Former US president Donald Trump railed against his criminal conviction on Friday, calling his New York trial "very unfair", attacking the process as politicized and vowing to appeal.
"It was very unfair... You saw what happened to some of the witnesses that were on our side -- they were literally crucified," Trump said in a rambling speech at Trump Tower in Manhattan in which he called his adversaries "sick" and "fascists."
He vowed to challenge his conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records, declaring "we're going to be appealing this scam... on many different things."
Trump claimed that he wanted to testify, as was his legal right, but that he was not permitted to.
Legal observers had suggested that it would expose the Republican candidate for the presidential election in November to outsize legal and political jeopardy if he had been cross examined by prosecutors.
Trump said he was "honored" to take on the legal establishment but that "it's very bad for my family, it's very bad for my friends and businesses."
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