Former President Donald Trump said Saturday that “illegal leaks” have indicated he will be arrested Tuesday and called on supporters to protest.
Trump, in posts on his social media platform Truth Social, referred to reports that he could soon face criminal charges in New York over a hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels.
Trump did not say whether he had been notified by police of an impending charge. A Trump spokesperson later clarified in a statement that there has been “no notice other than illegal leaks from the Justice Department and the District Attorney’s office to NBC” and other news outlets.
The spokesperson added, “President Trump is rightly emphasizing his innocence and the weaponization of our injustice system. Next weekend he will be in Texas for a giant rally. Make America Great Again!”
NBC News reported on Friday that law enforcement agencies are preparing for a possible indictment against Trump as early as next week.
Trump, a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, denounced “illegal leaks” that “indicated” he would be arrested Tuesday.
“PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!” Trump wrote.
Trump has denied any wrongdoing, calling the investigation by the office of Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg a continuation of the partisan “witch hunt” against him. He has also accused Bragg, who is black, of being a “racist.”
A spokesman for Bragg’s office declined to comment on Trump’s Truth Social posts.
The 76-year-old presidential candidate has said he has no intention of dropping out of the race even if he is indicted. “Absolutely not,” he told reporters at a political event in early March, adding that an indictment “would probably raise my numbers, but it’s a very bad thing for America.”
A key witness in the current case is Michael Cohen, Trump’s former attorney and fixer who testified before the grand jury this week. Cohen pleaded guilty in federal court in 2018 to making the illegal payment to Daniels for the “principal purpose of influencing” the 2016 presidential election, saying he did so at Trump’s direction. For that and other crimes, he was sentenced to three years in prison.
Trump has acknowledged paying Cohen the $130,000 but insists the payment was legal. Trump tweeted in 2018 that the money was “not from the campaign” and that the deal was “a private contract between two parties known as a non-disclosure agreement or NDA.”
“The agreement was used to stop her false and extortionate allegations of an affair… despite the fact that she had already signed a detailed letter admitting there was no affair,” Trump said on Twitter. Twitter.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
