(C) Common Dreams
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Trump delivers fiery post-indictment speech: 'They're coming after you' [1]
['Matt Dixon']
Date: 2023-06-10
Former U.S. President Donald Trump arrives to deliver remarks during the Georgia state GOP convention at the Columbus Convention and Trade Center on June 10, 2023 in Columbus, Georgia.
COLUMBUS, GA. — Donald Trump's legal defense did not start in a courtroom. It began on the banks of the Chattahoochee River.
After his historic federal indictment, the former president stepped onstage Saturday in front of more than 2,000 people packed into a convention center here to once again declare his innocence and deliver a grievance-laced takedown of what he said was a biased federal law enforcement apparatus.
"In the end, they're not coming after me. They're coming after you — and I'm just standing in their way," Trump said.
"The ridiculous and baseless indictment of me by the Biden administration's weaponized Department of Injustice will go down as among the most horrific abuses of power in the history of our country," he said. "Many people have said that; Democrats have even said it. This vicious persecution is a travesty of justice."
His remarks at the Georgia Republican Party's annual conference came one day after special counsel Jack Smith unsealed a 37-count federal indictment against Trump for allegedly crafting a scheme to keep in his possession sensitive material from his time in the White House, even though he knew many remained classified. The indictment alleged that Trump not only withheld classified documents but lied to federal agents and investigators about his involvement.
Those charges, which bring the prospect of an ex-president spending the rest of his life in a prison cell, hung over those gathered in the Columbus Convention and Trade Center to conduct their annual state party business. The event was relatively procedural, aside from Trump.
Trump repeatedly mocked the indictment. He called Smith "deranged" and said the Justice Department was a "sick nest of people that need to be cleaned out."
"They took one charge and made it 37," Trump said. "It's a political hit job."
The crowd, some carrying signs that read "The FBI is the DNC for the KGB," was friendly toward Trump, even in a state that Joe Biden won and whose Republican governor, Brian Kemp, beat a Trump-backed challenger during the 2022 midterms.
Trump is also under investigation in the state over whether he broke the law when he asked Georgia Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to "find" more than 11,000 votes he needed to win the state in 2020, in a phone call that was recorded.
The crowd booed Raffensperger when Trump mentioned his name.
Several in attendance wore stickers with a red line over the words "voting machines," signaling they thought the 2020 election had been stolen.
Kemp and most of Georgia's statewide elected officials were missing from the event. Raffensperger told Fox News Saturday afternoon their absence was by design. He said statewide office holders had not been invited.
Republican Lt. Gov. Burt Jones was there — and having to frequently answer questions about why. (He joked that it was because people there liked him so much.)
Another person in attendance was the conservative Trump ally Rep. Marjorie Taylor, R-Ga., whom the former president brought onstage for brief remarks.
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[1] Url:
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/06/10/trump-set-to-deliver-fiery-post-indictment-speech-theyre-coming-after-you.html
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