WASHINGTON — Former president Donald Trump called himself "a very innocent man" just minutes after a jury found him guilty Thursday of 34 felony offenses.
Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, was found guilty of 34 criminal counts of falsifying business records.
In his first comments after the verdict, the former president repeated many of the claims he's made throughout the trial, calling it a "disgrace" and "rigged," while lashing out at the judge.
"The real verdict is going to be November 5th by the people," Trump said in the hallway outside the New York courtroom.
"We didn't do a thing wrong. I'm a very innocent man," Trump said after becoming the first former U.S. president convicted of felony crimes.
The jury in Donald Trump ’s trial delivered their verdict late Thursday afternoon after two days of deliberations that spanned 9 1/2 hours.
Prosecutors accused Trump of falsifying internal business records to cover up hush money payments tied to an alleged scheme to bury stories that might torpedo his 2016 White House bid.
At the heart of the charges were reimbursements paid to Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen for a $130,000 hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels in exchange for not going public with her claim about a 2006 sexual encounter with Trump.
Prosecutors say the reimbursements were falsely logged as “legal expenses” to hide the true nature of the transactions.
The charges Trump faces are punishable by up to four years in prison. He has denied all wrongdoing.
The case is the first of Trump’s four indictments to reach trial and is the first-ever criminal case against a former U.S. president.
Full comments from Donald Trump after guilty verdict
"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% or 6% in this district in this area - this was a rigged, disgraceful trial. The real verdict is going to be November 5th by the people and they know what happened here and everybody knows what happened here. You have a Soros-backed D.A. and a whole thing, we didn’t do a thing wrong…I’m a very innocent man and it’s okay, I’m fighting for our country, I’m fighting for our constitution. Our whole country is being rigged right now. This was 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 til 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 1 with a conflicted judge who should have never been allowed to try this case, never, and we will fight for our constitution. This is long from over."