote on X, adding “we need to rally around” Donald Trump, “take back the White House and Senate, and get this country back on track. The real verdict will be Election Day.”
“Convicted felon or not,Trump will be the Republican nominee for president,” President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris reelection campaign said in a statement following the trial. “The threat Trump poses to our democracy has never been greater,” it wrote on X, in turn calling for people to reject him in their votes in November.
