(NewsNation) — Talk show host and podcaster Megyn Kelly has “disdain” for the judge who presided over former President Donald Trump’s criminal hush money trial and called Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg a “partisan hack.”
Kelly joined “Dan Abrams Live” on Thursday after a jury found the former president guilty on all 34 counts of falsifying business records.
“I believe this jury had no choice but to conclude as it did because the judge led them right to the fountain of guilt and said ‘drink, horsey, drink,’” Kelly said. “So, they did. I don’t have much disdain for the jury for its decision because they followed the instructions that this judge gave them, but I have a lot of disdain for this judge and not to mention this prosecutor.”
She went on to accuse Bragg of “working in concert” with the judge to “fulfill Alvin Bragg’s campaign promise to get Trump.”
“The judge was complicit and it was not a valid claim, not from the start,” Kelly said.
She and NewsNation’s Dan Abrams disagreed about whether Trump had committed a crime at all. While Kelly argued “there’s nothing illegal about paying hush money for an NDA,” Abrams said “when you’re doing it to protect your campaign, it is.”
Thursday’s verdict came in the first of four criminal cases against the former president to go to trial. The case centered around payments made to Playboy model Karen McDougal and adult film star Stormy Daniels, who said they had affairs with Trump and were paid to stay quiet ahead of the 2016 election.
Trump then allegedly paid former attorney and fixer Michael Cohen back for the payments.
“I don’t think he wrote down ‘hush money payment to Stormy Daniels.’ No one who pays hush money would write down such a thing,” Kelly said. “I think he wrote down, or someone at the Trump Organization wrote down, ‘legal expenses’ from the drop-down Adobe menu, and that made as much sense as anything else because hush money wasn’t an option.”
Trump could face prison time, probation and possible fines in connection to the conviction.
He’s scheduled to be sentenced July 11.