'We're gonna fight': Trump speaks out after conviction, still under gag order

Donald Trump spoke from Trump Tower on Thursday following the guilty verdict in Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg's falsified business records case, criticizing the gag order that is still in place on him and said that "we're living in a fascist state."
 

"This is a case where if they can do this to me they can do this to anyone," Trump began. "These are bad people. These are in many cases, I believe, sick people."

"We just went through one of many cases where we had a conflicted judge, highly conflicted," Trump later added. "There's never been a more conflicted judge. Now I'm under a gag order, which nobody's ever been under, no presidential candidate’s ever been under a gag order before. I'm under a gag order. Nasty gag order, where I've had to pay thousands of dollars in penalties and fines, and was threatened with jail."

"Think of it, I'm the leading candidate. I'm leading Biden by a lot, and I'm leading the Republicans to the point where that's over. So I'm the leading person for president and I'm under a gag order by a man that can't put two sentences together, given by a court and they are in totally conjunction with the White House and the DOJ, just so you understand. This is all done by Biden and his people."

Trump said that his team was not allowed "to use our election expert under any circumstances" in the trial, adding that "when we wanted to do things, [the judge] wouldn’t let us do those things. But when the government wanted something, they got everything."

Regarding the charges, Trump said "I paid a lawyer a legal expense and a bookkeeper without any knowledge from me correctly marked it down in the books, a very professional woman, highly respected."

He added that he would have testified, but "the theory is you never testify" because "they'll get you on something that you said slightly wrong, and then they sue you for perjury."

Trump said he would be appealing the decision "on many different things." He later added "so we're going to show them that we're gonna fight."

"It's something where I'm wired in such a way that a lot of people would have gone away a long time ago that would have gone away after impeachment hoax number one that was a total hoax. I had great support from the Republican Party, though. Then you had impeachment hoax number two."

"We're dealing with a corrupt government. We have a corrupt country. Our elections are corrupt. Our borders are open, our borders are going to be closed very soon. November 5 is going to be the most important day in the history of our country."

Trump pointed people to his campaign donation page, which briefly went down on Thursday evening following the verdict, "They have a lot of money on the other side. I don't know where they get it. Nobody knows where they get it, but for some reason they get money, but they're not on the side of our country."

Trump said the case had been "dead" and was "dropped by every agency, every governmental board. It was dropped by the highly respected Southern District." Bragg had called the case the "most ridiculous case" but revived the case when Trump announced he was running.

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