Ex-US President Donald Trump urges fans to organize protest

• Donald Trump urged his friends to organize the large-scale protest.
• He will be the first former American president to face criminal charges.
• It is unknown whether he will be prosecuted criminally this week, or even, in broad strokes.

Donald Trump has stated that he expects to be arrested on Tuesday and has urged his fans to organize large-scale protests.

His lawyer, however, stated that there had been no communication from law police and that the former president’s post was based only on media reporting.

Authorities have been considering indicting Mr. Trump. According to reports, it might happen as soon as next week.

If he is indicted, he will be the first former American president to face criminal charges.

This issue revolves around alleged hush money paid by Mr. Trump’s lawyer to porn star Stormy Daniels prior to the 2016 presidential election.

It is one of the numerous incidents in which the 76-year-old is being investigated, though he has not been prosecuted in any of them and denies wrongdoing in all of them.

Mr. Trump has committed to continue his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in the 2024 election, even if he is indicted.

Attempts to investigate him in the past, including two impeachment proceedings, the Russia inquiry, and the Mar-a-Lago raid, have tended to make him more popular among his supporters; an indictment may have a similar impact.

It is unknown whether he will be prosecuted criminally this week, or even, in broad strokes, what those charges would be.

Yet, with the former president anticipating an arrest and pushing for large protests, this is uncharted territory.

Mr. Trump has a devoted following, and the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol by his supporters in response to his repeated calls to protest has demonstrated that a tense situation can swiftly turn violent.

Mr. Trump said on his social networking site Truth Social on Saturday that “illegal leaks” from the Manhattan district attorney’s office “suggest” he will be jailed on Tuesday.

The district attorney’s office has yet to respond. Susan Necheles, Mr. Trump’s lawyer, said her team had not heard from law enforcement officials.

“Since this is a political prosecution, the district attorney’s office has engaged in a practice of leaking everything to the press, rather than communicating with President Trump’s attorneys as would be done in a normal case,” she said.

The Republican Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, has blasted out at the inquiry, calling it “an outrageous abuse of power by a radical DA [district attorney]”.

He also promised to investigate whether federal funds were being used to influence elections “with politically motivated prosecutions” in a tweet.

Any indictment would make it difficult for Mr. Trump’s Republican Party opponents to determine whether to escalate their attacks on the former president while he is potentially distracted or to keep their heads down and hope for the best.

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