Florida: Former President Donald Trump said on Tuesday night (GMT), hours after his arraignment, that he was the victim of election interference and he lashed out at New York prosecutor Alvin Bragg for bringing criminal charges against him. In a rambling 25-minute-long speech, in which he took aim at various prosecutors investigating him on multiple fronts, he said it was “the most embarrassing time in our country’s history”. “I never thought anything like this could happen in America,” Trump told supporters gathered at his Mar-a-Lago retreat in Palm Beach, Florida.
“Our country is going to hell. The only crime that I’ve committed has been to fearlessly defend our nation against those who seek to destroy it,” Trump said.
He said the “fake case” relating to hush money payments to suppress accounts of his alleged extramarital affairs becoming public, was brought to “interfere in the 2024 election and should be immediately dropped”.
Trump charges: Hush money paid to porn star, model and doorman
Bragg said they were involved in what he called a “catch and kill” operation to “buy and suppress negative information to help Trump’s chance of winning the election.” Trump was accused of arranging the payment to Daniels through Cohen just days before the November 2016 election to buy her silence about a 2006 tryst at a Lake Tahoe resort. Trump reimbursed Cohen with checks disguised as part of a retainer agreement while “in truth, there was no retainer agreement,” Bragg said.
Trump faces criminal charges for his alleged role in 36 felony criminal charges including the hush money payment made to adult film star Stormy Daniels during his 2016 campaign to conceal an alleged affair that he has constantly denied. Tuesday’s Trump arraignment was another high-voltage drama in United States politics. Trump, who became history by being the first former American president to be indicted, has surrendered himself before going to the court.
While Trump surrendered voluntarily, which was unexpected for some as the FBI warned the local and state police agencies around the country about concerns related to a possible indictment, and even New York City officials had planned to closedown major streets in lower Manhattan as a security measure, as reported by ABC News.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg vowed he would not allow Donald Trump to get away with lawbreaking after charging the former president with a string of felonies over alleged hush money payments. “These are felony crimes in New York State. No matter who you are we cannot and will not normalize serious criminal conduct,” he said. “We today uphold our solemn responsibility to ensure that everyone stands equal before the law,” Bragg added.
Former US President Donald Trump was at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida home and a private club on Thursday when his lawyers said he had been indicted. Trump has repeatedly denied all wrongdoing and stressed that those probing him were making politically motivated accusations.
In the case of Donald Trump, the indictment was filed behind closed doors at the lower Manhattan courthouse after the clerk’s office was closed for the day.
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