After Donald Trump pled not guilty before a judge in Manhattan Tuesday in connection with a grand jury indictment, the former president flew back to this Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida to deliver a campaign-style speech to his supporters.
The 34-count felony indictment charged him in a scheme to bury allegations of extramarital affairs that arose during his first White House campaign.
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The indictment centers on allegations that Trump falsified internal business records at his private company while trying to cover up an effort to illegally influence the 2016 election by arranging payments that silenced claims potentially harmful to his candidacy.
In his relatively short Mar-a-Lago speech, Trump lashed out anew at the prosecution and attacked in bitter terms the prosecutor and the judge presiding over the case despite being admonished hours earlier about incendiary rhetoric.
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“The only crime that I have committed is to fearlessly defend our nation from those who seek to destroy it," Trump said.
In a sign of that other probes are weighing on him, Trump also steered his speech into a broadside against a separate Justice Department investigation into the mishandling of classified documents.
“I never thought anything like this could happen in America,” Trump said of the New York indictment. “This fake case was brought only to interfere with the upcoming 2024 election and it should be dropped immediately."
The crowd at Mar-a-Lago included supporters like failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and longtime ally Roger Stone. Trump's wife, Melania, was absent from his side and was also not seen with him in New York.
