Defendant Trump slams criminal charges as insult to our country

PALM BEACH – Donald Trump offered a full-throated defense of his conduct in his first public remarks since being charged over hush money payments to a porn star, blasting the criminal prosecution as “an insult to our country.” Hours earlier the 76-year-old former US president pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts in a dramatic hearing in New York that transfixed the nation — and began the countdown to the first ever criminal trial of an American president. “I never thought anything like this could happen in America — never thought it could happen,” Trump told an audience of several…