On Truth Social late Wednesday, former President Donald Trump begged for intervention in his ongoing New York fraud case by the governor of the state, Democrat Kathy Hochul. It’s not entirely clear how the process he imagined would even work… but she said “no” (well, something communicating that message).
Trump insists that the case against him, which was brought by the state’s attorney general, has been fatally undercut by testimony on the stand from Michael Cohen, Trump’s past lawyer who subsequently turned against him. Cohen seemed at times to contradict himself in trying to explain his past experiences of whether the former president had directed that claimed values of his assets be artificially inflated, an alleged process that underlies much of the case. Cohen eventually clarified that his explanation was that the former president hadn’t directly and explicitly made such a demand but still got the message across.
It’s similar to the connection drawn this week by Jack Smith between Trump and acts of violence clearly spurred by his rhetoric.
“A blight on the New York State Judicial System. Businesses are watching all over the world, and never coming in, only moving out. The Governor should get involved. Election Interference by my Political Opponent!” Trump said on Truth Social, rehashing his familiar, frenzied complaints. Though he’s made the “election interference” claim previously, there’s still no meaningful evidence connecting Trump’s electoral opponent — meaning Joe Biden — to the direct handling of any of the many criminal and civil cases against the ex-president.
And here was the reply on Hochul’s X (Twitter) account to Trump’s desperation: “Sad!” (The quip, should the connection be lost, reuses past language that Trump himself has infamously utilized for targets of his ire.) The Trumps’ legal team (other members of Donald’s family are also on trial) repeatedly pushed on Wednesday for what would have amounted to a swift end to the proceedings with a decision in their favor because of supposed problems with Cohen’s testimony. The judge repeatedly denied this.
— Governor Kathy Hochul (@GovKathyHochul) October 26, 2023
