Grand juries probe former president

Trump is scheduled to travel to Waco, Texas, on Saturday for what his campaign has billed as the primary official rally of his 2024 presidential bid.

The kickoff event, which comes months after Trump formally launched his third White House campaign, coincides with the 30-year anniversary of the infamous siege that took place east of Waco.

The standoff between FBI agents and members of the Branch Davidians religious cult began in February 1993 and ended nearly two months later in a deadly blaze that engulfed the group’s compound. Dozens of the group’s followers — and its leader, David Koresh — were killed within the siege, as were 4 federal agents.

Trump’s campaign has not linked his rally with the tragic anniversary. In a press release announcing the event, the campaign declared, “It’s undisputed that Texas is Trump Country,” pointing to the success of Trump-endorsed candidates within the state and a few favorable polling data on Texas Republicans.

Trump’s spokesman told The Latest York Times that the location was chosen “since it is centrally positioned and shut to all 4 of Texas’ biggest metropolitan areas.”

The rally comes on the close of every week during which Trump wrongly predicted he could be arrested on charges from the Manhattan District Attorney’s office related to a 2016 hush money payment to a porn star who alleges she had a tryst with Trump. The previous president has railed against the DA and portrayed himself as a victim of presidency overreach.

Trump is scheduled to talk on the rally on the Waco Regional Airport at 5 p.m. local time on Saturday.

— Kevin Breuninger

After ramping up his campaign of vitriol against the Manhattan district attorney pursuing a hush money case against him, Trump left his Palm Beach, Florida, resort home and headed to his golf club, NBC News reported.

The previous president’s motorcade arrived at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach shortly after 9 a.m. ET, based on NBC.

Around the identical time, Trump posted a two-word, all-caps message on Truth Social: “PROSECUTORIAL MISCONDUCT!”

It was the most recent in a series of escalating attacks on Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, which had reached a fever pitch overnight as Trump warned of “potential death & destruction” if charged within the probe.

— Kevin Breuninger

The lawyer for Michael Cohen, Trump’s ex-fixer turned key witness within the Manhattan district attorney’s hush money case, said he could be let down if the previous president shouldn’t be charged within the probe.

“I will be disenchanted” if the DA Alvin Bragg ultimately decides to not indict Trump, attorney Lanny Davis told Politico.

“But I’ll grant him a good-faith judgment. And judgments can all the time be disagreed with, but I will be disenchanted of course,” Davis said.

Davis also told Politico that the probe began after he invited the previous Manhattan DA, Cyrus Vance Jr., to go to Cohen in prison in Otisville, Latest York, where he was serving his sentence for financial crimes related to the hush money payment.

Their first meeting “didn’t go thoroughly,” Davis said, because Cohen had felt “mistreated” by federal prosecutors. But “they got past that,” and “the subsequent two sessions were very productive. After which it led to an open investigation.”

— Kevin Breuninger

Evan Corcoran, an attorney for Trump, arrived at a Washington, D.C., courthouse ahead of a planned appearance before a federal grand jury reviewing evidence of Trump’s retention of classified government records at his Florida home.

Corcoran’s arrival got here two days after an appeals court quickly denied a bid by Trump to dam the lawyer’s appearance, which a lower court judge had ordered.

The Justice Department is eyeing Trump within the criminal probe for failing to comply with a law requiring former presidents to return government records after they leave office.

He is also being investigated for potential obstruction of justice in refusing to show over records to government officials when lawyers including Corcoran were being asked about such documents.

Last June, Corcoran told a fellow Trump lawyer Christina Bobb to present the DOJ a press release that an in depth search at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club had not found any more government documents than those returned to the National Archives and Records Administration earlier in 2022.

Two months later, FBI agents in a raid of Mar-a-Lago found a whole lot of such documents, a lot of them marked highly classified.

— Dan Mangan

Trump in an ominous early-morning social media post suggested there may very well be “death & destruction” if he’s hit with criminal charges.

The implication of violence got here greater than two years after hundreds of the previous president’s supporters, spurred by his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him, stormed the Capitol in a deadly try and stop Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s victory.

Trump in his Truth Social post cited his status as a former president and a current White House contender as he lashed out at an unnamed prosecutor. He argued that any criminal charge against him could be baseless.

“What type of person can charge one other person, on this case a former President of the US, who got more votes than any sitting President in history, and leading candidate (by far!) for the Republican Party nomination, with a Crime, when it is understood by all that NO Crime has been committed, & also known that potential death & destruction in such a false charge may very well be catastrophic for our Country?”

“Why & who would do such a thing?” he added. “Only a degenerate psychopath that actually hates the USA.”

The post got here hours after a federal judge in Manhattan ruled that the jury in Trump’s upcoming civil trial for allegations that he raped and defamed the author E. Jean Carroll could be anonymous. The choice was partially as a result of Trump’s verbal and written attacks on legal system officials resembling prosecutors, in addition to individual grand jurors.

Trump faces a possible indictment next week within the Manhattan grand jury probe related to the Stormy Daniels hush money payment. Daniels’ real name is Stephanie Clifford.

He is also the goal of a federal criminal probe related to efforts to reverse his 2020 election loss to Biden, and his actions surrounding the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol riot by his supporters after he urged them to protest the election ends in Washington.

— Dan Mangan