Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick spoke out for the gagged former President Donald Trump, calling out New York Democrat Judge Juan Merchan "absolutely corrupt."
"After spending a day with President Trump at the trial, I wanted to share my thoughts and observations with Texas and the nation," Patrick wrote in an X post Friday, accompanied with a 4-minute video statement.
Patrick denounced the Democrat judge's gag order, blocking the president from speaking out against Merchan corruption, including revelations of his contributions to President Joe Biden's campaign and his daughter drawing in nearly $100 million from donors for anti-Trump congressional Democrats' political campaigns.
"I spent the day in court with the president recently and it's clear the judge is absolutely corrupt," Patrick says in the video statement. "He's doing everything in his power to help the jury find a pathway to convict the president."
Merchan is overseeing the legal expense trial that has been brought by a Democrat prosecutor, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, and Patrick noted the judge's in-trial rulings are "corrupt" and biased against the defense.
"The judge kept an expert witness on campaign finance from testifying that the president did not break any campaign finance law," Patrick said. "The president's lawyers asked the judge to give the jury an instruction that there is no campaign violation by the action the president took.
"The judge said, 'no.' In fact, this corrupt judge virtually granted every jury instruction the Biden prosecutors asked for and virtually none of the instructions asked for. This is a show trial, like you would see in some tinpot dictatorship in a third-world country, or in North Korea, or in China, or in Iran, or Russia.
"No one would ever imagine that this would happen in America."
Trump argued in a series of Truth Social posts Friday that he took no action, saying the "legal expense" bookkeeping was done without his doing and the payment to Michael Cohen was to pay his attorney for actions the lawyer was taking, not the candidate or the president himself.
"If they can do this to a former president with the funds to fight back, they can do this to you and any American," Patrick continued.
"Remember, there is no crime. There is no evidence of any wrongdoing, but they are persecuting and prosecuting President Donald Trump because they know they can't beat him into November."
Patrick continued into saying "no one" would go through what Trump is going through for the American people outside of Trump, adding Trump is the only candidate that can restore American security and prosperity.
"No matter what they throw at him, he just won't quit, because he knows the future of our nation is at risk," Patrick added, calling Trump a "friend" and urging donors to contribute the Trump effort.
"He's putting everything he has on the line, including his freedom, for us," Patrick said. "No president in history has been attacked more than him, and he's standing firm for you and me."