Trump lashes out at judge in his case: "He hates me"

This Thursday Donald Trump used social media to give his opinion about the New York City judge who could preside over his Manhattan Supreme Court appearance next week.

The former president wrote through Truth Social that Judge Juan Merchan "hates him" and recalled that this was the same judge who presided over other prosecutions and convictions related to his companies.

"The Judge 'assigned' to my witch hunt case, a 'case' that has never been charged before, hates me. His name is Juan Manuel Marchan," wrote the former president with an error in the man's last name.

According to Trump, Merchan was hand-picked by Manhattan U.S. Attorney Alvin Bragg and the U.S. Attorney's Office. The former president claimed that this judge was the same one who intimidated his former chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, into pleading guilty in exchange for testimony in last year's trial against the Trump Organization, even though he reportedly did not cooperate.

Weisselberg received a five-month prison sentence after pleading guilty to the tax fraud trial in which two Trump Organization companies were also convicted and ordered to pay $1.6 million in fines.

Merchan is also the one overseeing the criminal prosecution involving Steve Bannon, former White House chief strategist during Trump's presidential term.

First president to face criminal charges

Donald Trump will become the the country's first president to be indicted on criminal charges for paying a porn actress in exchange for her silence with campaign finance money. An accusation that attorney Alan Dershowitz called "weakest" and "abusive."

"The worst, weakest and most abusive case of fiscal indiscretion in my 60 years of practicing law. I have never seen a weaker case. I have never seen a case that would be so easy to win if the person's name was not Donald Trump and the city was not New York. There's a risk he could lose with some of the 12 jurors in New York who will be terrified to come home to their family and friends and say we acquitted Trump. And so this is the most abusive case I've ever seen," said the prestigious lawyer.