Trump Predicts 'Death & Destruction' Over Possible Charges

Truth Social post early Friday raises possibility of violence should he be indicted
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 24, 2023 12:29 PM CDT
On Possible Indictment, Trump Makes a 'Most Explicit' Forecast
Former President Donald Trump watches the NCAA Wrestling Championships on Saturday in Tulsa, Oklahoma.   (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, File)

As a possible indictment against Donald Trump continues to loom, the former president doesn't seem to be getting much sleep. The New York Times reports that Trump was up past midnight and into Friday morning, commenting on his Truth Social platform about the case against him in New York regarding alleged hush payments to porn star Stormy Daniels. "What kind of person can charge another person, in this case a former president of the United States, who got more votes than any sitting president in history, and leading candidate (by far!) for the Republican Party nomination, with a crime, when it is known by all that NO crime has been committed, & also that potential death & destruction in such a false charge could be catastrophic for our country?" Trump wrote early Friday, in a post time-stamped at just after 1am ET.

He then added: "Why & who would do such a thing? Only a degenerate psychopath that truely hates the USA!" The "death & destruction" prediction is what stood out the most to those who read Trump's remarks, which the Washington Post calls "his latest—and most explicit—allusion to violence" that could come if he's indeed indicted by the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (that's ostensibly whom Trump's Truth Social post was about). Bragg's office has been showing evidence to grand jury members related to a $130,000 payment made to Daniels, aka Stephanie Clifford, by Trump attorney and "fixer" Michael Cohen during the 2016 campaign. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries blasted Trump's comments on Friday, calling the former president's remarks "reckless, reprehensible, and irresponsible," as well as "dangerous."

Republicans also decried Trump's comments, if indirectly. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, who was injured in a politically tied shooting in 2017, said that although he hadn't heard what Trump said, "there's no place in America for political violence of any kind." Bragg himself hasn't commented, but last week in a memo to staff, he wrote," We do not tolerate attempts to intimidate our office or threaten the rule of law in New York." Trump himself was up before 9:30am Friday to continue pleading his case online. "PROSECUTORIAL MISCONDUCT!" he wrote first. That was followed by a post with a link to a letter from Trump lawyer Joseph Tacopina to New York City's Department of Investigation requesting a probe into the DA's probe, along with a caption that read, "Weaponization [of the] New York County District Attorney's Office Against President Donald J. Trump." (More Donald Trump stories.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X