Former President Donald Trump will make his first public appearances following his federal impeachment on Saturday before favorable Republican audiences in Georgia and North Carolina as he tries to rally support for his defense.
Trump, who remains the front-runner for the 2024 Republican White House nomination despite mounting legal troubles, is expected to use his interventions at state party conventions to launch a fiery rebuke of the allegations and amplify his claims that he is the victim of a politically motivated “witch hunt” by the Justice Department of Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration.
Their appearances come a day after the indictment accusing him of 37 felonies in connection with the storage of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate was made public.
The indictment accuses the former president of knowingly defying Justice Department requests to return classified documents, recruiting aides in his efforts to hide the records and even asking his lawyers that he wanted to defy a subpoena for materials stored on his property. The document includes allegations that he stored documents in a ballroom and a bathroom in his mansion, among other places.
The most serious charges could carry prison terms of up to 20 years each, but first-time offenders rarely receive the maximum punishment and the decision will ultimately rest with the judge.
For all that, Trump can expect a hero’s welcome this weekend as he mobilizes his staunchest supporters and tries to cement his status as frontrunner in the Republican race.
“Trump is a fighter, and the kind of people who go to these conventions love fighters,” said Jack Kingston, a former Georgia congressman who endorsed Trump in 2016 and 2020.
Former Vice President Mike Pence will also address North Carlina Republicans, the first time the former running mates have attended the same event since Pence announced his campaign against his former boss.
For his part, Trump has insisted that he committed no crime, saying “there was no crime, except for what the Department of Justice and the FBI have been doing against me for years.”
