Donald Trump plans to deliver a speech after his arraignment on Tuesday as one of his lawyers said he will move to dismiss the hush money charges against him, telegraphing the ex-president’s early strategy.
“I very much anticipate a motion to dismiss coming because there’s no law that fits this,” Joe Tacopina said on CNN’s State of the Union.
Trump’s 2024 re-election campaign announced that the ex-president will give a speech Tuesday evening at Mar-a-Lago, showing how he is trying to use his legal woes to rally supporters at the same time he fights the charges in court.
Trump will be formally arrested and arraigned Tuesday after he was indicted by a grand jury last week on charges related to the alleged payment of hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels, though the exact nature of those charges are not yet known.
The former president will plead not guilty, Tacopina said on Sunday.
Tacopina added that he hoped that Tuesday would go “as smoothly and quickly as possible” so that Trump can mount a spirited defence to the charges.
“He’s gearing up for a battle,” he said on ABC’s This Week. “We believe it is a political persecution.”
Former Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr said on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday that he expects “the court will want this to move quickly”.
The case against Trump, who is running to be Republican candidate for president in 2024, comes after a grand jury in New York heard evidence from witnesses including Michael Cohen, his erstwhile lawyer. Cohen has claimed he was ordered in 2016 to pay $130,000 to Daniels to cover up an alleged affair.
An ABC News/Ipsos poll released Sunday found that 50 per cent of Americans think the charges against Trump are serious, while 35 per cent believe they are not serious. Nearly 90 per cent of Democrats think Trump should have been charged in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s investigation, while 62 per cent of Republicans say he should not have been.
The announcement of the indictment has shaken the presidential race and sent the US into uncharted territory, making Trump the first ex-president to be indicted. Republican analysts and members of his campaign expect the charges can help him with voters.
The Trump campaign’s pollster John McLaughlin on Saturday released a survey conducted since the indictment showing Trump with a 30 point lead over Florida governor Ron DeSantis, his anticipated main rival, a lead from to 12 points in January.
Former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson, a moderate Republican, said on Sunday he would join the race for president and called for Trump to drop out of the race now that he is indicted.
“If we’re looking at the presidency and the future of our country, then we don’t need that distraction and he needs to be able to concentrate on the legal issues that he faces,” he said.