Trump rips into hush money trial judge amid countdown to jury deliberations

With closing arguments looming, former President Donald Trump took time out of his Memorial Day weekend to blast the judge who presided over his hush money trial in a rant on Truth Social.

The former president trotted out familiar attack lines against Judge Juan Merchan, whom he has regularly accused of being biased against him.

“The reason the Radical, highly Conflicted Judge Juan Merchan had to come up with three FAKE options for the jury to choose from, without requiring them to be unanimous, which is completely UNAMERICAN AND UNCONSTITUTIONAL, is because the Corrupt, Soros backed D.A., Alvin Bragg, couldn’t come close to proving that any crime was committed,” he said.

District Attorney Alvin Bragg slapped Trump with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, tying those charges to three other alleged crimes: violating the Federal Election Campaign Act, election conspiracy by “unlawful means” and tax fraud. The jury does not need to be unanimous in determining which other crimes Mr Trump committed. They simply have to agree that he falsified business records with the intent to conceal one of those three crimes.

Attorneys on both sides of Mr Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan rested their case last week. Judge Merchan will give the jury instructions this week and deliberations could begin as early as May 29. In their closing remarks, prosecutors will have to explain the crimes at the heart of the scandal, arguing that Mr Trump also violated federal election law when he violated a state election-conspiracy law by falsifying business records in a hush money scheme to silence Stormy Daniels over their alleged affair.

The attorneys for Mr Trump have said that Mr Trump did not commit fraud, but rather, the money