Outside of the Manhattan courtroom where former President Donald Trump is facing 34 felony counts for allegedly falsifying business documents, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee has claimed that “every legal scholar” and “expert” says he’s committed no crime. Trump has repeatedly named Jonathan Turley — the conservative lawyer, professor and media personality who has appeared at the courthouse — as one of those legal scholars, often reading from printouts of Turley’s articles.
[Note: Trump has made several false statements while speaking to the press during trial breaks at the courthouse, including that he would testify (he didn’t) and that he doesn’t know what the charges are against him (he told the judge in court that he does).]
Former DNC Field Director Adam Parkhomenko was also at the courthouse this week. He took a photo of Turley sitting across the street from the courthouse on a lawn chair and, skewering the Trump defender for moral relativism, wrote: “Jonathan Turley, who accused a 10 year old rape victim of being a liar, sits in his crappy folding chair outside of the Trump criminal trial today in New York. Photo by me.”
Jonathan Turley, who accused a 10 year old rape victim of being a liar, sits in his crappy folding chair outside of the Trump criminal trial today in New York. Photo by me. pic.twitter.com/cf54fCty4C
— Adam Parkhomenko (@AdamParkhomenko) May 30, 2024
Parkhomenko is referring to an op-ed essay Turley wrote for the New York Post in July 2022, in which Turley doubted the story of a 10-year-old girl who was raped and impregnated in Ohio and forced to travel to Indiana for an abortion. (President Biden mentioned the girl in his White House address criticizing the Supreme Court after its ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade.)
Turley wrote: “We have little proof that the story is true.” After the column was published, news of the rape was confirmed, with Gerson Fuentes, 27, being charged with the crime after confessing.