Minutes after Donald Trump was sentenced Thursday in his New York criminal trial, the Republican presidential candidate’s campaign website began redirecting visitors to a special fundraising page, presenting him as “ political prisoner”.

“I have just been convicted in a rigged political trial that is a witch hunt: I did nothing wrong,” reads a message from the former president (2017-2021).

“They raided my house, arrested me, photographed me, and now they’ve just sentenced me,” he continues.

However, the fundraising site went down a few minutes later due to the massive influx of followers on the WinRed donation platform.

“The American people see clearly behind the mock trial of Joe Biden. “So many Americans decided to donate to President Trump’s campaign” that the special website for it could not cope and “went down”, the group running the Republican campaign assured via X.

The site was down for about an hour.

The jury’s decision made Donald Trump the first former president in US history to be convicted in a criminal trial, but it doesn’t stop him from continuing to campaign and possibly be elected on November 5. He will learn his sentence on July 11, but retains the right to appeal.

His Democratic opponent in the election, President Joe Biden, who has so far appeared reluctant to address the trial — he has not spoken personally at this stage — also sought to use the verdict to raise funds.

“There’s only one way to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office: the ballot box,” tweeted the current president’s campaign team via X shortly after the verdict, after calling him “doomed” tycoon, urging: “donate to our campaign today.”

Donald Trump does not hesitate to characterize his judicial adventures as a battle with the forces of evil, with the “deep state”, a nebulous entity that, according to conspiracy theorists, watches over the corridors of Washington, and with the Biden administration.

After all, the Republican likes to present himself as a martyr, ready to sacrifice his freedom for the good of his followers.

In April, he likened his situation to that of Nelson Mandela, the anti-apartheid activist in South Africa who spent 27 years in the regime’s dungeons before becoming his country’s first black president. The real estate mogul went so far as to essentially compare himself to Jesus Christ.

Joe Biden’s campaign team commented at the time: “Imagine someone so self-centered comparing himself to Jesus Christ and Nelson Mandela within a week.”