Moments after former President Donald J. Trump learned that he was a convicted felon, he dismissed the trial as illegitimate and the jury’s verdict as irrelevant as he pushed ahead to the presidential election.
“The real verdict is going to be Nov. 5 by the people.” Mr. Trump said on Thursday evening in the hallway outside the courtroom, just minutes after a jury in Manhattan convicted him on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. “And they know what happened here, and everybody knows what happened here.”
Speaking for less than three minutes, a somber Mr. Trump revived his contention that the case amounted to a politically motivated prosecution intended to interfere with his bid to return to the White House.
But as he rattled off attacks against Manhattan’s district attorney, the judge in the case, President Biden and Democrats, Mr. Trump seemed less animated than he had while addressing reporters during the duration of the trial. Rather than an energized rebuttal, his post-verdict remarks felt more like a rote recitation of grievances.
Mr. Trump again insisted on his innocence, as he has in all four of the criminal cases brought against him. “We didn’t do a thing wrong,” he said. “I’m a very innocent man.”
Mr. Trump repeated his unfounded claim that the entire case was orchestrated by Mr. Biden, even though Manhattan’s district attorney, a Democrat, is a state prosecutor who is outside the control of the Justice Department.
And Mr. Trump again criticized the judge in the case, Juan M. Merchan, as being biased against him, an accusation he has made for weeks. “This was a disgrace,” he said. “This was a rigged trial by a conflicted judge who is corrupt.”
Mr. Trump, who has been bound by a gag order that has restricted him from commenting on the jurors, suggested that it was impossible for him to have a fair trial in Manhattan, a Democratic stronghold. His lawyers had tried and failed to get a change of venue for similar reasons.
“We were at 5 percent or 6 percent in this district, in this area,” Mr. Trump said, though he actually received roughly 12 percent of the vote in Manhattan in 2020. “This was a rigged, disgraceful trial.”
At the same time, Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, made clear that he had no intention of ending his campaign. He and his lawyers have already indicated that they plan to appeal the conviction.
Sentencing in the case is scheduled for July 11, four days before the start of the Republican National Convention, where Mr. Trump is expected to be chosen as his party’s presidential nominee.
“We will fight for our Constitution. This is long from over,” Mr. Trump told reporters. “Thank you very much.”
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