Donald Trump pushed back on calls for his supporters to be peaceful if he is indicted and told Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to drop the Stormy Daniels hush money case as the grand jury was canceled for the rest of this week.
The ex-President posted a fired-up message on Truth Social insisting he is innocent and calling Michael Cohen a ‘nut job’ with ‘zero credibility’ as a decision in his case was pushed back again.
In all caps, he wrote: ‘EVERYBODY KNOWS I’M 100% INNOCENT, INCLUDING BRAGG, BUT HE DOESN’T CARE. HE IS JUST CARRYING OUT THE PLANS OF THE RADICAL LEFT LUNATICS. OUR COUNTRY IS BEING DESTROYED, AS THEY TELL US TO BE PEACEFUL!
He reignited his rhetoric with New York still on alert and tensions high across the country ahead of the grand jury’s final vote, which could determine if he is the first former president in history to be indicted.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (pictured Thursday arriving at his office) will not convene the grand jury for the hush money case against Trump.
Grand Jury members will reconvene at the Manhattan courthouse at noon on ThursdayÂ
His posts and the news that the grand jury won’t be in court for the rest of the week comes after sources told DailyMail.com that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is having trouble convincing jurors to indict Trump.
Many people – including Trump – expected the former president to be indicted this week, but an official confirmed to DailyMail.com that Bragg canceled the grand jury on Wednesday and Thursday.Â
It remains unclear why the grand jury is not reconvening for the rest of the week amid reports that the panel needs to hear from a final witness before levying a judgment.
One source told DailyMail.com: ‘They are having trouble convincing the jury to swallow the case. It’s a weak case and has caused divisions in the DA’s office.’Â
Other reports suggested the DA’s office could contemplate a change in strategy.Â
Trump has urged his supporters to take to the streets and protest as he still maintains complete innocence of any wrongdoing in the allegations. The former president acknowledged that he approved a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels to settle what he called a “nuisance fee’ but denied the affair.Â
But bombshell new documents obtained by DailyMail.com show that Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen claimed in a 2018 letter that he was not reimbursed by his client or his businesses for the hush money payments to Daniels.
The letter to federal authorities could throw a wrench in the works for prosecutors looking to pursue criminal charges against Trump for the payment.
Cohen, a star witness in the trial, claims that Trump reimbursed him with personal funds. He later pleaded guilty to violating federal campaign finance law over the hush money.
Even if Trump was indicted this week, law enforcement sources tell DailyMail.com that he wouldn’t need to come to New York for arraignment until next week, at the earliest. Decidedly good news for the former president, who is preparing for one of his first 2024 campaign rallies in Waco, Texas on Saturday.
All 36,000 New York Police Department (NTPD) officers were put on alert this week, told in a memo Monday to be in uniform and on standby for deployment. The men and women in uniform have maintained a heightened presence around the courts in Manhattan this week with both pro- and anti-Trump protesters descending on the Big Apple.
Police presence included using dogs to sweep the area to sniff for bombs and other nefarious items after the New York courts were flooded with threats earlier this week.
A bomb threat made via a 9-1-1 call on Tuesday shut down the Manhattan civil courthouse Tuesday morning and put proceedings on hold, according to a court spokesperson.
The threat delayed the start of a New York attorney general hearing in a separate case involving Trump and his company allegedly engaging in a yearslong fraud scheme.
Police are using bomb sniffing dogs to patrol the area around Manhattan Criminal Court after someone made a bomb threat via 9-1-1 call on Tuesday
Drug-sniffing K9s were brought into the Manhattan court offices on Thursday to perform a sweep before the DA and grand jury arrive.
Anti-Trump protesters hold up a gigantic sign reading, ‘Trump Lies All the Time’ at a park near the Manhattan Criminal Court on Thursday, March 23, 2023
Trump posted an image Wednesday evening on Truth Social of him posing with a large group of officers and first responders with the NYPD and FDNY. There was no text associated with the post.
In a separate post on his social media platform, Trump also re-upped his claims there was ‘no crime of any kind’ and accused Bragg of ‘election interference’ with weighing the indictment of a former – and potentially future – president.
As all eyes turn to New York and police and court security are surveying the streets, images emerged of members of the United State Secret Service (USSS) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) setting up a base camp at the Peninsula Hotel in Manhattan.
Meanwhile, Trump is steering clear of the city he once called home, instead remaining at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida.
The former president acknowledged that he approved a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels to settle what he called a “nuisance fee’ but denied the affair.
NYPD stand guard outside Trump Tower in Manhattan on Thursday morning as the grand jury prepares to reconvene as protesters are expected to continue demonstrating outside the ex-president’s once longtime residence
