In true Donald Trump fashion, the former president isn’t letting closing arguments come and go in his New York hush-money trial without letting us all know how he feels about the ordeal.
Trump rattled off a string of posts to Truth Social on Tuesday afternoon to complain about the proceedings, appearing particularly peeved at how long prosecutors’ closing arguments were taking.
He suggested the lengthy, six-hour closing statements were to bury his defense attorney’s arguments before deliberations begin—something that may commence as early as Wednesday morning.
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“BORING!” Trump wrote in one post to Truth Social at 5:11 p.m. In another post that went up at nearly the same time, he decried, “FILIBUSTER.”
Hours later, Trump expounded on his frustrations in a follow-up post that was also in all caps.
“The greatest case I’ve ever seen for reliance on counsel, and judge Merchan will not, for whatever reason, let me use that as a defense in this rigged trial,” he wrote, referring to a legal theory that a layperson defendant cannot be held liable for following the advice of their lawyer—in this case, Michael Cohen, Trump’s former fixer-turned-foe.
Trump’s attorneys wrapped up closing arguments Tuesday in just over two hours, insisting to jurors that they could not trust the case’s key witnesses—particularly Cohen.
A lunch break followed the defense’s closing arguments, and prosecutors gave their closing arguments in the second half of the day.
An hour and a half in, however, prosecutor Joshua Steinglass told Judge Juan Merchan that he was only a third of the way through his summation, drawing the ire of Trump.
If found guilty, Trump could spend as many as four years in prison in New York City, his hometown. He faces 34 counts of falsifying business records, part of an alleged scheme to cover up a $130,000 hush money payment to the porn star Stormy Daniels by disguising reimbursements to Cohen as a monthly retainer fee.
