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      Trump says he’s not upset over possible indictment while attacking ‘fake’ case

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      Donald Trump repeatedly insisted on Saturday night he was not upset by expected criminal charges that might arise from the Manhattan district attorney’s investigation into his role in paying hush money to adult film star Stormy Daniels as he returned from a campaign rally in Waco, Texas.But the manner of Trump’s responses to questions suggested worries about potential damage to his image, and he came across as someone angry that his good vibrations with his “Make American great again” base in Texas could be interrupted by the reality of a possible indictment as soon as this week.Travelling back from his first rally as a 2024 presidential candidate, Trump claimed during a recorded interview with four reporters aboard his Trump Force One plane that he was unafraid about the investigation even as he attacked the case and attacked media reporting about the case.“I’m not frustrated by it. It’s a fake investigation. We did nothing wrong – I told you that,” the former president said before proceeding to lash out at the NBC News reporter on the plane who asked if he was frustrated. “This is fake news, and NBC is one of the worst. Don’t ask me any more questions.”Trump also acknowledged during the interview that he had no actual insight into the investigation. He said “I have no idea what’s going to happen” – before deciding that he supposedly knew what would happen anyway and claiming, “They’ve already dropped the case, from what I understand.”Trump then settled on attacking the investigation, insisting the case is over while making various assertions not supported by concrete evidence and mainly based on speculation that has circulated among his allies and the campaign.“If anything ever happened with the case, it’s a fake case. This is a fake case. They have absolutely nothing. They have it in reverse. They should indict Michael Cohen for all the lies that he told,” Trump said, referring to the attorney who made the hush money payment to Daniels. “They may not do that, but that’s what should be happening.”The case centers on $130,000 that Trump paid to Daniels through Cohen in the final days of the 2016 campaign. Trump later reimbursed Cohen with $35,000 checks using his personal funds, which were recorded as legal expenses. Cohen later pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal crimes.It remains unclear what charges the district attorney Alvin Bragg might seek against Trump, though some members of his legal team believe the most likely scenario involves a base charge of falsifying business records coupled with potential tax fraud because Trump would not have paid taxes on the payments.The remarks from Trump on the flight came during an interview with four reporters. The Guardian obtained the recording after this reporter, confirmed to travel with the former president, was bumped off the manifest the day before the trip over recent reporting that the campaign disliked.The former president also said during the interview that the previous week had buoyed him, at least from a 2024 campaign perspective, correctly noting how he has surged in recent polls amid news of an expected indictment and the Republican base’s clamoring to his defense.“We’ve had the best polls we’ve ever had,” Trump said. Using a derisive nickname for Florida governor and expected 2024 candidate Ron DeSantis, Trump added: “Ron DeSanctimonious is crashing. They’re already looking for somebody to take his place.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“You know where he would be right now [if he wasn’t the governor]? Probably working either at a cigar store or a law firm.”Trump’s rhetoric about the hush money investigation has turned increasingly bitter in recent days as he has gone from lashing out at the prospect of criminal charges, to insisting he wanted to be handcuffed and arrested, back to once again attacking the matter with vehemence.The former president’s attacks on Bragg took a turn on Friday when he predicted in an overnight post on his Truth Social website that “death and destruction” could come should the grand jury in New York return an indictment against him.Returning from the Texas rally on Saturday, where he used his speech to repeatedly air grievances about the investigation, Trump sought to distance himself from his darkest comments that had come as Bragg’s office discovered a threatening letter and white powder in its mailroom.“No – I don’t like violence and I’m not for violence,” Trump said.Then, repeating his lie that electoral fraudsters stole victory from him over Joe Biden in 2020, he said: “But a lot of people are upset and you know they rigged the election, they stole an election, they spied on my campaign. They did many bad things.” More

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      Police and pizza but no perp walk as New York waits for Trump indictment

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      Over the weekend Donald Trump set off an international maelstrom of media attention when he announced he would be “arrested on Tuesday”.Like so many of Trump’s certain proclamations, it proved to be throughly wrong, and the grand jury weighing whether to charge Trump over payments to an adult film star is now unlikely to deliver its verdict until next week.Trump’s declaration, however, did succeed in creating a week-long spectacle outside the Manhattan criminal court, which is now protected by metal barriers and police amid a widespread tightening of security in New York.On Monday a small group of Trump supporters – estimates place the number at between five and 20 – and much, much larger groups of journalists flooded to the court, in the south of the island of Manhattan.Those on the right hailed the smattering of people holding pro-Trump signs as a bold show of support for the twice-impeached, legally besieged former US president.But by that measure, support had evaporated on Thursday. There was not a single Trump supporter or protester – a small group of anti-Trumpers had also been present earlier in the week – outside the court. Only the journalists, from all the big TV stations and a lot of the smaller ones, remained, sitting looking glum in sheeting New York rain.Outside the court, which has found itself the subject of so much global attention this week, loomed behind waist-high metal barricades.The absence of Trump supporters was made to feel even more pronounced by the entirely empty protest pen that police had set up on Monday. The small circular area, which brought to mind a sort of animal petting area common to county fairs, was forlorn and redundant under the gray sky, a real-life rebuttal to the adage “if you build it they will come”.The courthouse itself is a sprawling 15 floor concrete building, spanning an entire city block looking like a nod to Soviet-era architecture. Thoroughly outshone by the ornate New York county supreme court and the gold leaf-roofed Thurgood Marshall United States courthouse, planted next to each other a hundred yards south, dozens of cameras nonetheless remained trained on it on Thursday.Trump has said he’d like to be handcuffed when, or if, he is arraigned and arrested at the court. The former television host, who inherited his father’s housing business, is being investigated for his role in paying $130,000 to adult film star Stormy Daniels, who says the pair had sex. Trump says they did not.The one-term president’s determination to turn his arraignment into a “spectacle”, however, is likely to be ruined by the scaffolding and green plywood that is in place across the entire span of the building, obscuring the main entrance. If he ever is indicted and taken to court, the camera crews outside – there are at least two dozen – will be lucky if they get an image of Trump at all.There was a small assortment of NYPD equipment in front of the court, including a towable floodlight on each corner and, on the street behind the building, two big vans, but neither represented a striking visual.With no interested parties present when the Guardian visited, there was certainly little worth filming. Five police officers were standing around not doing much at a gap in the barricades, while on a corner two more officers were discussing whether to have pizza or a sandwich for lunch.They settled on pizza.On Thursday it emerged that the grand jury hearing the case would only return to Trump’s case on Monday, pushing back any potential arrest. Until then the barricades, the bored police officers, and the bored journalists will remain in place.A week that began with a bang, and with some of Trump’s supporters getting a day out in New York, appears to have thoroughly fizzled out. More

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      Trump hush-money grand jury proceedings abruptly postponed

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      The Manhattan grand jury expected to consider criminal charges against Donald Trump over his role in the payment of hush money to the adult film star Stormy Daniels will not meet on Wednesday, according to a source familiar with the matter, and is on standby about meeting on Thursday.The reason for the schedule change was not immediately clear.The grand jury, which meets in the afternoons on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, is not required to meet three times every week. It may hear from an additional witness before being asked to vote on whether to return an indictment in connection with the hush money payment, the source said.The adjournment sparked a flurry of speculation among people close to Trump, advisers asking if it signalled weaknesses in the case being prosecuted by the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, or whether there was more damning evidence to come.A spokesperson for the district attorney’s office did not respond to a request for comment.On Monday, prosecutors allowed a Trump-aligned lawyer, Robert Costello, to testify before the grand jury. He assailed the credibility and account of the prosecution’s star witness, the former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen.The case centers on the $130,000 Trump paid Daniels through Cohen in the final days of the 2016 election. Trump reimbursed Cohen with $35,000 checks using his personal funds, which were recorded as legal expenses. In 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty to federal charges, some connected to the payments.What charges the district attorney might now seek against Trump remain unclear, though some members of his legal team believe the most likely scenario involves a base charge of falsifying business records, coupled with tax fraud, because Trump would not have paid tax on the payments.In recent days, Trump has been resigned to the fact that he will face criminal charges in the hush-money case, and has repeatedly insisted to advisers that he wants to be handcuffed when he makes an appearance in court, the Guardian previously reported.The former president has reasoned that since he would need to go to Manhattan criminal court in downtown New York and surrender to authorities for fingerprinting and a mugshot, the sources said, he might as well seek to turn it into a spectacle.Trump’s increasing insistence that he wants to be handcuffed behind his back for a perp walk appears to come from various motivations, including his desire to show defiance for what he sees as an unfair prosecution, and to have the whole affair galvanize his base for his 2024 presidential campaign.But above all, sources close to Trump said, he is deeply anxious that any special arrangements, like making his first court appearance by video link or skulking into the courthouse via an obscure entrance, would make him look weak or like a loser.Trump’s legal team has recoiled at the idea of him appearing in person, and recommended that Trump allow them to quietly turn him in next week and schedule a remote appearance, even citing guidance from his Secret Service detail about security concerns.But Trump has rejected that approach. Over the weekend, he told various allies he did not care if someone shot him, as he would become “a martyr” if so.He also said that if he was shot, he would probably win the presidency in 2024, the sources said. More

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      Trump seizes on likely indictment to pass begging bowl for 2024 campaign

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      Donald Trump is attempting to capitalize on his anticipated arrest over hush money payments to an adult film star by bombarding supporters with fundraising emails to support his presidential election campaign.In a series of messages in recent days Trump and his acolytes have urged people to donate to the Trump Save America Joint Fundraising Committee, established to support Trump’s bid for president in 2024.The emails paint Trump as the victim of a political agenda of a varying cast of “globalist power brokers”, the “deep state” and “witch hunt-crazed radicals”. Each ends with a plea for donations, the language used changing slightly each time.“If this political persecution goes unchallenged, one day it won’t be me they’re targeting … It’ll be you,” said an email from Trump on Sunday.The fundraising attempt comes as a grand jury prepares to deliver a verdict on whether to indict Trump over his alleged role in a hush money payment to Stormy Daniels, who claims the pair slept together. Trump has denied they had sex.Over the weekend Trump claimed he would be arrested on Tuesday, but his representatives later said he was citing media reports and leaks, and had no information about a potential arraignment.The barrage of emails are often written in an urgent and pleading tone.“Please make a contribution to SAVE OUR COUNTRY now that the stakes have NEVER been higher.”It was accompanied by links to donate up to $250 to the Trump committee.They can also strike a tone of conspiracy theory.“These are truly dark times …” began an email sent by Trump on Monday. “The Deep State and George Soros’ globalist cabal of thugs think that by coming for me they can intimidate YOU out of voting for a president who will always put the PEOPLE first.“Please make a contribution of just $1 today to cement your place as a FOUNDING DEFENDER of our movement in what truly is the darkest chapter in our nation’s history.”Trump’s pleas for money could make sense given his relatively poor fundraising so far. Between 15 November 2022, when Trump announced his run for president, and 31 December 2022 Trump’s campaign said he had raised $9.5m, or $201,600 a day. The New York Times reported that the total paled in comparison to the amounts raised by previous presidential frontrunners like Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton.In his 2016 campaign Bush, who entered the race as the favorite, raised an average of $762,000 a day after announcing his candidacy, the New York Times reported. Clinton averaged $594,400 a day following her 2016 announcement.On Tuesday, as barriers were placed around the Manhattan criminal courthouse in New York City, an email from Trump’s re-election campaign shared a photo of the scene in another fundraising email, asking supporters to: “Please make a contribution to stand with President Trump at this critical moment.”The email again contained links to donate to the Trump Save America Joint Fundraising Committee, Trump’s principal campaign arm. The committee had just $3.8m cash on hand at the end of 2022, according to its filings with the Federal Election Commission, despite having raised more than $151m over the previous two years.The committee spent $141m over that period, including a $1,696 payment to Trump Hotel Collection. It also spent thousands of dollars advertising on Facebook and Newsmax, the rightwing news channel which champions Trump on a near-daily basis, while book purchases accounted for a surprising amount of expenditure.In September 2022 the committee spent $157,977.50, across two purchases, on books from the Books a Million retailer alone. The Books a Million website lists several books authored by Trump as out of stock.The committee also bought $47,689.40 worth of books from Winning Team Publishing in May 2022. Donald Trump Jr, Trump’s son, is the co-founder of Winning Team Publishing, which, like Books a Million, is offering Trump’s upcoming book, Letters To Trump, for sale on its website. More

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      Trump hails prospect of testimony from ex-Cohen adviser in hush money case

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      Donald Trump has cheered the news that a former adviser to Michael Cohen will testify before a Manhattan grand jury investigating the ex-president’s alleged role in a hush money payment to the adult film star Stormy Daniels.Robert J Costello, a one-time legal adviser to former Trump attorney Cohen, was scheduled to appear before the grand jury on Monday and expected to give testimony “attacking the credibility of Cohen’s statements”, the Associated Press reported.Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal charges involving $130,000 paid to Daniels close to election day in 2016. Daniels claims she had sex with the former president in 2006, an allegation Trump denies.Trump said on Saturday he would be “arrested on Tuesday” – a claim for which sources close to the 76-year-old said he had no evidence – but then offered a more buoyant outlook after news of Costello’s scheduled appearance.“Just reported that the most important witness to go before the New York City grand jury, a highly respected lawyer who once represented convicted felon, jailbird and serial fake storyteller and liar, Michael Cohen, will be doing so tomorrow afternoon,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.“The information he will present will supposedly be conclusive and irrefutable! Witch hunt!!!”Costello, who has represented the Trump confidants Steve Bannon and Rudy Giuliani, offered to represent Cohen in 2018 as he faced charges related to the Daniels payment. The pair discussed the case, the New York Times reported, but the relationship soured after Cohen began to criticize and implicate Trump.The AP reported that Costello recently contacted a Trump lawyer, claiming he had information that contradicted Cohen’s account and could prove exculpatory for Trump.The lawyer brought it to the attention of the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, who last week subpoenaed Costello’s law firm for records and invited him to testify.There was more good news for Trump on Monday when Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, his closest rival for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, addressed the likely indictment for the first time.Trump allies had called for DeSantis to speak out. Speaking to reporters at a college in Panama City, the governor mocked the notion that hush money payments to a porn star might be seen as indictable conduct. He also repeated an antisemitic dogwhistle.DeSantis said Bragg “like other Soros-funded prosecutors, they weaponise their office to impose a political agenda on society at the expense of the rule of law and public safety”.George Soros, a Hungarian American progressive financier and philanthropist, is a boogeyman for Republicans and a regular target for antisemitic invective.DeSantis mentioned “Soros-funded prosecutors” five times in a two-minute answer.Throughout Sunday, Trump published a flurry of all-caps posts, railing against perceived injustice.Using a term short for “Republicans in name only”, one post complained of persecution by “COMMUNISTS, MARXISTS, RINOS AND LOSERS”. Several posts attacked Cohen.While Trump has focused on Bragg, Cohen and others, his lawyers have focused on a defense strategy.Outside counsel – Joe Tacopina and Susan Necheles – have reasoned that a hush money case centered on campaign finance violations could be weak after a similar prosecution against the Democratic senator and vice-presidential nominee John Edwards failed in 2012.If the indictment alleges the Daniels payment violated campaign finance laws, Trump’s lawyers are expected to argue that it fails the “irrespective test” posed by the Edwards case: that Trump would have paid Daniels irrespective of his campaign, to avoid embarrassment because he was a public figure.Trump may face an uphill struggle with those arguments, given that having “mixed motives” to protect himself personally and to protect his campaign could leave him liable. The timing of the payments also suggests an urgency to pay before election day.There is also the matter of Trump’s own comments on the Edwards case. In 2012, he told Fox News “a lot of very good lawyers have told me that the government doesn’t have a good case” against Edwards.As former New York prosecutor Ronn Blitzer wrote for Law and Crime, “that … sentence undermines Trump’s claim that he was relying on Cohen as his attorney to know the law to steer him in the right direction” over the Daniels payment, “and that he didn’t direct Cohen to break the law”.“[Trump] said during the Edwards case that he spoke to ‘a lot of very good lawyers’ about these very issues, which would mean he was aware of the relevant laws,” Blitzer said.Trump’s legal team is also expected to argue that when Daniels tried to sell her story in 2011 she was told to “leave Trump alone – forget the story”, thereby proving her silence was desired long before Trump ran for president.Trump’s lawyers made those arguments when Necheles urged Bragg to drop the case, the Guardian previously reported. But all signs indicate Bragg will move ahead in an unprecedented indictment of a former president – who is also running to return to the Oval Office. More