Boris Johnson calls Donald Trump conviction a ‘machine-gun mob-style hit-job’

Boris Johnson has described the 34-count guilty verdict against Donald Trump as a “machine-gun mob-style hit-job”.

The former Prime Minister claimed it made Mr Trump’s chances of victory in the US presidential race “more likely” and described the historic case as “a load of stunted up old nonsense”. In a lengthy rant in the Daily Mail, Mr Johnson said: “This was no ordinary political assassination. This was a machine-gun mob-style hit-job on Trump.”

A New York jury found Mr Trump guilty of falsifying business records in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, who said the two had sex. The former US President, who is first to be convicted of a crime, insisted he was a “very innocent man” and claimed without evidence the trial was “rigged”.

Mr Johnson admitted that being a convicted felon should have “dealt a death blow” to Mr Trump’s hopes of re-entering the White House. “It looked as though the great global coalition of fastidious anti-Trumpies had finally found the bazooka big enough to penetrate the pachydermous Presidential front-runner,” he said.

But Mr Johnson claimed most voters were indifferent to the verdict and accused Mr Trump’s enemies of using “lawfare” to keep him off the ballot. He went on: “That is why those 34 guilty counts have done nothing – so far – to shift the dial, and I doubt very much that they will.

“The American people have looked at this case, and in spite of all the portentous claims about its HISTORIC importance, they have concluded that it was, by and large, a load of stunted-up old nonsense.”

Mr Johnson went on to praise Mr Trump for his time in office, although he admitted the ex-President should have conceded immediately when he lost to Joe Biden in 2021, when a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol building.

Mr Johnson said: “If you look dispassionately at his time in office, both on the domestic and international front, it was far more successful than his Left-wing critics allow. They should not be using legal tricks like this to prevent him from receiving the judgment that really matters – the verdict of the people.

“Whatever they may claim now, that is exactly what his opponents were hoping these cases would achieve. More fool them. By pursuing these cases, they have helped to make his victory more likely, not less.”

Mr Trump has previously described the ex-PM as a friend, saying he was “a good man”, adding: “They call him Britain Trump.”

Rishi Sunak declined to comment on the former President’s trial on the campaign trail. Asked whether he was willing to work with a convicted felon in the White House if he wins the election, the Prime Minister said: “You wouldn’t expect me to comment on another country’s domestic politics or judicial processes. I’m focused squarely on the election here at home, talking to people across the country about the choice at our election. That’s my focus.”

Keir Starmer said this was an “unprecedented situation” but he would work with whoever is elected President. Speaking at a campaign event in Inverclyde, he said: “First and foremost we respect the court’s decision in relation to the decision in the Trump case.”

He added: “We will work with whoever is elected president… that’s what you’d expect. We have a special relationship with the US that transcends whoever the president is, but it is an unprecedented situation, there is no doubt about that. And there’s a long way yet to go I think in relation to what happens next.”