Former President Donald Trump's criminal trial in Manhattan concluded Thursday with a historical convictionyen comments in New York On Friday morning, Trump continued to repeat false or misleading claims framing the legal verdict as a partisan political attack.
CBS News fact-checked four of Trump's claims about his trial Friday morning.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Claim 1: “This is all done by Biden and his people.”
Former President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that President Biden was behind the Manhattan criminal trial: “They are in full conjunction with the White House and the DOJ, so you understand,” Trump said Friday morning, a day after his sentence “All this is done by Biden and his people.”
What we know
This statement is false. Mr. Biden had no direct influence or power over the lawyers or the judge involved in this case. Also, the case was not brought by the US Department of Justice. It was brought by Manhattan District Attorney's Office. The trial did not take place in federal court, but within the New York court system.
Claim 2: “I am now under a gag order, which no one has ever been under. No presidential candidate has ever been under a gag order before.”
On Friday, Trump said he is still under a gag order from Judge Juan Merchan, echoing what his lawyer, Todd Blanche, said on Fox News on Thursday.
What we know:
CBS News legal contributor Jessica Levinson said Merchan had not yet lifted the gag order as of Friday, the day after Trump's sentencing. Separately, Reuters reported that it will “likely lift” the order.
Merchandise order It originally only barred Trump from speaking about witnesses and court personnel, but was expanded on April 1 to bar Trump from speaking about Bragg's family and Merchan's family after Trump repeatedly invoked Judge Merchan's daughter in the Social Networks. Merchan said the order was necessary because some of Trump's rhetoric could prevent jurors, lawyers and court employees from fulfilling their duties in court.
Trump is allowed to criticize Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and Merchan. The former president can also talk about the specifics of the case he finds guilty or claim that the entire trial is political if he chooses.
So far, Trump has he violated his gag order 10 timesand was fined a total of $10,000.
Statement 3: “We just went through one of many experiences where we had a conflicted judge, a very conflicted judge. There has never been a more conflicted judge.”
Trump on Friday attacked the impartiality of Judge Merchan, who oversaw the case, calling him “conflicted” at least seven times. He also previously claimed that Merchan's daughter was working with top Democrats.
What we know:
This is Trump exaggeration.
Judge Merchan, who was randomly assigned to this case, done $35 in political contributions to Democrats through ActBlue in 2020, including $15 to Mr. Biden's campaign. Loren Merchan, the judge's daughter, has worked with some of the top Democrats through her role at a marketing firm called Authentic campaigns.
In 2023, Merchan asked New York's Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics to decide whether this constituted a conflict. The group issued a warning to Merchan because political contributions of any kind are prohibited by state judicial ethics rules. But they decided that Merchan's ability to do his job was not affected.
Merchan therefore denied Trump's request to recuse himself, a decision that was recently upheld by a separate panel of New York Appellate Division judges.
Claim 4: “When Bragg came in, he said, 'this is the most ridiculous case I've ever seen…” When I announced I was running for president a long time later, they decided to revive this case.
Trump has repeatedly attacked Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who brought the “hush money” case to trial. During his remarks on Friday, Trump claimed that Bragg did not intend to file a case against him until after he had announced his election.
What we know:
This statement is false.
Alvin Bragg took office in January 2022 and inherited the case from a previous prosecutor, Cyrus Vance Jr. The New York Times reported that Bragg was confident by the summer of 2022 that he was moving forward with an indictment and that he could convince a court. that the felony charges for falsifying business records in this case were warranted. It wasn't until the fall of 2022 that Trump announced he was running again
Bragg has repeatedly been a target of Trump before and during the trial. CBS News found that Trump made or amplified this claim that billionaire investor George Soros gave Alvin Bragg at least 54 times on Truth Social, including on the day the verdict came in when Trump called Bragg “endorsed by Soros” in a publication.
While it's true that Soros gave $1 million in May 2021 to a progressive racial justice group called Color of Change, and the group's political arm later endorsed Bragg, a Soros spokesman told the New York Times that the two men had never met. — Nor had Soros given money directly to Bragg's campaign.
Alan He and Paulina Smolinksi contributed to this report.
