Trump to speak Saturday as he and allies escalate attacks on law enforcement

COLUMBUS, Georgia - COLUMBUS, Georgia - Donald Trump, the only former president to ever face criminal charges, will make his first public remarks Saturday since the release of a federal indictment accusing him of mishandling classified information, as he and his allies issue inflammatory calls to action and escalating attacks on law enforcement.

Trump encouraged supporters to assemble on Tuesday in Miami, where he is scheduled to appear in court. “SEE YOU IN MIAMI ON TUESDAY!!!” he posted late Friday on his Truth Social platform. Specific plans for that day are still being developed, according to a Trump campaign aide.

The former president did not elaborate on his message. His social media messages have in the past inspired his supporters to action. On Dec. 19, 2020, he tweeted, “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!” Evidence presented by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol showed that Trump’s tweet inspired extremist groups to plan to disrupt the certification of President Biden’s electoral victory. Leaders of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys were later convicted of seditious conspiracy.

Trump’s call on his supporters to protest his indictment in New York did not materialize in major demonstrations.

[Indictment says Trump lied, schemed to keep highly classified secrets]

Advisers said the former president will use his speech on Saturday, appearing before the Georgia state Republican convention, to position himself as a victim and aggressively attack the FBI and the Justice Department for prosecuting him but not President Biden’s son, Hunter, who is under federal investigation on allegations of tax evasion and lying in the purchase of a gun. The campaign’s goal, one adviser said, is to use the indictment to solidify Trump’s political support among his base in coming weeks. The advisers spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe strategy.

From Georgia Trump is set to travel to North Carolina for that state’s GOP convention. He’ll address the gathering of party activists hours after former vice president Mike Pence, who recently entered the 2024 presidential race, challenging his former boss in the GOP primary and arguing Trump is no longer qualified for the presidency.

The Trump campaign almost immediately started soliciting donations as soon as Trump announced on Thursday that he had been notified of the indictment, though a campaign official declined to reveal how much had been raised.

Ahead of Trump’s speech here, Arizona Republican Kari Lake delivered a keynote on Friday in which she suggested Trump’s prosecution could be met with violence. Lake has said she will go to Miami to “support” Trump on Tuesday.

“If you want to get to President Trump, you’re going to have to go through me and you’re going to have to go through 75 million Americans just like me,” Lake told the GOP convention on Friday to roaring cheers and a standing ovation. “Most of us are card-carrying members of the NRA,” the National Rifle Association gun lobby. “That’s not a threat, that’s a public service announcement.”

The Secret Service, federal court marshals and Miami law enforcement have met to discuss security around Trump. Local police are preparing additional officers to deploy, amid the prospect of demonstration and a crush of media descending on the city.

Earlier in the day, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) told convention-goers that Trump’s indictment was meant to distract from House Republicans’ claims that Biden and his son Hunter accepted bribes from a Russian oligarch - allegations that the FBI already concluded investigating without bringing charges.

“I don’t care how you feel about President Trump, you need to understand that what they’re doing to President Trump is exactly what they will do to any one of us when they deem us a threat,” she said.

[Full coverage of the Trump document case indictment]

On Saturday Greene announced she was flying to the convention with Trump on his private plane.

Long-shot presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who pledged that if elected he would pardon Trump, also spoke on Friday to decry the charges.

“We are not some banana republic, where the party in power uses the police to arrest its political opponents,” he said at the convention. “We are finally going to end that corrupt administrative police state in America, starting with the FBI.”

Trump picked up another congressional endorsement on Saturday from Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.). “He will help save this nation from the radical left-wing wackos, from the socialists and the corrupt bureaucrats who want to eliminate our country,” Clyde said.

One Republican breaking ranks to call on Trump to withdraw his candidacy was former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson. Speaking to a breakfast here on Saturday, Hutchinson did not mention Trump, a tacit acknowledgment of his audience’s tilt.

The convention was notable for the absence of Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who split with Trump over his demands to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia. That pressure campaign is now the subject of a separate criminal probe by an Atlanta-area district attorney.

Though Trump’s team had practice at responding to an indictment from the charges earlier this year in New York, arising from hush money payments to an adult film actress in 2016, and the campaign was expecting charges in the documents case after the former president’s lawyers met with prosecutors on Monday, advisers acknowledged surprise at the level of detail of the evidence against him in Friday’s indictment.

Some Trump supporters here also said they were rethinking their initial dismissiveness of the charges based on the specific allegations. Laurie Webster from Hull, Ga., said she grew more concerned after hearing some of the details on conservative host Erick Erickson’s radio show.

“It sounded worse than what they were saying last night,” she said. “If he runs and is more popular, I’m going to vote for him and support him. If not Trump, we need somebody like Trump,” she said, explaining that she’s now deciding between him and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

DeSantis and other rivals for the GOP presidential nomination have joined Trump in denouncing the alleged “weaponization” of the Justice Department but they’ve steered clear of the specifics of the case or commitments to pardon Trump.

“The weaponization of these agencies strikes at the heart of what it means to have a free society. It’s not just affecting people at the top, it’s affecting people all throughout our country,” DeSantis told the North Carolina GOP Convention on Friday night in Greensboro, repeating his promise to oust the FBI director right away if elected. DeSantis, who runs second to Trump in early primary polling, said presidents have long been “derelict in their duty” to rein in the federal bureaucracy.

Pence similarly accused the Justice Department of years-long “politicization” and told reporters on Friday that he still found officials’ search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate last year “deeply troubling.” Former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley made a vague statement on Friday that criticized the prosecution and called to “move beyond the endless drama and distractions.”

The other presidential hopeful who more forcefully criticized Trump was recent entrant Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor and Trump adviser. Christie said blaming the prosecutors is to ignore Trump’s behavior at issue in the case.

“These facts are devastating,” he said in a CNN interview on Friday, drawing on his own experience as a federal prosecutor. “Is this the type of conduct that we want from someone who wants to be president of the United States? . . . This is irresponsible conduct.”

Knowles reported from Greensboro, N.C. The Washington Post’s Josh Dawsey in Washington contributed to this report.