The former president of the United States, Donald Trump, revealed this Friday, May 31, that he would have liked to testify at his trial in New York in front of the 12 members of the jury, who found him guilty on Thursday of altering financial records to cover up payments to actress Stormy Daniels.
At a press conference, the former president and virtual US candidate clarified that he was in the best position to testify, but stated that the judge wanted to go into every detail of the case and that he feared being prosecuted for perjury if he made a verbal faux pas.
“I would have liked to have testified, but you would have said something out of place like: 'It was a beautiful sunny day and it was actually raining'“, he claimed.
In addition, Trump announced this day that his legal team will appeal Thursday's verdict, in which he was found guilty of 34 charges by a popular jury, based on numerous arguments.
Among them, he cited: “They did not allow us to bring witnesses, they did not allow us to speak, they did not allow us to do anything.” “The judge was a tyrant,” he concluded, alluding to the Judge Juan Merchan, who presided over the court.
What are the charges of which Donald Trump is accused?
The 34 charges against Trump They are linked to a series of checks issued to Cohen, to reimburse him for his role in the payments to Daniels. Those payments, made over 12 months, were recorded in several internal company documents as an advance that prosecutors say did not exist.
The jury has found it proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump voluntarily and knowingly falsified reimbursements to his then-loyal collaborator and legal advisor Michael Cohen in the amount of $420,000 with the intention of hiding the payment to Daniels before the 2016 elections, in exchange for keeping their secrets.
Trump wanted Daniels' version of an alleged sexual encounter between the two at a hotel in Lake Tahoe (California) in 2006, during a golf tournament in which Trump finished in a disgraceful 62nd place, not to be released. The payments and documents were made in 2017.
The documents that give rise to the 34 charges of which Trump has been found guilty of crimes of document falsification are 11 checks, 12 payment vouchers and 11 invoices destined for Cohen for a value of 420 thousand dollars. * With information from EFE
