Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich made it clear during a late Monday interview that he believes Judge Juan Merchan, a Democrat donor who is overseeing Donald Trump’s hush money case in Manhattan, has it in for the former president and will soon lock him up for alleged violations of his gag order.

On Monday, Gingrich told FNC host Sean Hannity that the Trump trial is merely “pretending” to apply the rule of law. Gingrich asserted that Merchan is deliberately jeopardizing Trump and has designs on throwing him in jail under dubious claims that he is endangering jurists with his remarks and social media posts.

“I worry about what this judge will do to put Donald Trump at risk while the judicial system operates. The problem is lawyers keep pretending that the rule of law is involved here. You have a corrupt district attorney, a corrupt state attorney general, a corrupt judge. His daughter is making millions out of attacking Donald Trump. This is not hearsay,” Gingrich began.

“You have a lawyer sent from the Justice Department, number 3 at Justice, to prosecute Trump having been a Democratic National Committee consultant, and in the middle of all of this, we are supposed to pretend this is the rule of law. This is not. This is not the rule of law,” the former Georgia Republican said.

“This is a corrupt, deliberate assault worthy of Putin or worthy of Cuba or worthy of Venezuela and we better wake up. In an ideal world, the Supreme Court would proactively intervene, strip this judge of this case. Every major neutral lawyer has said there is no case here. This is an absurdity. And yet, we continue to grind forward and continue to pretend that this is about the rule of law. This is not,” he added.

“This is a deliberate effort to, at a minimum, have a character assassination and at a maximum, put Donald J. Trump in genuine risk. And I think all of us ought to be aware that this judge has already told us twice last week this week that he intends to put Trump in jail, and he is going to find an excuse, and he is going to do it, and we had better have an answer,” Gingrich concluded.

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