Trump Decries ‘Unfair' Trial As Hush-Money Case Begins

Donald Trump unloaded on reporters and news cameras for nine minutes outside of a courtroom, where jurors were assembled for the first time to hear the first-ever criminal trial of an American president.

- ALEX WOODWARD

“It’s very unfair what’s going on and I should be allowed to campaign,” he said as he left the courthouse yesterday. “We did nothing wrong.”

The former president is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records as part of what prosecutors called a “criminal conspiracy” to bury politically compromising stories of his alleged affairs by paying off publishers, part of a months-long plan to deceive voters ahead of the 2016 presidential election.

After four days of jury selection last week, the trial on the 15th floor of a New York City criminal courtroom began yesterday with opening statements that outlined Mr Trump’s alleged plot to unlawfully influence the election’s outcome. Jurors also heard from the trial’s first witness: David Pecker, the former CEO of American Media Inc, which publishes the supermarket tabloid National Enquirer.

The first words from Manhattan assistant district attorney Matthew Colangelo underscored the stakes of the case against the former president. “This case is about a criminal conspiracy and a cover-up,” he said. “The defendant Donald Trump orchestrated a criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 presidential election. Then he covered up that criminal conspiracy by lying in his business records, over and over and over again.”