Donald Trump has condemned the hush money investigation into him as a “hoax” ahead of his sentencing later this month, when he could be sent to prison.
In posts on Truth Social, the former president shared recent opinions from legal experts, such as assistant U.S attorney for the Southern District of New York Andrew C. McCarthy, and fellow lawyers David B. Rivkin and Elizabeth Price Foley, who have suggested the falsifying business records charges against Trump should be dismissed.
In May, Trump was found guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records over allegations he instructed his then lawyer, Michael Cohen, to pay adult film star Stormy Daniels $130,000 to keep an alleged affair she and Trump had a secret ahead of the 2016 election. The money was listed in Trump’s company records as legal fees.
Trump is due to be sentenced on September 18, and legal experts have suggested he will not be handed a custodial sentence. Judge Juan Merchan, who oversaw the historic trial in New York, is set to rule on whether the Supreme Court‘s recent ruling that Trump is granted some presidential immunity for official acts committed in office affects the hush money case.
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After sharing the views of those who believe the hush money case should be dismissed, Trump said: “This is what various Legal Scholars and Experts, Brilliant Lawyers, and Highly Respected Journalists think of the Manhattan D.A. Hoax, where the Democrats, headed up by Comrade Kamala Harris, working directly with the DOJ (which they’re not supposed to be!), want to put a Former President of the United States, and the Leading Candidate for President, in PRISON.
“This is unheard of, there has never been anything like it in our Country, and they are doing it in a blatant and illegal attempt to ‘win’ an Election that, based on their results, should be ‘unwinnable,’ but I can’t talk about it because Judge Merchan has put an UnConstitutional Gag Order on me.
“Somehow it will ALL work out – I don’t know how, I don’t know why, I don’t know when, but it always does,” Trump added.
In a June opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal, entitled “Trump’s Trial Violated Due Process,” Rivkin and Price Foley said the charges against the former president were wrongly bumped up to felony despite prosecutors not specifying “what other crime he allegedly intended to commit” as required by New York law.
“Trump, like all criminal defendants, was entitled to due process. The Constitution demands that higher courts throw out the verdict against him,” they wrote.
Writing for the National Review, McCarthy said that Merchan “must vacate the guilty verdicts” in the wake of the Supreme Court immunity ruling.
Trump’s legal team has been contacted for comment via email.
Syracuse University law professor Gregory Germain previously told Newsweek that it is “unlikely” Trump will be jailed when he is sentenced.
“Any other defendant would be given probation, and I think it will be very hard for the judge to justify a prison sentence over a records violation,” he said.
Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor and the president of the West Coast Trial Lawyers firm in California, also told Newsweek that Merchan would not jail a presidential candidate less than two months before an election.
“I think Trump will receive probation or a suspended sentence. Home confinement is unlikely during a presidential election. Incarceration with Secret Service protection is even less likely and a logistical nightmare,” Rahmani said.