For Saturday’s Good Morning America on ABC, White House correspondent MaryAlice Parks denounced Donald Trump’s Friday speech, where he attacked the process that ended with him being found guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records for “including misleading claims.” Unfortunately for ABC viewers, Parks never specified what these misleading claims were.
In studio, Parks began by recalling that, "Yesterday, we saw President Trump absolutely raging about this case, airing grievances, attacking everyone involved. Republicans then piling on. All of it prompting President Biden to break his silence.”
Who is "we"? ABC didn't show the speech live. That aside, Parks transitioned to a recorded report and added that Trump is “Promising to appeal his conviction” and that he took to “microphones to fume and rail about the case against him, calling it a scam.”
Trump was then shown declaring that “it was a rigged trial. We wanted a venue change where we could have a fair trial. We didn't get it. We wanted a judge change. We wanted a judge that wasn't conflicted, and obviously he didn't do that.”
Parks dismissed Trump’s venue claim, “Trump convicted as charged on all 34 felony counts, the jury selected by both the prosecution and the defense, buying the prosecution's argument that Trump illegally worked to falsify business records to conceal a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels and keep her story from voters before the 2016 election.”
However, she also opined that the speech was “unapologetic and aggressive. Trump's remarks also rambling, at times, hard to follow, including misleading claims about how the case unfolded and attacks against President Biden, the prosecuting team, and judge. At one point, calling him a ‘devil’ and a ‘tyrant.’”
It is hard to tell what specific claims Parks is trying to refute. Other fact-checkers have tried to do opinion-checking, claiming former Biden DOJ number three official Matthew Colangelo’s presence on Alvin Bragg’s team was no big deal.
Glenn Kessler at the Washington Post argued Judge Juan Merchan’s donation to Biden was also a nothingburger because the New York Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics said so, which is hard to take seriously from the media, including Parks, because it has spent the past several weeks having a collective freakout over Martha-Ann and Justice Samuel Alito’s flags.
The fact-checkers also took issue with Trump calling the falsificiation of a misdemeanor because Trump was accused of also trying to cover up some other crime, but that other crime was never specified, leading to serious Sixth Amendment concerns.
For Parks, details were not important as she proceeded to hype Biden’s response to Trump’s speech.
Here is a transcript for the June 1 show:
ABC Good Morning America
6/1/2024
7:02 AM ET
MARYALICE PARKS: Yesterday, we saw President Trump absolutely raging about this case, airing grievances, attacking everyone involved. Republicans then piling on. All of it prompting President Biden to break his silence.
DONALD TRUMP: Oh, we're going to fight.
PARKS: Promising to appeal his conviction, former President Donald Trump taking to the microphones to fume and rail about the case against him, calling it a scam.
TRUMP: It was a rigged trial. We wanted a venue change where we could have a fair trial. We didn't get it. We wanted a judge change. We wanted a judge that wasn't conflicted, and obviously he didn't do that.
PARKS: Trump convicted as charged on all 34 felony counts, the jury selected by both the prosecution and the defense, buying the prosecution's argument that Trump illegally worked to falsify business records to conceal a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels and keep her story from voters before the 2016 election. Unapologetic and aggressive, Trump's remarks also rambling, at times, hard to follow, including misleading claims about how the case unfolded and attacks against President Biden, the prosecuting team, and judge. At one point, calling him a ‘devil’ and a ‘tyrant.’”
