Donald Trump defended this Tuesday, April 4, his conduct hours after becoming the first former president indicted in US historyduring a speech in which he harshly criticized the investigation against him.
“I never thought that this could happen in the United States,” the former president told a group of faithful gathered in the ballroom of his Mar-a-Lago mansionin Florida, reported the agency AFP.
“It is an insult to our country“, he declared upon his return from New York. “The only crime I have committed is fearlessly defending our nation from those who seek to destroy it.”
Historic indictment of Donald Trump: what are the 34 criminal charges against him
From home Trump resumed his electoral campaign demonstrating, if necessary, that the judicial scandals are not going to stop the road who has been marked to return to the White House.
In a 20-minute speech, he said he was the victim of “a massive election interference“and crossed out”radical leftists” to prosecutors who investigate him in several cases.
The festive atmosphere, with applause for Trump and boos for his rivals, recalled one of the magnate’s usual rallies. Like the topics chosen, such as his attacks against the Democrats and the accusation without evidence that he was robbed of the 2020 elections that he lost against Joe Biden, the AFP agency reported.
An unprecedented indictment against Trump
Hours earlier, in his hometown, the former president pleaded not guilty of falsifying accounting documents in a criminal hearing that paved the way for a trial that could begin in January 2024, a few months before the presidential elections in which he seeks to return to the White House.
The 76-year-old billionaire faces 34 payment related chargesand 2016, the $130,000 a porn star stormy daniels to keep quiet about an alleged extramarital affair that dates back to 2006 and that he has always denied.
This maneuver, according to the New York prosecutor’s office, was designed so as not to harm Trump’s image in the face of that year’s elections.
In the early afternoon, he turned himself in at a Manhattan courthouse where he arrived in a vehicle escorted by the Secret Service. In front of the court, the police interposed between supporters and detractors of the ex-president to avoid violent confrontations.
Trump’s passage through the court
Trump had to follow the ritual imposed on any defendant: declare his name, age and profession and submit to his fingerprints, although there appears to have been avoided having a mugshot taken of himsource of so much public humiliation for stars in America.
In addition to the payment to Stormy Daniels, according to court documents, the mogul bought the silence of third parties at least two more times. Paid $30,000 to a Trump Tower doorman who claimed to have information about a son of fruit tycoon of an extramarital affairand another 150,000 to a woman who claimed to have an affair with the former president.
Trump’s payment to Stormy Daniels
Trump’s then-lawyer, Michael Cohenhe commissioned the payment to Daniels, and the magnate reimbursed him the money, allegedly passing it off as legal expenses in the accounts of his company Trump Organization.
The payment to the actress was therefore not declared in the campaign accounts of the then 2016 presidential candidate, a possible violation of New York state electoral laws.
“Serious criminal conduct cannot be normalized“Declared the prosecutor in the case, Alvin Bragg, at a press conference after Trump’s appearance. “Everyone is equal before the law,” he added.
“Make America Horny Again”: the stormy story of sex and bribery between ‘Stormy’ Daniels and Trump
Trump faces other criminal investigations related to his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state of Georgia, his handling of classified documents and his possible involvement in the storming of the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.
It is still unknown what consequences these cases will have on his aspirations to return to the White House, but the former president has shown his resistance to scandals.
He survived two impeachments in Congress, maintains a large fan base and, so far, most of his fellow Republicans have rallied around him. Among them the one who is presented as his great rival in the party primaries, the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, who called the accusation against Trump “un-American.”
ED
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