Trump trial horror as man sets himself on fire
Protester acted to expose ‘conspiracy’
A MAN set himself on fire outside Donald Trump’s hush money trial yesterday in what witnesses claimed was a “political protest”.
Screams were heard outside the Manhattan Criminal Court in New York as the man, later identified as Max Azzarello, set himself on fire using an alcohol-based cleaning fluid.
Moments before, he was seen throwing what police described as “conspiracy-based” pamphlets in the air.
As the fire took hold, he knelt down and put his hands on his head before succumbing to the heat.
Dozens of police rushed to his aid but were pushed back by the heat until a man with a fire extinguisher finally put out the flames. The protester was taken away on a stretcher and was last night in hospital in a critical condition.
The 37-year-old, from Florida, had been holding a sign before the incident, that included a link to a site on online platform Substack. A letter on the website was entitled: “I have set myself on fire outside the Trump Trial.”
The site reads: “This extreme act of protest is to draw attention to an urgent and important discovery: We are victims of a totalitarian con, and our own government (along with many of their allies) is about to hit us with an apocalyptic fascist world coup.” The incident came as a jury of 12 people and six alternates was finally selected after proceedings lasting a week.
The trial centres on a $130,000 payment that Michael Cohen – Trump’s former lawyer and personal fixer – made to porn actor Stormy Daniels to prevent her claims of a sexual encounter with Trump from becoming public in the final days of the 2016 presidential election race.
Prosecutors say the Republican former president obscured the true nature of the payments in internal records when his company reimbursed Cohen, who pleaded guilty to federal charges in 2018 and is expected to be a star witness for the prosecution.
Trump, who has pleaded not guilty to falsifying business records, denies any sexual encounter with Daniels and his lawyers argue the payments to Cohen were legitimate legal expenses.