PALM BEACH, Fla. — Hours after he was charged in a Manhattan court on 34 felony counts, former President Donald Trump delivered an angry response to the prosecution at a campaign-style rally that showcased the new attention pumped into his bid for a second White House term.
Mr. Trump leveled broadsides against Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who on Tuesday charged the former president with falsifying business records to conceal hush money paid to adult film performer Stormy Daniels and others ahead of the 2016 election.
“The only crime that I have committed is to fearlessly defend our nation from those who seek to destroy it,” Mr. Trump said in the 25-minute speech.
Mr. Trump took aim at several other prosecutors and investigators behind a litany of civil and criminal probes he is facing in what he called “massive election interference on a scale never seen before in this country.”
Mr. Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, dismissed the “ridiculous” indictment brought against him by Mr. Bragg. He told the crowd that “every single legal analyst and pundit said there is no case, there is no case.”
He said Mr. Bragg knew there was no case but pushed forward with the indictment under pressure from the left and then tipped off the media to his plans.
“The criminal is the district attorney because he illegally leaked massive amounts of grand jury material,” Mr. Trump said.
Mr. Bragg has denied leaking anything from the grand jury.
Mr. Trump looked somber in the courtroom while entering his plea of not guilty and was subdued when he addressed the crowd in the ballroom at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
He used the prime-time address to take on others pursuing him with legal action. He attacked “lunatic special prosecutor” Jack Smith, the special counsel appointed to investigate Mr. Trump’s involvement in provoking the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol and his possession of classified documents at his residence and office at his private Mar-a-Lago club.
Mr. Trump said Mr. Smith is threatening to charge him with espionage, which is punishable by death. The former president said he had the authority to declassify the documents.
Mr. Trump said New York Attorney General Letitia James’ lawsuit against him, his family and the Trump Organization over allegations that they manipulated the value of his business assets is “a persecution, not an investigation.”
SEE ALSO: Host of other legal troubles loom for Trump as obstacles to 2024 campaign
He said it has “put our family through hell [and] cost hundreds of millions of dollars to defend.”
The former president trashed an ongoing investigation in Fulton County, Georgia, into whether Mr. Trump or his allies tried to interfere in the state’s 2020 presidential election outcome. Mr. Trump said there was nothing wrong with the call, which he made days after the election to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger seeking ways to come up with thousands of additional votes needed to defeat Joseph R. Biden, who was narrowly ahead.
In the speech at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump said Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis was “a local racist district attorney in Atlanta who is doing everything to indict me over an absolutely perfect phone call.”
While Mr. Trump bitterly attacked the people behind his legal woes, the new charges have rocketed him back to his favorite place: the center of the media universe.
Once again the focus of every news outlet, Mr. Trump greeted throngs of enthusiastic supporters gathered in the lavish ballroom at the estate. The event had the festive feel of typical Trump rallies. Music blared on giant speakers as guests mingled with refreshments. Dozens of cameras and media were packed into the back of the ballroom, ready to televise and stream his every word.
It was the kind of coverage Mr. Trump had been craving since announcing his 2024 presidential campaign in November.
The former president had been complaining bitterly that news outlets were ignoring him, in particular cable giant Fox News, which he said has been “woefully derelict” in its coverage of him.
Mr. Trump, 76, has also been conducting a low-key White House bid. He spent most of the past months holed up at his estate in Palm Beach.
He held his first official 2024 campaign rally last week in Waco, Texas, as news of his looming indictment, which Mr. Trump helped to publicize himself, shot him back to the center of the media’s attention.
Fox and other cable news outlets provided nonstop coverage of Mr. Trump, even tracking his motorcade as it traveled to Trump Tower in New York. The cameras also covered his plane’s departure from New York City and its landing back in Palm Beach.
Mr. Trump’s defiance, meanwhile, has been bolstered by both his allies and enemies in the Republican Party, nearly all of whom have roundly condemned charges that he made illegal hush money payments to Ms. Daniels, Karen McDougal and a doorman.
Among those who trashed Mr. Bragg’s case was former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, whose 2016 presidential primary aspirations were crushed in part by Mr. Trump’s labeling of him as “Low-energy Jeb.” Mr. Bush criticized the indictment as “very political” and “not a matter of justice.”
The indictment has also helped Mr. Trump rake in small-dollar donations that are critical to his campaign as Republican megadonors abandon him.
His aides said the former president has raised more than $8 million since word of the coming indictment was leaked to the public.
Shortly after Mr. Trump was booked at the Manhattan courthouse, his son Donald Trump Jr. posted a plea for donations to his father’s campaign.
“He will not let this sham indictment stop our mission to Make America Great Again! Our movement will prevail — just as we’ve prevailed after every other vicious attack,” the son wrote.
• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.
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