Donald Trump, after being charged in a hush money case, in his first speech, said there’s massive election interference at a scale never seen.
Trump delivered an address to a crowd of some 500 people in his Mar-a-Lago estate ballroom in Florida after flying in from New York.
‘I never thought anything like this could happen in America,’ Trump told supporters gathered at his Mar-a-Lago retreat in Palm Beach, Florida.
The former US president told supporters gathered at Mar-a-Lago that the case against him is ‘fake’ and that America’s justice system is ‘lawless’ as he attacked the judge who oversaw his first court appearance on Tuesday, April 4.
The former US president was charged on Tuesday with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in a historic case over allegations he orchestrated hush-money payments to two women before the 2016 US election to suppress publication of their alleged sexual encounters with him.
Prosecutors in Manhattan accused Trump, the first sitting or former US president to face criminal charges, of trying to conceal a violation of election laws during his successful 2016 campaign.
The two women in the case are adult film actor Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal.
He pleaded not guilty to all of the charges during a historic 45-minute hearing in New York.
Defending himself against 34 felony charges, the former president claimed his arrest was an attempt by the ‘radical Left’ to weaponise police and the courts.
He claimed the case is fake and politically motivated ‘only to interfere with the upcoming 2024 election,’ telling a crowd of supporters inside a Mar-A-Lago ballroom ‘it should be dropped immediately.’