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- Trump on Saturday appealed to his supporters to “protest” and “take back our nation.”
- He made the call after claiming without proof that he would be arrested on Tuesday.
- His lawyers and advisers said they had no knowledge of an impending arrest.
Former President Donald Trump called on his supporters to ‘protest’ and ‘take back our nation’ in an all-caps Truth Social post on Saturday in which he predicted his own arrest, despite a lack of evidence he was charged in a pending case before a New York grand jury.
Citing “illegal leaks”, Trump wrote that he “will be arrested on Tuesday of next week”.
“PROTEST, TAKE BACK OUR NATION!” he added, in an ominous echo of the words that preceded the deadly January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol.
He followed in a second message in all caps, writing “IT’S TIME!!!”
“WE CANNOT ALLOW THIS ANY MORE,” Trump wrote. “THEY ARE KILLING OUR NATION WHILE WE SIT AND WATCH. WE MUST SAVE AMERICA! PROTEST, PROTEST, PROTEST!!!”
Trump’s extreme rhetoric was reminiscent of his infamous December 2020 tweet asking his supporters to converge on Capitol Hill on Jan. 6 to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s election victory. “Be there, will be wild!” Trump tweeted at the time.
Trump’s attorneys and advisers said they had no indication the former president would be arrested on Tuesday.
“President Trump is basing himself on press reports,” his attorney, Susan Necheles, told Insider.
“This is a political prosecution and the prosecutor is leaking information to the press instead of communicating to lawyers as they should,” Necheles said.
A Trump spokesperson also said in a separate statement that the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office gave “no notification” of an impending arrest. The statement added that Trump “will be in Texas next weekend for a giant rally.”
Yet the former president’s staunchest supporters backed him.
Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a far-right firebrand and one of Trump’s most staunch loyalists, said in a Tweeter following Trump’s statement that the “GOP base is fed up with Republicans who won’t stand up for the people and against the Democrats’ war on Trump, his admin, his supporters, and mainstream values.”
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy threatened the Manhattan district attorney’s office with investigations.
“Here we go again – an outrageous abuse of power by a radical prosecutor who lets violent criminals walk as he pursues his political revenge against President Trump,” McCarthy tweeted. “I call on the appropriate committees to immediately investigate whether federal funds are being used to subvert our democracy by interfering in elections with politically motivated prosecutions.”
In a message Accompanied by a disturbing image, Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., falsely claimed that if his father was indicted, it would mean the government would then target individual liberties.
“If they can take it down, they’re about to take you out and your freedoms…and apparently that’s been the plan all along,” Trump Jr. wrote.
—Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) March 18, 2023
Representative Matt Gaetz said “the impending indictment is based on untested and tortured legal theory” and must “be considered for the pathetic partisan ploy that it is”.
Right-wing commentator Dan Bongino said“The police state is here,” adding that this is a story he expects from North Korea.
—MAGA War Room (@MAGAIncWarRoom) March 18, 2023
Trump spokeswoman Liz Harrington called the charges – which do not appear to have been made – “false”.
“Only failed Third World nations try to stop political opposition on false charges. The bad guys are trying to destroy America, but they won’t win!” Harrington said in a Telegram post.
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