In a speech addressing his historic arraignment that felt more like a campaign rally Tuesday night, former President Donald Trump started out with a six-minute list of unresolved grievances that culminated with his recent indictment over alleged hush-money payments.
“From the beginning the Democrats spied on my campaign and they attacked me with an onslaught of fraudulent investigations,” he began the speech from his Florida club Mar-a-Lago.
“Russia, Russia, Russia. Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine. Impeachment hoax No.1. Impeachment hoax No. 2. The illegal and unconstitutional raid on Mar-a-Lago. Lying to the FISA courts,” he continued, though he was nowhere near done.
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“The FBI and DOJ relentlessly pursuing Republicans. Unconstitutional changes to election laws by not getting approval from state legislators. The millions of votes illegally stuffed into ballot boxes—and all caught on government cameras. And just recently, the FBI and DOJ and collusion with Twitter and Facebook in order not to say anything bad about the Hunter Biden laptop from hell.”
Just hours after appearing at the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse for his official arraignment, Trump jetted straight back to Mar-a-Lago to deliver the fiery speech.
Despite conservative commentators on Fox News and elsewhere pleading all day for Trump to issue an even-handed, forward-looking address rebutting the unprecedented charges and his vision for the country should he reclaim the White House in 2024, he instead took to rehashing his campaign speech greatest hits: the respect he commanded as leader of the free world, the incredible economy he created (before the COVID-19 pandemic brought it all down), and, of course, his signature exaggerated picture of contemporary America as a lawless hellhole on the verge of total collapse.
“The USA is a mess. Our economy is crashing, inflation is out of control, Russia has joined with China; Saudi Arabia has joined with Iran; China, Russia, Iran and North Korea have formed together as a menacing and destructive coalition,” Trump said. “Our currency is crashing and will soon no longer be the world standard, which will be our greatest defeat, frankly, in 200 years.”
After all this, he finally addressed the elephant in the room, bashing Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and all of his contemporaries helming open investigations against the former president.
He even attacked Bragg’s wife for tweeting about the case, and mentioned his daughter’s career as a digital strategist for political campaigns—including Kamala Harris’ doomed presidential bid—as evidence that the local prosecutor was irredeemably biased against Trump and his family.
It was an attack echoed by his son, Donald Trump Jr., earlier in the day.
“I have a Trump-hating judge, with a Trump-hating wife, and a family whose daughter worked for Kamala Harris,” Trump said. “Right out of the old Soviet Union. That’s where we are.”
According to the unsealed indictment first available to the public following Trump’s arrest, the former president faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in relation to two hush money payments he allegedly orchestrated just before the 2016 presidential election: one to former porn star Stormy Daniels to buy her silence regarding their affair, and a “catch-and-kill” agreement with American Media Inc., the parent company of the National Enquirer, to bury a story about another one of Trump’s affairs after the publication had found out about Trump’s indiscretions.
Both were campaign finance crimes already on the books in New York City—after Trump’s onetime lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty for his part in the schemes in 2018.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump appears in a Manhattan courtroom Tuesday on charges stemming from his alleged hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.
Andrew Kelly/Pool via ReutersAnother accusation contained in the indictment is that Trump tried to organize a $30,000 payment to a doorman at one of his buildings, who claimed to have information about an illegitimate child that Trump fathered with a housekeeper. The “love child” accusation remains unconfirmed—but the payment is a key element of Tuesday’s charges.
“From August 2015 to December 2017, the Defendant orchestrated a scheme with others to influence the 2016 presidential election by identifying and purchasing negative information about him to suppress its publication and benefit the Defendant’s electoral prospects,” the charging document states.
According to the indictment, Trump attempted to cover up the payments using a number of false record-keeping strategies; duplicate lines in corporate ledgers, checks written from his personal trust and invoices from Cohen for “legal fees,” among other ways.
Trump pleaded not guilty Tuesday—and his lawyers blasted the charges as old news that wouldn’t stand up in court.
"There’s nothing,” said Trump lawyer Todd Blanche. “The indictment itself is boilerplate.”
The indictment represents the first serious charges brought against an American president in the country’s history—and comes as Trump faces arguably even more serious legal threats on several fronts.
In just a few weeks, Trump will have to return to Manhattan to face a civil trial—brought by the writer E. Jean Carroll under a new state law—which alleges he raped Carroll in a high-end department store decades ago.
Department of Justice Special Counsel Jack Smith is currently in the middle of two investigations—one into Trump’s attempted 2020 election subversion, and another concerning his hoarding of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago following his departure from the White House.
New York Attorney General Letitia James has also filed a $250 million civil suit against Trump and his company for fraud.
Those cases are in addition to an effort by Fulton County DA Fani Willis to probe Trump’s alleged efforts to lean on Georgia state officials in an attempt to overturn the state’s 2020 presidential election results. Willis is reportedly close to filing her own charges in that case.
It is unclear when a trial in the hush-money case may begin—but it is unlikely to happen for a year or more. Trump’s attorneys will almost certainly push the discovery phase of the case for as long as they can, which could delay any trial until the 2024 primaries are underway.
