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      ‘US going to hell’: Donald Trump attacks hush money case in grievance-filled Mar-a-Lago speech

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      Simmering with anger and defiance, Donald Trump returned to the safe space of Mar-a-Lago and his loyal supporters on Tuesday night, seeking to turn his status as an accused criminal into a political war cry.The former president ignored a plea from the judge in the case to refrain from inflammatory rhetoric, even launching a broadside at the judge’s daughter over her political connections.Trump flew back to Florida from New York, where prosecutors had accused him of orchestrating hush-money payments to cover up claims of affairs before the 2016 election. Sitting in a Manhattan court, Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.But on the evening of a sombre day for America and its judicial system, the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican nomination walked into the opulent ballroom at the Mar-a-Lago estate to the familiar strains of Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the USA, a staple of his campaign rallies.Supporters wore “Make America Great Again” and “Trump 2024” caps and snapped pictures of the president turned defendant. The audience included Trump’s son Eric and his wife, Lara, Florida congressman Matt Gaetz and pillow maker and conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell.Wearing a blue suit, white shirt and red tie, and standing behind a lectern that said “Text Trump to 88022” amid an array of US flags, he portrayed himself as a political martyr.“I never thought anything like this could happen in America,” Trump said. “I never thought it could happen. The only crime that I have committed is to fearlessly defend our nation from those who seek to destroy it.”The Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, alleges that Trump – the first former president to face criminal charges – falsified business records to conceal a violation of election laws.Payments were made to the adult film actor Stormy Daniels and the former Playboy model Karen McDougal. Another was made to a former Trump Tower doorman, $30,000 to buy the rights to an untrue story about a child fathered out of wedlock.Trump appeared subdued as he pleaded “not guilty” but at Mar-a-Lago felt liberated to protest his innocence and lash out with typical invective, saying “our country is going to hell”.He described Bragg, an elected Democrat, as “a local failed district attorney charging a former president of the United States for the first time in history on a basis that every single pundit and legal analyst said there is no case.“There’s no case. They kept saying there’s no case. Virtually everyone. But it’s far worse than that because he knew there was no case.”Some experts have said Bragg might have to rely on untested legal theories but few have said he has no case at all.Trump added: “The criminal is the district attorney because he illegally leaked massive amounts of grand jury information for which he should be prosecuted or, at a minimum, he should resign.”In court, prosecutors requested protective orders for discovery materials, including Trump’s incendiary posts on his Truth Social platform, including a warning of “death and destruction” if he should be indicted. The judge, Juan Merchan, advised Trump: “Please refrain from making statements that are likely to incite violence or civil unrest.”But in his prime-time address, there was no sign Trump was prepared to modify his rhetoric. He assailed Merchan, claiming: “I have a Trump-hating judge with a Trump-hating wife and family whose daughter worked for Kamala Harris.”In fact Merchan’s daughter, Loren, is a partner at a digital campaign strategy agency that has worked for many prominent Democrats, including Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in the 2020 election.Trump addressed multiple other cases against him, including an investigation into his attempt to interfere in the election in Georgia.“In the wings they’ve got a local racist Democrat district attorney in Atlanta who is doing everything in her power to indict me over an absolutely perfect phone call,” he claimed, referring to a call in which he was recorded asking state Republicans to overturn the result.Trump also went into a lengthy denunciation of the investigation of his mishandling of classified materials at Mar-a-Lago. “They’re looking at me through the Espionage Act of 1917, where the penalty is death,” he said.He described the special counsel, Jack Smith, as a “lunatic” and complained: “Our justice system has become lawless. They’re using it now – in addition to everything else – to win elections.”Trump could not resist reverting to his usual campaign stump speech, railing against Democrats’ handling of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, urban crime, the threat of a third world war, a military “gone woke” and high inflation.He listed baseless grievances including “impeachment hoax number one”, “impeachment hoax number two”, “millions of votes illegally stuffed into ballot boxes” and Hunter Biden’s laptop which, he claimed, “exposes the Biden family as criminals”.There is no evidence to support that assertion.The indictment has led to a surge of support for Trump in Republican polls and a surge in cash donations. But many commentators are sceptical about whether Trump could prevail in a general election.The Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump group, said in a statement: “Tonight at Mar-a-Lago we saw a paranoid and delusional speech cheered on by fanatical cult members who do not care about democracy and American values. Trump got the circus he wanted. The rest of the GOP has fallen in line.”Bill Burton, a former White House deputy press secretary under Barack Obama, was also unimpressed.“This is the worst I’ve ever seen Trump,” he tweeted. “I watch all of his speeches – saw him ramble in Waco, watched him ramble in his ‘announcement’ to run again – this is the very worst of it. Puffy face, bloodshot eyes, his precious hair a mess. And his cadence just plain sad.” More

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      Mar-a-Lago events suspended as Trump huddles with ‘shaken’ advisers

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      Weekend events at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, were suspended on Friday as the former president was “huddling” with his attorneys after being blindsided by the grand jury indictment handed up against him after payments to the porn star Stormy Daniels.Trump, the New York Post reported, is meeting with advisers who were said to be “shaken” by the news of dozens of criminal charges related to a $130,000 payment given to Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Gregory Clifford.“It won’t be business as usual,” a source told the Post. “They expected this but there is shock now that it’s happened.“It’s real now. And they are worried about a surprise.”Separately, a source told the outlet that Trump had been “a little nervous and somber” about the indictment, but he has since “become more upbeat and thinks public opinion is on his side and that this will help him win the election”.Trump received formal notification of the charges, which have yet to be unsealed, stemming from a grand jury empaneled by the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg. Confirmation of the indictment came on Thursday after reports suggested that the grand jury would not sit again until May.On 23 March, Trump indicated that he believed he had beaten the rap when he shared a now-deleted post on his Truth Social network of himself holding a baseball bat next to a photo of Bragg and later warned of the potential for “death and destruction” if he was charged.Days later the charges were filed, and now Trump is due to enter a plea in the case at a hearing in New York on Tuesday afternoon. Trump is expected to plead not guilty.An attorney for Trump, Joe Tacopina, told NBC’s Today show that his client would not consider taking a plea deal after becoming the first former president to be criminally charged.“There’s no crime,” Tacopina argued.Preparations for the ex-president’s arraignment at Manhattan’s criminal courthouse at 100 Centre St have been under way for 10 days, with barriers being erected for crowd control.The Washington Post reported on Friday that the Secret Service director, Kimberly Cheatle, told agents that the agency will take “the necessary steps” to protect Trump from harm, including placing agents in a “bubble formation” to separate him from the public.But Cheatle also said the service had not sought any special accommodations in the court’s standard procedures for processing and arraignment. The former president will nonetheless find himself in company he probably did not anticipate.Indictments and criminal trials scheduled for Tuesday at the same courthouse include: burglary for taking paintings from a West Village townhouse; a thwarted terrorist attack on a Jewish community; the illegal selling of firearms; murder for a deadly East Harlem hammer attack; murder and attempted murder for attacking multiple homeless men; murder and criminal possession of a weapon for shooting into a car in East Harlem; and a grand larceny case involving sim-card swapping.New York police have issued a memo instructing all officers to wear their uniforms and prepare for mobilization, according to local news reports. That came after Bragg acknowledged in a memo to the DA’s 1,600 staff members that the office had been receiving offensive and threatening phone calls and emails.Bragg said the safety of his staff remained a top priority, and he thanked them for persevering in the face of “additional press attention and security around our office”.Trump will not be handcuffed at his arraignment or subjected to a “perp walk”, and discussions are still being held about whether his booking photo will be publicly circulated. Trump reportedly “wants the mugshot out” because it could harness donations to his presidential campaign.“The funds will start flying in,” a source told the Post.Melania Trump is not expected to join her husband on his trip to New York, where he will reportedly stay at his triplex in Trump Tower. She plans to “lay low”, according to reports.Trump’s daughter Ivanka issued a statement on her Instagram page on Friday saying “I love my father, and I love my country. Today, I am pained for both.” More

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      Classified Trump schedules were moved to Mar-a-Lago after FBI search – sources

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      Classified Trump schedules were moved to Mar-a-Lago after FBI search – sourcesExclusive: Junior aide took the box, including some classified documents, from a government-leased office in Palm Beach to Mar-a-LagoDonald Trump’s lawyers found a box of White House schedules, including some that were marked classified, at his Mar-a-Lago resort in December because a junior aide to the former president had transported it from another office in Florida after the FBI completed its search of the property, according to two sources familiar with the matter.The former president does not appear to have played a direct role in the mishandling of the box, though he remains under investigation for the possible improper retention of national security documents and obstruction of justice. Special counsel seeks to compel Mike Pence to testify about January 6Read moreKnown internally as ROTUS, short for Receptionist of the United States, the junior aide initially kept the box at a converted guest bungalow at Mar-a-Lago called the “tennis cottage” after Trump left office, and she soon took it with her to a government-leased office in the Palm Beach area.The box remained at the government-leased office from where the junior aide worked through most of 2022, explaining why neither Trump’s lawyer who searched Mar-a-Lago in June for any classified-marked papers nor the FBI agents who searched the property in August found the documents.Around the time that Trump returned to Mar-a-Lago from his Bedminsiter golf club in New Jersey at the end of the summer, the junior aide was told that she was being relocated to a desk in the anteroom of Trump’s own office at Mar-a-Lago that previously belonged to top aide Molly Michael.The junior aide retrieved her work belongings – including the box – from the government-leased office and took them to her new Mar-a-Lago workspace around September. At that time, the justice department’s criminal investigation into Trump’s retention of national security documents was intensifying.Several weeks after the junior aide moved into her new workspace, federal prosecutors told Trump’s lawyers in October that they suspected the former president was still in possession of additional documents with classified markings despite the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago on 8 August.The Trump legal team subsequently hired two private contractors with security clearances to search Trump properties around Thanksgiving: Trump Tower in New York, Trump Bedminster and an external storage unit that turned up two additional documents marked “SECRET”, the Guardian has reported.But the justice department was not satisfied, and it pressed the Trump legal team to get the contractors to conduct the third known search of Mar-a-Lago in early December – at which point the contractors discovered the box of presidential schedules, some with classified markings.Kevin McCarthy denounced for giving January 6 tapes to Fox News hostRead moreThe Trump legal team alerted the FBI, which sent federal agents down to collect the box and its contents the following day.A few weeks later, Trump’s lawyers started exploring whether they could get a better understanding of the sensitivity of the small number of schedules marked as classified, for the junior aide had kept sole custody of the box throughout that period.It was at that point that the junior aide revealed for the first time that she could find out exactly what they were, because Michael – whose desk she inherited after she left the Trump political team at the end of the summer – had told her to scan all of the schedules on to her laptop.A lawyer for the junior aide declined to comment on Thursday night.When the Trump legal team told the justice department about the uploads, federal prosecutors demanded the laptop and its password, warning that they would otherwise move to obtain a grand jury subpoena summoning the junior aide to Washington to grant them access to the computer.To avoid a subpoena, the Trump legal team agreed to turn over the laptop in its entirety last month, though they did not allow federal prosecutors to collect it from Mar-a-Lago and handed it over just outside the gates of the property.It was later in January – as the justice department retrieved the laptop – that federal prosecutors in the office of the Trump investigation special counsel Jack Smith issued a grand jury subpoena for a manilla folder marked “Classified Evening Briefing” observed in the former president’s bedroom, the Guardian first reported.TopicsDonald TrumpMar-a-LagoLaw (US)US politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Trump was issued subpoena for folder marked ‘Classified Evening Briefing’ discovered at Mar-a-Lago

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      Trump was issued subpoena for folder marked ‘Classified Evening Briefing’ discovered at Mar-a-LagoExclusive: Subpoena was issued last month after the folder was observed in Trump’s private quarters at the property Donald Trump’s lawyers turned over an empty manilla folder marked “Classified Evening Briefing” after the US justice department issued a subpoena for its surrender once prosecutors became aware that it was located inside the private quarters of the former president’s Mar-a-Lago resort, two sources familiar with the matter said.The previously unreported subpoena was issued last month, the sources said, as the recently appointed special counsel escalates the inquiry into Trump’s possible unauthorized retention of national security materials and obstruction of justice.Mike Pence subpoenaed in Trump special counsel investigations – reportsRead moreThe folder was seen in Trump’s residence by a team of investigators he hired to search his properties last year for any remaining documents marked as classified. The team transparently included the observation in an inventory of Mar-a-Lago and Trump properties in Florida, New Jersey and New York.Weeks after the report was sent to the justice department, the sources said, federal prosecutors subpoenaed the folder. The folder is understood to have not been initially returned because the lawyers thought “Classified Evening Briefing” did not make it classified, nor is it a formal classification marking.The backstory the justice department was told about the folder was that Trump would sometimes ask to keep the envelopes, featuring only the “Classified Evening Briefings” in red lettering, as keepsakes after briefings were delivered, one of the sources said.Around the same time that Trump’s lawyers turned over the empty folder – earlier reported by CNN – they also returned in December a box of presidential schedules at Mar-a-Lago of which a couple were marked as classified, and in January, a laptop on to which the contents of the box had been scanned last year by a junior aide.The mishandling of those materials appears to have been inadvertent – in which case, the justice department would be unlikely to include them in the criminal investigation, which has been far more focused on the documents that the FBI seized from Mar-a-Lago last summer.But the contentious saga reflects the deteriorating relationship between federal prosecutors who have become frustrated at Trump’s resistance towards the inquiry and his lawyers who have complained that the justice department has been unnecessarily heavy-handed at every turn.A spokesperson for the special counsel’s office declined to comment.Late last year, Trump hired a team of two private contractors with security clearances to search his properties after the department told his lawyers that they suspected the former president was still in possession of classified-marked documents even after the FBI search in August.The contractors found and immediately returned two documents, both marked as classified at the “SECRET” level, from boxes that appeared to have been unopened since they were shipped from the White House at the end of the Trump administration, the Guardian previously reported.Then, at Mar-a-Lago in December, the contractors found a box that mainly contained presidential schedules, in which they found a couple of classified-marked documents to also be present and alerted the legal team to return the materials to the justice department, the sources said.The exact nature of the classified-marked documents remains unclear, but a person with knowledge of the search likened their sensitivity to schedules for presidential movements – for instance, presidential travel to Afghanistan – that are considered sensitive until they have taken place.Trump documents: Congress offered briefing on records kept at Mar-a-LagoRead moreAfter the Trump legal team turned over the box of schedules, the sources said, they learned that a junior Trump aide – employed by Trump’s Save America political action committee who acted as an assistant in Trump’s political “45 Office” – last year scanned and uploaded the contents of the box to a laptop.The junior Trump aide, according to what one of the sources said, was apparently instructed to upload the documents by top Trump aide Molly Michael to create a repository of what Trump was doing while in office and was apparently careless in scanning them on to her work laptop.When the Trump legal team told the justice department about the uploads, federal prosecutors demanded the laptop and its password, warning that they would otherwise move to obtain a grand jury subpoena summoning the junior aide to Washington to grant them access to the computer.To avoid a subpoena, the Trump legal team agreed to turn over the laptop in its entirety last month, though they did not allow federal prosecutors to collect it from Mar-a-Lago.ABC News earlier reported the handover.“This is nothing more than a politically-motivated witch-hunt against President Trump,” a spokesman for Trump said in a statement. “The weaponized Department of Injustice has shown no regard for common decency and key rules that govern the legal system.”It was around the same time in January as the justice department retrieved the laptop that federal prosecutors in the office of the Trump special counsel Jack Smith issued a grand jury subpoena for the manilla folder marked “Classified Evening Briefing” observed in Trump’s Mar-a-Lago private quarters.TopicsDonald TrumpTrump administrationMar-a-LagoUS CongressUS politicsUS SenatenewsReuse this content More

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      Mike Pence subpoenaed in Trump special counsel investigations – reports

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      Mike Pence subpoenaed in Trump special counsel investigations – reportsFormer vice-president and former Trump official Robert O’Brien issued subpoena though nature of requests is not known Former US vice-president Mike Pence and the former national security adviser Robert O’Brien have been subpoenaed by the special counsel leading investigations into classified documents found at former president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence and efforts to overturn the 2020 election result, according to media reports on Thursday.Pence was issued a subpoena by special counsel Jack Smith, though the nature of the request was not immediately known, ABC News reported, citing sources. The action follows months of negotiations involving federal prosecutors and Pence’s lawyers.Judge who told Pence not to overturn election predicts ‘beginning of end of Trump’Read moreO’Brien has been asserting executive privilege in declining to provide some of the information that prosecutors are seeking from him, according to CNN.Pence’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Smith’s office declined to comment on both reports from CNN and ABC.Trump’s former acting Department of Homeland Security secretary, Chad Wolf, was interviewed by justice department lawyers in recent weeks as part of the ongoing special counsel investigation related to 2020 election interference, the report added, citing sources.The US attorney general, Merrick Garland, named Smith as special counsel in November to oversee investigations of Trump, shortly after Trump said he would seek the Republican nomination for president again in 2024.The first investigation involves Trump’s handling of highly sensitive classified documents he retained at his Florida resort after leaving the White House in January 2021.The second investigation is looking at efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election’s results, including a plot to submit phony slates of electors to block Congress from certifying Democrat Joe Biden’s victory.Grand juries in Washington have been hearing testimony in recent months for both investigations from many former top Trump administration officials.Last month, Garland named a separate special counsel, Robert Hur, to probe the improper storage of classified documents at Biden’s home and former office.In late January, Pence said he was not aware though he takes “full responsibility” after classified documents were found at his Indiana home.The documents were discovered after a review of his personal records was conducted in the wake of classified material being found at Biden’s home in Delaware.TopicsUS newsMike PenceDonald TrumpMar-a-LagoLaw (US)US politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Why prosecutors might get Trump – and not Biden – for classified documents

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      AnalysisWhy prosecutors might get Trump – and not Biden – for classified documentsHugo Lowell in WashingtonTrump’s situation is more perilous because of his reluctance to cooperate and his suspected obstruction of justice Donald Trump’s retention of classified-marked documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort is distinguished in the eyes of the justice department from that of Joe Biden or Mike Pence as a result of one particularly crucial difference: suspected obstruction of justice.In the case of the classified documents, it’s more serious for Trump than BidenRead moreLegal experts believe the situation for the former US president is more perilous than others swept up in the scandal because of his reluctance to cooperate at key moments in the investigation and his unwillingness to proactively search his properties for marked documents after becoming aware that he possessed such papers.The justice department has added in court filings that it suspected Trump of concealing classified-marked documents at Mar-a-Lago – and while that might be the most aggressive characterization, the trouble for Trump is that he has handled his case far differently from Biden and Pence.The recent discoveries of marked documents, first at Biden’s office in Washington and home in Delaware, and then at Pence’s home in Indiana, reflect how presidential transitions are chaotic and senior government officials are clearly unaware of the contents of boxes packed by aides.But what matters to the justice department – and what distinguishes an inadvertent error from a potential crime – is what happens once classified-marked documents are found and whether officials take steps to ensure they have returned any such papers to the government.“If they found Trump took them away, purposely, but then as soon as the archives said he had, he said: ‘Oops, sorry, here have them back,’ I don’t think they would be considering charges,” former US attorney Harry Litman said of the criminal investigation into Trump.To date, Biden and Pence freely gave up the marked documents as soon as they were found and proactively allowed their lawyers to search their properties out of an abundance of caution – whereas the department found getting documents back from Trump to be a monumental struggle.Trump’s legal team has suggested the first time they knew of classified-marked documents in the former president’s possession was when they were issued a grand jury subpoena on 11 May, demanding the return by 24 May of any marked papers, regardless of whether they had been declassified.Trump’s lawyer Evan Corcoran asked for a roughly two-week extension to comply with the subpoena, which the justice department initially declined, before giving him a one-week extension until 7 June. Corcoran then told the department they could collect documents on 3 June.At Mar-a-Lago, Corcoran returned a folder of documents and, at Trump’s urging, took the officials from the justice department to the storage room that he had searched, and asked them to be in touch if they needed anything more. The Trump lawyers also presented a sworn statement attesting compliance.Trump’s legal team has said the 3 June meeting was not obstructive, since Corcoran believed, albeit erroneously, that he was in full compliance and Trump went out of his way to show them the storage room that had been searched, and was prepared to let them search it themselves had they asked.Biden and Pence documents reveal US crisis of ‘overclassification’, expert saysRead moreBut from the perspective of federal prosecutors, a source familiar with the matter said, the overtures were deceptive: the compliance was incomplete, and the FBI seized 101 classified-marked documents from the property, including from the storage room that they passed off as clear.“The big element here is that you know they want the documents back and you resist or impair,” Litman said. “That false certification is strong evidence of intent. It’s hard to say: ‘Oh, you wanted them all back, I’m so sorry, we’ve been so busy,’ when they signed that paper.”The prosecutors, the source said, have not regarded being shown the storage room to be a mitigating factor for an additional reason: the burden to ensure compliance with a grand jury subpoena was not on the justice department and tacitly allowing them to search the room was meaningless.For Trump’s case to mirror that of Biden or Pence, Trump essentially would have had to comply with the subpoena, but then proactively conduct another search of his resort – as Biden later did with his home – and proactively search his other properties, as Biden did with his beach house.But as it turned out, once the justice department left Mar-a-Lago that day in June, Trump’s lawyers made no effort to ensure no more classified-documents remained at the resort, or any other property, until the department repeatedly sought them to do so around Thanksgiving – a search that turned up two more marked papers.TopicsDonald TrumpTrump administrationMar-a-LagoBiden administrationJoe BidenUS politicsanalysisReuse this content More