In his first two campaign suspensions since receiving federal indictment, Donald J. Trump will begin a prosecution on Saturday against the prosecutors who are prosecuting him.
Trump’s two speeches at Republican conventions in Georgia and North Carolina were planned before he was indicted on Thursday. Appearances on Saturday afternoon and evening will see the former president, the nation’s most popular Republican and frontrunner for the 2024 presidential nomination, stand in front of a large crowd of activists and elected officials. can be collected.
Trump’s indictment, released in detail by the Justice Department on Friday, has dominated the political arena. force many rivals It puts you in the sometimes uncomfortable position of defending a politician who lags behind in the polls. In an unsealed indictment, federal prosecutors revealed for the first time how Trump kept some of the nation’s most top-secret secrets in his possession and showing them to visitors.
David Urban, Trump’s top adviser during the 2016 presidential campaign, said: “This indictment is another political Rorschach test in that your position determines what you see. let’s,” he said.
According to the indictment, documents held by Trump included details of plans to retaliate against foreign attacks and the United States’ nuclear programme. One image showed boxes stacked next to a bathroom in Mar-a-Lago.
According to the indictment, he bragged about “a secret” during a recorded conversation. “This is classified information. Look at this.”
Several people close to Trump and his team have privately acknowledged the damaging facts of the case. But I wasn’t sure if it would have a greater impact on Republican voters than many other scandals that have had little effect on changing public opinion.
Trump’s team is preparing to march, claiming that Trump is a victim.
A person who spoke with him said he was already angry Thursday night in the first hour after the charges were filed, but was furious when the charges were revealed and shared on Friday. The person said he returned from the golf course in time to watch a televised speech by the accuser, special counsel Jack Smith. The indictment is laden with information from people working with Trump, who said some of his aides may have revealed certain details to the special counsel, the person said. was already skeptical.
Failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, who headlined the Georgia Republican dinner on Friday, said no one in her Republican base believed the accusation.
“I know it’s just a pile of lies,” said Lake, who clings to the lie that Trump’s election in 2020 and his own were stolen in 2022. Always throw things in his path to stop him. “
Mr. Lake said Republicans’ distrust of the country’s institutions runs deep. “We learned that the FBI, CDC, FDA and CIA are corrupt,” she said. “We have learned a lot over the past few years.”
Mr Trump attacked Special Counsel Smith as a “crazy, insane, lunatic”.
Georgia and North Carolina are expected to see more of a Trump backlash. The Trump campaign expects a rare live TV coverage of the 2024 presidential election and sees the two appearances as a rare opportunity for free coverage.
Many Republican lawmakers lined up behind Trump the moment he announced he had been indicted on Thursday, but party strategists said the charges were a potential link with President Biden in the general election. I am concerned about how it will affect competitive matches. The past two midterm elections and Trump’s own defeat in 2020 have seen his belligerent approach to politics and the accumulating allegations against him, including an April indictment by a Manhattan grand jury, sway voters and independents alike. It shows that the support of
Michael Caputo, a former senior adviser to Trump and now an executive at the Hispanic emerging conservative media outlet Americano Media, said the allegations make Trump’s 2024 Republican nomination “virtually certain.” We are doing it,” he said.
But dismissing the charges as part of a Democratic conspiracy, he said, could backfire if he faces Biden in the general election.
Caputo used a phrase Republicans have used to ridicule investigations into whether Trump’s 2016 campaign colluded with Russian officials and obstruction of justice, saying, “This is the new “It’s a Russian collusion hoax,” he said. “Whether it’s true or not doesn’t matter. To investigate him.”
Located in Bedminster, New JerseyTrump responded to his indictment with angry defiance, according to two people who interacted with him. He also made time to play golf on Friday, and a Republican lawmaker from Miami is also present, and he is scheduled to appear in court on Tuesday. The cable TV report also included shots of Trump’s helicopter gliding down the fairway.
“Today is not a different day at all for President Trump,” Alina Hubba, one of Trump’s lawyers, told Fox News in the hours after the indictment. “This has happened to him before.”
Maggie Haberman contributed to the report.
