If dozens of credible reports are to be believed, Donald Trump is going to be indicted by the Manhattan district attorney’s office at some point in the very near future for his role in a 2016 hush money scheme. How’s that news gone over with the ex-president? As a fellow New Yorker once said: Not well, bitch! Following a weekend of rage—in which the former leader of the free world basically told his followers to do another January 6 after he’s charged—Trump has spent the last 24 hours in full-on meltdown mode.
On Truth Social, the social media platform he started after being (temporarily) booted from Twitter for inciting a violent riot, Trump has shared no less than a dozen posts decrying the expected charges. Two of those posts have been videos starring him. In the first, as images from his time in office appear, he claims in a voiceover that the criminal investigations into his conduct are about (1) silencing him and (2) going after his supporters. Essentially screaming, he says: “Never forget, everything this corrupt establishment is doing to me is all about preserving their power and control over the American people. If I renounced my beliefs, which I won’t do, if I agreed to stay silent, if I stayed at home, if I said that a corrupt election was wonderful, the persecution would stop immediately. But I can’t do that because I love our country far, far too much. And remember they’re coming after me because I’m standing up for you. And they’re coming after you, believe me, they’re coming after you.”
Is the bit about pressure to renounce his “beliefs” unintentionally hilarious? Yes. Is the warning to his supporters—most of whom, as far as we know, haven’t paid a porn star to keep quiet while running for president—absurd? Also yes.
In the second video, standing in between two American flags, Trump says of the New York, Fulton County, and dual Justice Department investigations: “These four horrible radical-left Democrat investigations of your all-time-favorite president, me, is just a continuation of the most disgusting witch hunt in the history of our country…whether it’s the Mar-a-Lago raid or the unselect committee hoax, the perfect Georgia phone call, it was absolutely perfect, or the Stormy ‘Horse Face’ Daniels extortion plot, they’re all sick and it’s fake news.” Oh, and he keeps going: “Our enemies are desperate to stop us because they know we are the only ones who can stop them and they know it very strongly and they’re looking at the polls where not me but we are up by so much they can’t even believe it. We won twice and now we’re going to win a third time. They know that we can defeat them; they know that we will defeat them. But they’re not coming after me, they’re coming after you. I’m just standing in their way, and I aways will stand in their way.”
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Elsewhere in the multihour meltdown, Trump referenced the news that a former legal adviser to Michael Cohen—who presumably told the grand jury everything he knows re: the Stormy Daniels payment—reportedly attempted to discredit the former Trump Organization attorney to the people weighing an indictment against him. “It is being said that disbarred lawyer Michael Cohen was put out to dry today after his highly respected former attorney and legal adviser, Robert Costello, made a great impression not only on the D.A.’s Office, but the grand jury itself,” he wrote. “He is known to be a great lawyer and highly honorable man. He stated to the media that he could no longer listen to the lies that Cohen was spreading. He told the TRUTH, with papers, documents, and backup. He left ZERO doubt.THE D.A. WILL DO THE RIGHT THING!”
Law enforcement agencies are said to be beefing up security in the event Trump is, in fact, indicted. In a message to employees over the weekend, Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg wrote: “Our law enforcement partners will ensure that any specific or credible threats against the office will be fully investigated and that the proper safeguards are in place so all 1,600 of us have a secure work environment.”