Donald Trump plans Tuesday rally as New York City arraignment looms
Former President Donald Trump has scheduled a rally at his Florida golf course and residence to be held just hours after he is expected to be arrested and processed by authorities in New York City, according to his campaign.
Trump, “will deliver remarks at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida on Tuesday, April 4, 2023, at 8:15 p.m.” his campaign announced Sunday, setting the 76-year-old up for a rather long day.
Last Thursday, a grand jury called by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office indicted the former commander in chief on as yet unsealed charges related to an alleged hush money payment made to adult film star Stormy Daniels in the days leading up to the 2016 general election.
Trump is expected to travel to New York on Monday ahead of his arrest and subsequent processing at the Manhattan Criminal Courts building on Tuesday.
U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch told WCVB hosts Sharman Sacchetti and Ed Harding during their Sunday politics show On the Record that indictment of a former president is “not good.”
“But I don’t know if there are any good choices here,” he said.
Lynch, an attorney, said that the Democratic New York DA seems to be simply following the law.
“The idea that no one is above the law, I think that’s at stake here,” Lynch said. “The president has not been convicted. He will be able to defend himself in a court of law and he should have that opportunity.”
MassGOP Chairwoman Amy Carnevale, who also appeared on WCVB Sunday to discuss the president’s apparently impending arrest, said that Bragg’s decision to indict is nothing more than naked political theater.
“I do think the criminal indictment is politically motivated,” Carnevale said. “This issue was looked at by the Department of Justice, by the Federal Elections Commission, both declined to pursue the charge.”
According to the chairwoman, even if the charges were to stick, it’s not going to make up any minds about Donald Trump, who is very well known to voters across the political spectrum.
“It’s unlikely to change any opinions, but it is certainly heating up the rhetoric,” she said.
The former president, for his part, spent the weekend using his Truth Social media platform to rage against the district attorney, the presiding judge and the legal process at hand.
“The Judge ‘assigned’ to my Witch Hunt Case, a ‘Case’ that has never been charged before, hates me,” Trump wrote.
“(Bragg) can tell his Trump hating wife and friends that he is going after the very successful 45th President of the United States. MAGA!” he posted later in all caps.
Trump is expected to plead not guilty.
“We will very loudly and proudly say ‘not guilty,’” the former president’s lawyer Joe Tacopina said during an appearance Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”