Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Los Angeles) hold a press conference at Mr. Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate on April 12, 2024, in Palm Beach, Florida.
Joe Rydell | Getty Images
Donald Trump said Friday that he will testify under oath in his hush money criminal trial, which is scheduled to begin in New York on Monday.
“All I can do is tell the truth, and the truth is there is no case,” said Trump, who is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records.
The presumptive Republican presidential nominee spoke at a press conference with House Speaker Mike Johnson, Republican of Los Angeles, at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
The trial — the first ever against a former president — centers on a late 2016 hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels, who says she had an extramarital affair with Trump years earlier.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg accuses Trump of facilitating these and other payments to illegally hide information from voters ahead of the 2016 presidential election, which Trump will win.
Trump is expected to remain in court throughout the trial, which could last more than six weeks.
When asked at Mar-a-Lago what he would be looking for when jury selection begins Monday, Trump said: “Jury selection is largely luck. It depends on who you get.”
He again went on to attack the presiding judge, Juan Merchan, accusing him of having a conflict of interest that required him to recuse himself from the case.
Trump and his lawyers said the conflict is that Merchant's daughter works for a Democratic political firm. Merchan had already rejected that argument last year, but Trump's lawyers recently filed another disqualification request on similar grounds. Trump repeatedly targeted the judge's daughter on social media, prompting Merchan to expand the scope of his gag order on Trump.
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Los Angeles) hold a press conference at Mr. Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate on April 12, 2024, in Palm Beach, Florida.
Joe Rydell | Getty Images
Johnson, whose role in leading the narrowly divided House of Representatives faces challenges from within his own party, traveled to Florida to meet with Trump, the de facto leader of the Republican Party and the most influential in the party.
The two men held a press conference to announce a bill aimed at strengthening the “integrity” of elections by requiring proof of US citizenship to vote, even though voting is already illegal for non-citizens.
