Vivek Ramaswamy, the one-time presidential hopeful who strove to remain a supporter of former President Donald Trump even when competing against him for the GOP nomination, has been a supporter during Trump’s trial, too.
The former biotech executive planned to be in court on Tuesday for the entire day, according to Fox News. He’s among a series of Republicans who have attended the trial and spoken out about it.
“The best proof that the Trump trial is a sham: if DJT had done the exact *opposite* of the alleged crime, they’d still be prosecuting him & have an even stronger case,” Ramaswamy said in a statement, according to Fox.
Trump is charged with falsifying business records. Prosecutors claim that when the Trump Organization reimbursed attorney Michael Cohen for money he paid porn actress Stormy Daniels for her silence about an alleged sexual encounter in 2006, the payments were incorrectly reported to hide what prosecutors claim was a second crime.
Cohen, now Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s main witness for the prosecution, took the stand on Monday.
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Republican Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, another Trump supporter, said Cohen’s testimony should not be believed.
“This guy is a convicted felon, who admitted in his testimony that he secretly recorded his former employer,” Vance said, according to ABC.
“Does any reasonable, sensible person really believe anything that Michael Cohen says?”
Vance said he was helping Trump, who is barred by a gag order from commenting on witnesses.
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“The thing that the president is prevented from saying, which is a disgrace, is that every single person involved in this prosecution is practically a Democratic political operative,” he said.
Although Trump’s allies are helping to spread the word, Trump continued his drumbeat of criticism of the trial in a Truth Social post.
“Virtually every Legal Analyst and Scholar said yesterday, at the end of the day, THAT THERE IS NO CASE, AND THAT THIS WITCH HUNT SHOULD HAVE NEVER BEEN BROUGHT, AND SHOULD BE THROWN OUT NOW!!! WHY WASN’T THIS HOAX BROUGHT SEVEN YEARS AGO, INSTEAD OF IN THE MIDDLE OF MY WINNING CAMPAIGN FOR PRESIDENT — ELECTION INTERFERENCE,” he wrote.
“The problem is that this Judge, Merchan, is TOTALLY COMPROMISED, CONFLICTED, AND CORRUPT, MAKING BIG MONEY OFF OF THIS SCAM AND ITS OUTCOME. He can’t render a fair decision, too much is at stake for him and the Democrats. The Appellate Division should remove him immediately!”
In a commentary piece Tuesday, Fox legal analyst Greg Jarrett wrote that amid all of Cohen’s salacious testimony about Trump paying Daniels to be quiet came a major blow to the prosecution.
“Cohen confirmed the accuracy of the bookkeeping when he explained that the money he received was compensation for his work on the legal settlement with Daniels, reimbursed payments to him, plus a retainer for his legal services as Trump’s newly named personal attorney,” he wrote.
“Where exactly is the original fraud that forms the basis for the 34 misdemeanor charges alleged by the prosecution? Nowhere,” he wrote.
“Either way, it doesn’t matter. Bragg’s argument is legally flawed because Trump used his own money, not campaign funds. The law imposes limits on the latter, but not on the former,” Jarrett wrote.
“This is the worst kind of government corruption. Unscrupulous, dishonest, and amoral. It is antithetical to justice and an embarrassment to our once respected legal system. It’s not a paradox. It’s a tragedy,” he wrote.
