Trump’s Statement Is a ‘Bat-Signal’ For the Party to Go After Manhattan DA
Former president said to be "very anxious" at the prospect of an arrest
Donald Trump's call for protests among his supporters ahead of his indictment which he said is coming on Tuesday is simply a naked attempt to intimidate the district attorney handling the case, according to many observers.
Trump called for the protests over the weekend as Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg a New York grand jury investigates hush money payments to women who alleged sexual encounters with the former president.
Even as Trump’s lawyer and spokesperson said there had been no communication from prosecutors, Trump declared in a post on his social media platform that he expects to be taken into custody on Tuesday.
And his call to supporters seems like a last-ditch attempt, right out of the Trump playbook, to foment potential violence to discourage an actual indictment in the case.
The New York case is just one of four that Trump's dealing with, including his case of trying overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia — which went for Democrat Joe Biden — as well as federal cases involving the attack on January 6, 2021, and the classified documents which he had been holding onto illegally at his Florida estate.
“And so, his statement yesterday, I mean, the surprising thing to me was not about, ‘I may be arrested on Tuesday' -- even though we now know that he doesn't know any more than maybe we do -- it's that he was sending a bat-signal to his party, ‘Go after the D.A. Let's create some manufactured outrage because we want to de-legitimize him before he does anything at all.' And a lot of people followed suit,” said Jen Psaki, former White House press secretary for President Biden and a current host on MSNBC.
Extremist Trump supporters are jumping into action, according to Frank Figliuzzi, a former federal law enforcement official.
“This is something that needs to be treated by law enforcement, writ large, nationwide and as something that they should be preparing for,” said Figliuzzi, a one-time assistant director for counterintelligence at the FBI. “Why? Because groups like the Boogaloo Boys are alread preparing for it they are already massing in private rooms and Facebook and other platforms talking about civil war.”
Although there are thoughts that an indictment could well help him with his right-wing base, Trump still is not eager for it to happen, according to Maggie Haberman, author and White House correspondent for The New York Times.
“Look, Jake, he’s very anxious about the prospect of being indicted for a couple of reasons,” Haberman said in an on-camera appearance with CNN host Jake Tapper. “Yes, two things can be true at once. He is aware that there are reasons to believe this could help him politically. We have heard a lot about this, this morning, already. But he does not want to face getting arrested, which is what happens when you get indicted. You get fingerprinted. You get brought in. You have to ask for bail. None of that is something that he is excited about.
“So, he and his folks, his political folks, are preparing for a huge blitz politically to push back on the Manhattan district attorney,” Haberman added. “You saw that start yesterday, although I don’t think that his Truth Social posts yesterday morning calling for protests were part of a grand plan. He did it, and a bunch of his aides were surprised by it.”
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