After guilty verdict, former president makes statement at Trump Tower in New York

In his first remarks since a New York jury found Donald Trump guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records, President Joe Biden took a thinly veiled swipe at the former president’s attacks on the justice system.

“It’s reckless, it’s dangerous, it’s irresponsible for anyone to say this was rigged just because they don’t like the verdict,” Biden said, speaking to reporters at the White House.

The president’s comments came hours after Trump blamed him for his legal woes in remarks to the press and supporters, saying: “This is all done by Biden and his people. This is done by Washington. No one has ever seen anything like this.”

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For most of Thursday, there were few signs of life from the jury in Donald Trump’s hush money trial.

That all changed shortly after 4 p.m., when the panel of 12 New Yorkers delivered a note to the judge saying they had reached a verdict in the first criminal trial of a former U.S. president.

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Almost eight years ago, key figures in the Republican Party distanced themselves from Donald Trump after the “Access Hollywood” video revealed him making lewd and aggressive comments about women.  

Then-House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., disinvited Trump from a campaign event. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, asked him to step down as the GOP nominee. And then-Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, withdrew his endorsement.  

“I’m out. I can no longer in good conscience endorse this person for president. It is some of the most abhorrent and offensive comments that you can possibly imagine,” Chaffetz said in October 2016. 

Then Trump won the presidency just a month later. 

Since then — after two impeachments, a 2020 presidential defeat and multiple indictments — today’s Republican Party has learned to stand 100% behind Trump when it is faced with bad news about its former president and current presumptive presidential nominee. 

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Heather Dana, an Erie County voter, said she was “relieved” and “happy” after the jury’s verdict in the Trump hush money case, but she added she was not expecting the jury to deliver a verdict by Thursday.

“I was kind of surprised that they all unanimously were able to come to that verdict,” Dana said. “I kind of thought there would be — it would take a long time, it would be hard to get everyone to decide.”

“It’s kind of time to answer to some of the things he has done,” she said. “He is not beyond the law’s reach” and “he’s just like everyone else.”

Team Trump has long seen fundraising boosts pegged to Trump’s legal woes and, according to a new press release from the campaign, Thursday was a massive day for Trump’s election campaign.

The campaign announced it raised $34.8 million yesterday through the GOP fundraising platform WinRed. Anna Kelly, a Republican National Committee spokesperson, clarified in an email to NBC News that the total was raised into a joint fundraising committee that includes both Trump’s campaign and the RNC. It’s unclear how much money will go into each entity, and the national party can accept much bigger checks than the Trump campaign can. But this way of combining a nominee and the national party’s fundraising haul is common in the campaign finance world.

While every indication from the Trump campaign and the RNC is that this was a massive haul, NBC News cannot independently confirm that, both because of lags in campaign finance reporting and the byzantine way the presidential campaigns (on both sides of the aisle) raise funds. 

In response to Trump’s remarks slamming the verdict, President Joe Biden’s campaign spokesperson, Michael Tyler, said in a statement that Trump “cannot be president of the United States.”

“America just witnessed a confused, desperate, and defeated Donald Trump ramble about his own personal grievances and lie about the American justice system, leaving anyone watching with one obvious conclusion: This man cannot be president of the United States,” he said.

“Unhinged by his 2020 election loss and spiraling from his criminal convictions, Trump is consumed by his own thirst for revenge and retribution. He thinks this election is about him. But it’s not. It’s about the American people: lowering their costs, protecting their freedoms, defending their democracy,” Tyler continued. He also said Trump “is sowing chaos, attacking the rule of law, and fighting for the only thing in the world he gives a damn about: Donald Trump.”

The House Judiciary Committee’s weaponization of government subcommittee is demanding that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and prosecutor Matthew Colangelo testify before the committee on June 13, the panel said in a post on X.

The chair of the committee, Trump ally Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, is overseeing an investigation into Bragg and Colangelo, but this is the first substantive move by House Republicans since Trump’s conviction yesterday.

A committee aide told NBC News that this is a request, not a subpoena. Prosecutors would be all but certain to not testify in the middle of an ongoing case, which the case will be if Trump appeals it, as expected.

Less than 24 hours after being found guilty on 34 felony counts, Donald Trump stood in front of a backdrop of American flags and was ready to get weeks of frustration off his chest. 

The pugilistic former president spent 40 minutes unloading rambling comments peppered with mistruths and distortions to defend himself during a news conference at Trump Tower in Manhattan.

The event was the beginning of a new reality: Trump is now the first former president to be convicted of a crime.

“This is all done by Biden and his people,” Trump said opening the news conference, continuing without evidence to directly blame President Joe Biden for his legal woes. “This is done by Washington. No one has ever seen anything like this.”

Read the full story here.

Former White House deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley said many Americans believe former President Trump’s conviction in his criminal hush money trial was the result of a biased judge and jury in New York.

Trump finished his remarks saying that Election Day, Nov. 5, is “the most important day in the history of our country.”

He then walked off without taking questions from the media.