Former President Donald Trump said the jury selection in his upcoming New York criminal trial is "largely luck."
"It depends who you get. It’s very unfair that I’m having a trial there," he told reporters during a press conference with House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.
Jury selection begins Monday on the case, the first of four criminal indictments slated to go to trial.
Trump is accused of doctoring his company’s records to hide the real reason for payments to Michael Cohen, his former lawyer and fixer who helped the candidate bury negative claims about him during his 2016 campaign. Cohen’s activities included paying porn actor Daniels $130,000 to suppress her story of an extramarital sexual encounter with Trump years earlier, which Trump denies.
Trump pleaded not guilty last year to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. His lawyers argue the payments to Cohen were legitimate legal expenses.
Trump’s lawyers had lobbed other, sometimes similar, arguments for delays at an appeals court this week. One of those appeals sought to put the trial on hold until the appellate court could give full consideration to the defense’s argument that it needs to be moved elsewhere on the grounds that the jury pool has been polluted by news coverage of Trump’s other recent cases.
Trump’s lawyers also maintain that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee faces "real potential prejudice" in heavily Democratic Manhattan.
All this week’s appeals were turned down by individual appellate judges, though the matters are headed to a panel of appeals judges for further consideration.
He said Friday that he planned to testify at the trial, calling the case a "scam."
"All I can do is tell the truth," Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. "And the truth is, they have no case."