Donald Trump posted on his Truth Social network on Saturday that he will be “arrested” on Tuesday and called for protests ahead of a possible indictment. The former US President's potential arrest is from the 2016 case in which he allegedly paid off a pornographic actress after having an affair with her.
Citing a “leak” from the New York State Attorney’s Office for the District of Manhattan, the former US president wrote in capital letters, “The Republican Party’s far ahead candidate and former President of the United States of America is going to be arrested on Tuesday of next week. Demonstrate, take back our nation!”
Signs and rumours have been growing in recent days about a possible criminal indictment of Donald Trump by a grand jury — a citizens’ panel with broad investigative powers to endorse an indictment — in this phase of the investigation led by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat-elected magistrate.
That would be a first for a former US president.
On Friday, one of Donald Trump’s lawyers, Joseph Tacopina, had told media outlets that his client would “surrender” to New York justice if he were to be charged.
Targeted in several court cases, but never yet indicted, the former Republican president (2017-2021) and 2024 presidential candidate, could therefore see this threat materialised in court in New York, because of a payment in 2016 to a porn star, Stormy Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford.
Last week, Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer and now one of his worst enemies, testified at least twice before the grand jury in this investigation related to a non-disclosure agreement regarding Ms. Clifford.
The investigations by New York prosecutors focus on the 2016 payment of $130,000 by Michael Cohen to the pornographic actress to buy her silence about an alleged relationship she had with Donald Trump.
A former loyalist of the Republican billionaire, Michael Cohen has already been convicted in the case.
Capitol riots memories
This is not the first time Donald Trump has called for his supporters to mobilise. Following the 2020 election and Trump's false claims that the presidency was “stolen” from him by Joe Biden, he called on his supporters to mobilise ahead of January 6, 2021, fanning the political flames that culminated in an assault on the Capitol, where Congress sits.
On December 19, 2020, the former businessman had called in a tweet for crowds to gather in the US capital during the certification of Joe Biden’s victory. “Big protest in DC on Jan 6th. Be there, it will be crazy,” he had written on Twitter, his favourite megaphone, before being banned.
The same day during a speech, he had told his supporters to “fight like hell.”
