Washington — Republicans derided the verdict in Donald Trump's New York 'hush money' criminal trial on Thursday, sticking by their presumptive nominee for president and claiming bias by the judge — and the jury — against the former president as he was found guilty on all 34 felony counts.'Today is a shameful day in American history,' Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said in a statement. 'This was a purely political exercise, not a legal one.
Vance, an Ohio Republican who is also believed to be on the shortlist and was among a group of GOP lawmakers who traveled to the Manhattan courthouse to support the former president, said the verdict is 'an absolute miscarriage of justice.''The partisan slant of this jury pool shows why we ought to litigate politics at the ballot box and not in the courtroom,' he added in a post on social media.