In a visit to New York Monday, U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville and Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall stood in support of Donald Trump, now the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, as the former president’s criminal trial over alleged hush money payments entered its fifth week.
Standing outside the Manhattan courtroom where Trump’s trial is taking place, Tuberville harshly criticized Alvin Bragg, the lead prosecutor in the case, who he said was trying to antagonize on Trump in an effort to help President Joe Biden’s chances in the upcoming General Election.
“The DA comes in and he acts like it is his Super Bowl, and I guess it is, to be noticed,” Tuberville told members of the press outside the courtroom.
Marshall criticized Bragg’s actions from a prosecutor’s perspective.
“I have been a prosecutor for 30 years and have never witnessed a greater perversion of the criminal justice system than I did this morning,” Marshall said. “This reeks of desperation from a party that has clearly lost all confidence in its nominee, but even this circus won’t distract Americans from recognizing the failures of this administration.”
Tuberville referred multiple times the “mental anguish” being felt by Trump.
“But that’s what’s happening in this country: the Republican candidate for President of the United States is going through mental anguish in a courtroom, (and) that’s very depressing. I’m glad to stand by President Trump; I’m here more as a friend than backing him as a candidate for president.”
Proud to stand behind my friend President Trump in New York today. pic.twitter.com/b8OadPq8zi
— Coach Tommy Tuberville (@SenTuberville) May 13, 2024
Trump was indicted on charges of falsifying business records by a Manhattan grand jury in late March. The charges stem from a series of hush payments made to pornographic film actress Stormy Daniels during Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, which the prosecution alleges should have been documented as campaign expenses.
Monday marked a pivotal moment during the trial as Michael Cohen, a former lawyer of Trump’s who was sentenced in 2018 to three years in federal prison on tax fraud and perjury charges, was scheduled to testify in the case.
The prosecution’s star witness, Cohen is believed to have facilitated the hush money payments to Daniels on behalf of Trump, and his testimony will be vital in strengthening the prosecution’s case that Trump had violated campaign finance law.
Conversely, the defense has argued that Cohen had facilitated the hush money payments of his own volition, and that Trump was unaware of the payments, nor were they made to help his 2016 presidential campaign.
Not unlike Trump’s attorneys in the case, Tuberville questioned the credibility of Cohen, calling him a “serial liar.”
“I’m sitting there listening to a guy on the stand that they had to get out of house arrest because he lied in another court, to testify in this court,” Tuberville said.
“He’s a convicted felon. This guy, he’s up there giving an acting scene, and all of a sudden he comes out and says, ‘oh, I have recorded President Trump on my telephone.’ How can you be convinced by somebody that is a serial liar?”
Now in its fifth week, the trial is expected to last around seven weeks total, and is just one of several criminal cases against Trump. Last August, Trump was indicted on felony charges related to his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election, and last June, was indicted on felony charges related to improperly storing sensitive documents.
Tuberville, who was also joined Monday by U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance, R-OH, Indiana Attorney General Brenna Bird, and U.S. Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-NY, ultimately characterized the trial as an effort to defeat Trump’s chances in November, and vowed continued support for the GOP frontrunner, who has been endorsed by every Republican member of the Alabama delegation in Congress.
“At the end of the day, the Democrats are trying to beat President Trump in the jury box because they can’t beat him at the ballot box,” Tuberville said.