Former President Donald Trump railed against his New York criminal trial, calling it a “kangaroo court” as jurors prepared to begin deliberations Wednesday.

In an all-caps Truth Social post on Wednesday, Mr. Trump called out Judge Juan Merchan and Michael Cohen, the former Trump lawyer who was the prosecutors’ star witness.

“Kangaroo court! A corrupt and conflicted judge. Reliance on counsel (advice of counsel) not allowed by Merchan, a first,” Mr. Trump fumed. “His rulings, on a case that should, according to all legal scholars and experts, never have been brought, have made this a Biden pushed witch hunt. There was no crime, except for the bum that got caught stealing from me! In God we trust!”

Mr. Trump has claimed that Mr. Merchan hasn’t allowed an advice-of-counsel defense in the case, though his lawyers in March said they would not be using that defense.

“While President Trump intends to elicit evidence concerning the presence, involvement and advice of lawyers in relevant events giving rise to the charges in the Indictment, he does not intend to assert a formal advice-of-counsel defense,” his lawyers wrote in court filings in March.

The jury begins deliberations hearing closing day-long closing arguments on Tuesday. The trial has lasted over four weeks. The former president is facing 34 counts of falsifying business records in connection with hush money payments Mr. Cohen made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election.

Paying hush money or engaging in a nondisclosure agreement is not illegal. Prosecutors said the records were falsified with an intent to hide another unidentified crime, perhaps an election or tax crime.

The other crime, which the judge plans to instruct jurors they do not have to agree upon to find Mr. Trump guilty, elevated the business records fraud from a misdemeanor to a felony.

Each of the 34 charges is punishable by up to four years in prison.

• Mallory Wilson can be reached at mwilson@washingtontimes.com.