Former President Trump spoke at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday night, his first remarks after pleading not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with concealing hush money payments.
Trump entered the plea before Judge Juan Merchan during the proceeding Tuesday afternoon in Lower Manhattan, becoming the first former president to be arraigned on criminal charges.
Merchan set the next court date for Dec. 4.
Read below for a recap of the day’s events.
Former Trump attorney Michael Cohen said following Trump’s first comments after being arraigned that Trump is allowing his “worst nature” to affect him in his attacks on others involved in the case.
Cohen said in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper that Trump’s attacks during his speech at Mar-a-Lago calling Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg an “animal” and Special Counsel Jack Smith a “lunatic” are designed to rile up his supporters and show “strength.”
He also said Trump’s attack on Bragg as being “backed” by Democratic donor George Soros is an “antisemitic trope” that he continues to use.
“He allows his worst nature to come forward, and that’s not going to help him in this case,” Cohen said.
— Jared Gans
From left, Eric Trump and his wife Lara, Victor Knavs, Donald Trump Jr., and his fiancé Kimberly Guilfoyle, and Tiffany Trump and her husband Michael Boulos, listen as former President Donald Trump speaks at his Mar-a-Lago estate Tuesday, April 4, 2023, in Palm Beach, Fla., after being arraigned earlier in the day in New York City. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Trump wrapped up his speech at 8:50 p.m. after roughly 20 minutes. He stepped into the crowd to mingle with supporters in the Mar-a-Lago ballroom.
Trump attacked District Attorney Alvin Bragg and shrugged off the seriousness of the 34 felony counts unsealed earlier Tuesday.
Trump said he spent time in New York City “with a local failed district 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.”
“Last week he delayed for a month, and then immediately took that back and threw this ridiculous indictment together,” Trump continued. “Came out today everybody said this is not really an indictment. There’s nothing here.”
Trump claimed Bragg should himself be prosecuted or resign for illegal leaks of grand jury information.
He also took aim at Judge Juan Merchan, decrying him as a “Trump-hating judge with a Trump-hating wife and family.”
Before addressing Tuesday’s proceedings at length, Trump defended himself from two other investigations that are looming over him and his campaign.
The former president took aim at Fani Willis, the district attorney for Fulton County, Ga., who is leading a probe into possible election interference in the state during the 2020 election.
‘In the wings they’ve got a local, racist Democrat district attorney in Atlanta who is doing everything in her power to indict me over an absolutely perfect phone call,” Trump said, referencing his call to the Georgia secretary of state asking him to find enough votes to swing the results in his favor.
And Trump also railed against Jack Smith, the special counsel overseeing the Justice Department’s investigations into Trump’s handling of classified information upon leaving office as well as Trump’s actions around the Jan. 6, 2021, riots.
Trump blasted Smith as “a radical left lunatic known as a bomb thrower who is harassing hundreds of my people day after day over the boxes hoax.”
Trump kicked off his remarks from Mar-a-Largo just before 8:30 p.m., opening with a slew of grievances about past investigations into his campaign and administration and about the 2020 election before finally addressing the Manhattan case.
“As it turns out, virtually everybody who has looked at this case… say there is no crime and that it should never have been brought,” Trump said to applause. “Even people who are not big fans have said it.”
Trump’s adult children, Eric Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and Tiffany Trump, were spotted in the ballroom where the former president is speaking, as were several campaign aides. Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, has maintained her distance from Trump’s campaign activities since he announced his reelection bid.
— Brett Samuels
Some notable names in the crowd at Mar-a-Lago include the former president’s children, Donald Trump Jr., his fiance Kimberly Guilfoyle, Tiffany Trump as well as defeated Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.). MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) were also spotted in the crowd.
Supporters of former President Donald Trump chant and wave flags during a rally to welcome him home, Tuesday, April 4, 2023, in West Palm Beach, Fla. Trump is returning to Mar-a-Lago after his arraignment Tuesday in a Manhattan courthouse.
Donald Trump’s indictment has raised numerous questions over whether the former president may run for office, but legal scholars explain that he is still legally able to continue his White House bid while he faces criminal charges.
Saikrishna Prakash, a law professor at the University of Virginia’s School of Law, explains that the Constitution does not offer any disqualifications for candidates seeking the presidency if they’re either indicted or in jail.
“There is no disqualification that says that if you are indicted, you can’t run in the Constitution. There’s not even a disqualification that says that if you’re in jail, you can’t run. And so the Constitution itself has limited qualifications and doesn’t say that you can’t serve if you’re indicted or in jail,” said Prakash, who’s also the author of “Prosecuting and Punishing Our Presidents” in the Texas Law Review.
— Caroline Vakil
John Bolton, former Trump national security advisor, blasted the indictment that was handed down to former President Trump on Tuesday, saying it “is even weaker than I feared it would be.”
“Speaking as someone who very strongly does not want Donald Trump to get the Republican presidential nomination, I’m extraordinarily distressed by this document,” Bolton said on CNN. “I think this is even weaker than I feared it would be.”
Bolton, who has split with former President Trump since leaving his administration, said he thinks the case is “easily subject to being dismissed or a quick acquittal.”
— Stephen Neukam
Former President Trump was awarded about $121,972 in attorney fees from adult film star Stormy Daniels just hours after the former president appeared in court Tuesday for the first time in connection to hush money payments made to Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ordered Daniels to pay Trump for attorney fees endured during a 2018 defamation lawsuit that she filed against him. The lawsuit, which was dismissed later that year, was based on a tweet posted by Trump that suggested Daniels had lied about being threatened by an unknown man in 2011 in relation to an alleged affair she had with the former president.
NEW YORK – Hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse on Tuesday where former President Trump pleaded not guilty to a 34-count felony brought by New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
As helicopters whirred loudly above the courthouse in a city where large protest movements and highly coordinated police responses are a regular occurrence, the demonstrations alternated in tone between explicitly angry and theatrically revelrous.
Trump posted on social media from his plane that he believed there were no “surprises” during his arraignment, expressing confidence in his innocence.
“Just lifted off for Palm Beach, Florida. Will be delivering remarks tonight at Mar-a-Lago at 8:15 P.M., EASTERN,” Trump wrote. “The hearing was shocking to many in that they had no “surprises,” and therefore, no case. Virtually every legal pundit has said that there is no case here. There was nothing done illegally!”
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) accused District Attorney Alvin Bragg of trying to interfere with elections with the indictment of Trump and McCarthy reiterated his commitment to having House Republicans investigate Bragg.
“Alvin Bragg is attempting to interfere in our democratic process by invoking federal law to bring politicized charges against President Trump, admittedly using federal funds, while at the same time arguing that the peoples’ representatives in Congress lack jurisdiction to investigate this farce,” McCarthy tweeted. “Not so. Bragg’s weaponization of the federal justice process will be held accountable by Congress.”
McCarthy references Bragg’s office admitting that approximately $5,000 spent on the investigation of Trump came from federal funds.
House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) led two other committee chairs with a request last month for Bragg to testify to Congress about the case.
– Emily Brooks