On Saturday, Donald Trump claimed that his arrest was close and issued an unusual call for his fans to protest as a New York grand jury investigates hush money payments to women who claimed sexual encounters with the former president.
Despite the fact that there is no proof that Manhattan prosecutors have given him or his lawyers any official notice, Trump stated in a post on his social media platform that he expects to be arrested on Tuesday. The letter appeared to be intended to foreshadow a formal announcement from prosecutors and to incite fury among his supporters ahead of widely anticipated indictments. Within hours, he sent a fundraising email to supporters, while prominent Republicans in Congress defended him.
The social media message, with its direct encouragement of protest and his capital letter demand to “TAKE OUR NATION BACK!” evoked in unsettling ways the rhetoric he used soon before the insurgency at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Following the then-speech president’s at a rally in Washington that morning, his supporters marched to the Capitol and attempted to halt legislative certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s White House triumph, bursting through doors and windows and leaving officers bruised and bloodied.
District Attorney Alvin Bragg is reportedly considering charging Trump in the hush money inquiry and recently gave Trump the opportunity to appear before a grand jury. Local law enforcement is prepared for the public safety consequences of an unprecedented prosecution of a former US president.
Yet, no timetable for the grand jury’s secret work in the case has been made public. According to a person familiar with the inquiry who was not authorized to publicly discuss the matter and spoke on the condition of anonymity, at least one further witness is likely to appear, indicating that no vote to indict has yet been taken.
That did not stop Trump from taking to his social media platform to say “illegal leaks” from Bragg’s office indicate that “THE FAR & AWAY LEADING REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE & FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK.”
Trump’s spokeswoman and lawyer both stated that his Truth Social post was based on media sources — they did not specify which ones — rather than any genuine update from or discussion with prosecutors. Saturday, the district attorney’s office declined to comment.
If Trump is indicted, he will only be arrested if he refuses to submit. Trump’s attorneys have previously stated that he will follow standard process, which means he will most likely accept to surrender either a New York Police Department precinct or immediately to Bragg’s office.
It’s uncertain whether Trump’s fans would respond to his protest call, or if he still has the same persuasive ability as president. Trump’s posts on Truth Social attract significantly less attention than they did on Twitter, but he still has a devoted following. The aftermath of the Jan. 6 incident, in which hundreds of Trump supporters were jailed and charged in federal court, may have further dimmed supporters’ desire for aggressive action.
After years of probes into his commercial, political, and personal connections, Trump’s indictment would be unprecedented.
Even as Trump campaigns for the presidency in 2024 — his first rally is scheduled for Waco, Texas, later this month, and he was scheduled to make a public appearance Saturday evening at the NCAA Division I wrestling championships in Tulsa, Oklahoma — there is no doubt that an indictment would be a distraction and provide fodder for opponents and critics tired of Trump’s legal scandals.
In addition to the hush money probe in New York, Trump is being investigated in Atlanta and Washington for attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
A special counsel from the Justice Department has also begun presenting evidence to a grand jury probing Trump’s retention of hundreds of secret documents at his Florida home. It is unclear when those investigations will conclude or whether they will result in criminal charges, but they will continue regardless of what happens in New York, emphasizing the continuing gravity – and broad geographic reach – of the legal challenges facing the former president.
Trump’s statement on Saturday is similar to one he made last summer on Truth Social, when he revealed that the FBI was examining his Florida residence as part of an investigation into suspected mishandling of secret data.
The news of the investigation prompted a flow of donations to Trump’s campaign operation, and on Saturday, Trump wrote a fundraising email to his supporters in which he stated that the “MANHATTAN D.A. MAY BE CLOSE TO CHARGING TRUMP.”
Following his post, Republican House Leader Kevin McCarthy denounced any attempts to charge Trump as a “outrageous abuse of authority by a radical DA” out for “political vengeance.” Rep. Elise Stefanik, the third-ranking House Republican, published a message with a similar attitude.
The grand jury has been hearing testimony from witnesses, including former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, who claims he coordinated payments to two women in 2016 to keep them quiet about sexual encounters they said they had with Trump a decade before.
Trump denies the encounters took place, claims he did nothing illegal, and has characterized the inquiry as a “witch hunt” by a Democratic prosecutor intended on destroying the Republican’s 2024 campaign. Trump has also called Bragg, who is Black, a “racist” and accused the prosecutor of allowing crime to run rampant in the city while focusing on Trump. New York remains one of the country’s safest cities.
Bragg’s office appears to be investigating whether any state laws were violated in connection with the payments or the manner in which Trump’s corporation compensated Cohen for his work to keep the women’s allegations secret.
Stormy Daniels, a porn star, and at least two former Trump officials — onetime political adviser Kellyanne Conway and former spokesperson Hope Hicks — have talked with prosecutors in recent weeks.
Cohen has stated that at Trump’s instruction, he orchestrated payments totaling $280,000 to Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal. The payments, according to Cohen, were intended to purchase their silence regarding Trump, who was then in the midst of his first presidential campaign.
According to Cohen and federal prosecutors, Trump’s corporation paid him $420,000 as compensation for the $130,000 payment to Daniels, as well as to cover bonuses and other alleged expenditures. Internally, the corporation characterized those payments as legal fees. The then-publisher of the supermarket tabloid National Enquirer paid McDougal $150,000 to keep her story from becoming public.
In exchange for cooperation in a campaign finance probe that resulted in charges against Cohen in 2018, federal prosecutors agreed not to investigate the Enquirer’s corporate company. Authorities claimed the payments to Daniels and McDougal amounted to illegal, unregistered contributions to Trump’s campaign.
Cohen pleaded guilty, served time in prison, and was forbidden from practicing law. Trump was never charged with a crime by federal prosecutors.
NBC News broke the story that law enforcement agencies were preparing for a possible indictment.