OAN Roy Francis
UPDATED 8:37 AM – Wednesday, April 5, 2023
Hours after pleading not guilty in New York to falsifying business records in relation to alleged hush-money payments, 45th President Donald Trump slammed District Attorney Alvin Bragg, and Democrats in his speech saying that he never “thought anything like this could happen in America.”
Trump was indicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, and was arraigned on Tuesday in New York City. He pleaded not guilty to all charges.
During the arraignment the presiding judge, Juan Merchan, decided not to issue a gag order, which allowed the former president to give remarks about the case, which he did when he returned to Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday night.
Trump slammed the Democrats in his speech recalling all the attempts made to discredit, and impeach him. He referred to the investigations by the FBI, and Special Counsel Robert Mueller into whether he colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 election, where after two years no evidence had been found.
He also talked about the two impeachments where he was acquitted both times, marking him as the first president in United States history to be impeached and acquitted twice. He went on to say that the only crime he has committed was “fearlessly defending our nation from those who seek to destroy it.”
“I never thought anything like this could happen in America. I never thought it could happen. The only crime that I have committed is to fearlessly defending our nation from those who seek to destroy it,” Trump said from Mar-a-Lago.
“From the beginning, the Democrats spied on my campaign,” he said. “Remember that they attacked me with an onslaught of fraudulent investigations Russia, Russia, Russia; Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine; impeachment hoax number one; impeachment hoax number two; the illegal and unconstitutional raid on Mar-a-Lago right here; the lying to the FISA court; the FBI and DOJ relentlessly pursuing Republicans; the uncontested judicial changes to election laws by not getting approvals from state legislatures.”
He then went on to explain how Bragg was a “local failed district attorney” but was backed by George Soros, and had focused his campaign on the “fact that he would get President Trump.” He called on Bragg to “resign” after details of the indictment were leaked to the media before it was unsealed and that Bragg “knew there was no case” and he was just making political moves.
“A local failed district attorney charging a former President of the United States for the first time in history on a basis that every single pundit and legal analyst said there is no case—there’s no case,” Trump said. “But it’s far worse than that, because he knew there was no case.”
The 45th president explained how federal prosecutors had opted out of charging him in 2019 in relations to the payments, and that the Federal Election Commission had also dropped its investigation in 2021 because there was no evidence of any wrongdoing.
“You want to get President Trump at any cost,” Trump said. “As it turns out, everyone who has looked at this case … says there is no crime and it should never have been brought. Never have been brought.”
Trump used these facts to support his claim that Bragg was politically motivated in his actions, and that this was a form of “election interference.”
“This fake case was brought only to interfere with the upcoming 2024 election and it should be dropped and immediately,” Trump said.
He also talked about how the FBI had worked with social media, specifically Twitter, to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story during the 2020 elections.
“Just recently the FBI, DOJ, in collusion with Twitter and Facebook in order not to say anything bad about the Hunter Biden laptop from Hell,” he said. “Which exposes the Biden family as criminals and which, according to the pollsters, would have made a 17 point difference in the election result.”
Trump also slammed the judge presiding over the case, Merchan, as a “Trump-hating judge” who has a bias against him. He also mentioned how Merchan’s daughter worked for Kamala Harris.
The judge’s daughter, Loren Merchan, currently holds the position of president at the consulting firm Authentic Campaigns. Some clients of her consulting firm include the Biden-Harris campaign, and Governor Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.)
Trump then went on to defend himself against the Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the alleged mishandling of classified documents. He slammed the investigation, and the raid on his home that was conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
“We have this Jack Smith lunatic threatening people every single day through his representatives,” Trump said. “They’re threatening jail terms. But talk about Trump and you’ll go free. That’s the country in which we live in, however, right now.”
He accused Smith of “threatening” his allies with jail time, and that the National Archives and Records Administration was mistreating him and that he had done nothing wrong. He said the items that that were in his possession were all “in good faith,” and that previous presidents had done the same thing, including President Joe Biden.
“As president, I have the right to declassify documents. If I take them with me, it’s automatic declassify,” Trump said. “They like to say that I’m obstructing, which I’m not, because I was working with NARA [National Archives and Records Administration] very nicely until the raid on my home.”
The former president also talked about Biden and how under his leadership, the world is “laughing at us” and that the U.S. economy has “been crippled by the biggest inflation we have seen in more than 60 years.” Trump also mentioned that under Biden, the U.S. had lost had left behind “$85 billion worth of the best military equipment in the world” during the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Trump ended his speech by saying that the nation is currently in decline under the Democrats’ leadership, and that the “radical left lunatics” want to interfere with elections, however, he said he has “no doubt” that “we will make America great again.”
“We are a nation in decline. And now these radical left lunatics want to interfere with our elections by using law enforcement. We can’t let that happen,” he said. “I have no doubt nevertheless that we will make America great again.”
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