Former President Donald Trump said his arraignment last week at the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse in New York was bittersweet because while it was a “sad” moment in history, it was also a “beautiful” experience with some courthouse employees, including police officers, showing their support.
The 45th president made the remarks Tuesday in an extensive interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who asked him to recount what happened during his April 4 arraignment.
“Well, it was a horrible thing because I did nothing wrong,” Trump said. “Absolutely nothing wrong. You look at the pundits and even the legal analysis — Gregg Jarrett and all of these really talented people — they’re saying, ‘He didn’t do anything wrong.’ So that’s No. 1.”
He continued: “No. 2, they were incredible. When I went to the courthouse, which is also a prison, in a sense, they signed me in. And I’ll tell you, people were crying — people that worked there, professionally worked there, that have no problems putting in murderers and they see everybody. It’s tough — tough place. And they were crying, they were actually crying.
“They said, ‘I’m sorry.’ They’d say, ‘2024, sir, 2024,’ and tears are pouring down their eyes. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Trump said he was touched by their support, which transformed a negative ordeal into a moving experience.
“Those people are phenomenal,” he said. “Those are your police, those are the people that work at the courthouse, they’re unbelievable people. Many of them were in tears or close to it.”
The former president said many courthouse employees apologized while processing him because, he said, they too believe the case against him is bogus.
“So in one sense, it was beautiful because they get it,” Trump said. “And in another sense, you know, it’s nasty.”
The brash billionaire suggested that his arraignment spotlighted the best and worst of human nature.
“It was a sad day in many ways, and in many ways, it was a beautiful day because the people understand,” he remarked. “I didn’t know this was happening, but the poll numbers have gone through the roof. The people get it.”
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Trump said the sham case against him makes a mockery of the judicial system because the courts are being weaponized to persecute him in order to hamper his 2024 presidential campaign.
“This is all weaponization,” he said. “They’re weaponizing our judicial system.”
Numerous legal commentators from across the political spectrum have criticized the case against Trump as weak and slammed it as an egregious example of prosecutorial malfeasance and partisan persecution.
Legal experts such as George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley and retired Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz have denounced the case as legally deficient.
In a March 31 Newsweek commentary, Dershowitz torched the case as a “weak exercise in creative prosecution” and “one of the weakest cases” he has ever come across.
“This is a case of targeting an individual and then rummaging through the statute books in search of a crime,” he wrote.
Do you think the case against Trump will be thrown out?
Yes: 81% (30 Votes)
No: 19% (7 Votes)
“Prosecutors seem to have come up with nothing under established law, then made up a misdemeanor and then piggybacked it on another alleged crime to create a felony.”
Dershowitz also pointed out that Trump could still win the presidency even if he were convicted on the charges concocted by left-wing Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
“An indictment cannot constitutionally stop him. Neither could a conviction or even a prison sentence,” the constitutional law scholar wrote.
“This ill-advised indictment is likely to help his campaign to secure the Republican nomination.”
Meanwhile, the former president told Carlson he will “never drop out” of the 2024 presidential race, no matter what nefarious plots Democrats hatch against him.
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“No, I’d never drop out,” a defiant Trump said. “It’s not my thing.”
