After a Manhattan jury handed down a guilty verdict to former President Donald Trump in his hush money case, third-party presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said the decision would only help his opponent’s chances of winning in November.
Kennedy spoke on Trump’s conviction in Austin, Texas, at Consensus 2024, a crypto event, just hours after the news broke.
Kennedy called the trial the “weakest case” brought against Trump.
“A large part of the American public believes that the judicial system and enforcement system has been weaponized politically,” Kennedy said. “That’s bad for our country, and I think that’s a mistake for the Democratic Party. I think the Democratic Party believes they have a candidate that can’t beat President Trump and they need to do it in the court.”
Kennedy also discussed whether it’s still fitting for Trump to run as a convicted felon, saying this battle should be fought at the ballot box and not in court.
“The Constitution says there’s only three requirements for running for president of the United States or for holding the office: One is that you’re of age, that over the age of 35, the second is that you’re a United States citizen, and third is you were born in this country. So, technically, if you were in prison convicted of murder or some other heinous crime, you could still hold the office of president of the United States. Is that a good rule? I don’t know, but that’s the rule,” he said.
The three requirements Kennedy speaks on are actually that a person is 35 years old, a natural-born citizen, and a resident of the county for the last 14 years.
Still, Kennedy has said he’s not a fan of Trump — there’s a reason he’s running against him. Despite his disagreement with the guilty verdict, Kennedy reiterated the candidates’ differences in opinion about various policies.
“He shut down our country after promising that he was gonna run America like a business. He shut down all of our businesses, 3.3 million businesses, with no due process, no just compensation, no scientific citation. He embroiled our country in foreign wars,” Kennedy said. “He divided — the division that we have in our country is now largely [thanks] to him and President Biden, and it’s not a good thing for our country. And then his positions on the environment, etc., are bad to me for our country, but that, I think, that’s what the election should be about, about arguing about those issues.”
Many members of Trump’s inner circle have likened the conviction to corruption found in developing countries, saying the United States is now a banana republic.
“These are the kind of verdicts that occur in dictatorships and third world and banana republic governments, not in countries or democracies ruled by law,” former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani said. “The law had nothing to do with this case.”
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Kennedy has echoed this sentiment and said there needs to be more public discussions about how the U.S. is weaponizing the justice system to get rid of political candidates.
“A district attorney can convict a tomato if he wants to,” Kennedy said. “District attorneys are making decisions because juries tend to go with what the district attorney recommends.”
