A day after a New York jury delivered a guilty verdict in Donald Trump’s New York criminal trial, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee plans a news conference at Trump Tower at 11 a.m. Friday.
Immediately after his conviction on Thursday, Trump angrily denounced the trial as a “disgrace,” telling reporters he was an “innocent man.”
His supporters were quick to echo those sentiments while many of his critics — political and otherwise — applauded the verdict.
Trump was convicted of 34 felony charges in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election by paying for the silence of a porn actor who said the two had sex. The trial and subsequent conviction mark the first time a former U.S. president has ever been tried or convicted in a criminal case.
He still faces three other felony indictments, but the New York case was the first to reach trial and likely the only one ahead of the November election.
Judge Juan M. Merchan scheduled Trump’s sentencing for July 11. The charges are punishable by up to four years in prison, though the punishment would ultimately be up to Merchan. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg declined to say whether prosecutors would seek prison time.