Donald Trump Slams Criminal Conviction During Trump Tower Press Conference

Former President Donald Trump held a press conference at Trump Tower in New York City on Friday (May 31), one day after he became the first president to be tried and convicted of a felony.

A jury found Trump guilty of falsifying business records to cover up hush money payments made to two women during the 2016 presidential campaign.

"If they can do this to me, they can do this to anyone," Trump said, kicking off the off-the-cuff press conference.

"We have a president and a group of fascists that don't want to do anything about it because they could right now, today, he could stop it," he said. "But he's not. They're destroying our country. Our country is in very bad shape."

Trump then began speaking about his criminal trial, which he called "rigged," and pointed out that he remains under a gag order and cannot speak about the witnesses in the case.

"I'm under a gag order, which nobody's ever been under. No presidential candidates ever been under a gag order before," Trump said. "I'm under a gag order, nasty gag order where I've had to pay thousands of dollars in penalties and fines and was threatened with jail."

He continued, "Think of it: I'm the leading candidate. I'm leading Biden by a lot, and I'm leading the Republicans to the point where that's over. So I'm the leading person for president, and I'm under a gag order."

Trump maintained his innocence, saying that he had done nothing wrong.

"I paid a lawyer, totally legal. I paid a lawyer, a legal expense," he said. "It's not sheetrock construction or any other thing. It's a legal expense. Think of that. This is what the falsification of business records were. And I said, what else are you going to call it?"

Trump also said that he wanted to testify during the trial but was advised against it because prosecutors could have brought up unrelated issues and tried to get him to commit perjury.

"The theory is you never testify because as soon as you testify ... they'll get you on something that you said slightly wrong, and then they sue you for perjury, but I didn't care about that. I wanted to."

Trump also criticized Judge Juan Merchan for how he handled the case from the bench.

"He looks like an angel, but he's really a devil."

"As far as the trial itself, it was very unfair. We weren't allowed to use our election expert under any circumstances. You saw what happened to some of the witnesses that were on our side, they were literally crucified by this man," Trump explained.

Trump said that he plans to appeal the verdict.

"We're going to be appealing this scam. We're going to be appealing it on many different things," he said.

After Trump's conviction was announced, donations poured into his campaign, as supporters donated $34.8 million in just a matter of hours.