Trump once again declared his innocence at the annual Georgia Republican Party convention and his goal to dismantle what he called the “biased federal law enforcement apparatus.”
“After all, they’re not after me. They’re after you — and I’m just standing in their way,” Trump said. “The ridiculous and baseless indictment of me by the Biden administration’s instrumental ‘Department of Injustice’ will go down as one of the most egregious abuses of power in our country’s history,” he said. The Democrats have said it too. This brutal prosecution is a travesty of justice.”
The first president to face prison terms
It was preceded by the announcement of a 37-count indictment against Trump by special counsel Jack Smith for allegedly masterminding a scheme to keep in his possession sensitive material from his time as president.
Trump allegedly not only withheld classified documents, but lied to federal agents and investigators about his involvement. If the charges are verified, then Trump risks being the first president in the US to be imprisoned for the rest of his life.
Trump has repeatedly scoffed at the indictment
Trump has repeatedly mocked the indictment and called Smith “outraged” and said the Justice Department was a “sick nest of people that needs to be cleaned out.”
“They took one category and made it 37,” Trump said. “It’s a political success.”
Tellingly, the crowd was positive about Trump — with some holding signs reading “The FBI is the DNC to the KGB” — despite the fact that it’s in a state won by Joe Biden.
Trump is also under investigation in the state over whether he broke the law when he phoned Republican Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” more than 11,000 votes he needed to win the state in 2020.
The crowd booed Raffensperger when Trump mentioned his name.
Several of those in attendance wore stickers with a red line over the word “voting machines,” indicating their belief that the 2020 election had been stolen.
Resounding absences
Kemp and most of Georgia’s elected state officials were absent from the event. Some speakers avoided the issue of Trump’s impeachment altogether, focusing their remarks on more traditional Republican clichés, such as criticism of federal spending, Biden and the administration’s response to the coronavirus.
“If you want to get to President Trump, you’re going to have to go through me, and 75 million Americans like me,” former Arizona gubernatorial candidate Cary Lake told Georgia Republicans Friday night. “And most of us are card-carrying [National Rifle Association] members. This is not a threat, this is a public service announcement.”
Trump in the polls
However, conservatives across the country believe that the indictment against Trump does not represent the administration of justice, but rather a tooled-up Justice Department led by President Joe Biden, who is using it to target his political opponents.
“The instrumentalization of federal law enforcement represents a deadly threat to a free society,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Trump’s main opponent, tweeted on Friday. “We have witnessed years of unequal application of the law depending on political beliefs.”
“Why so zealous in going after Trump but so passive about Hillary and Hunter,” he added.
But for the most part, Republicans have supported Trump or tried to express concern about what’s in the indictment.
Former Vice President Mike Pence, who has been at loggerheads with Trump since 2020, said he was “deeply troubled to see this indictment move forward” and called it a “sad day for America.”
Amid the storm, Trump’s campaign is moving forward hoping to surge in the polls, as it briefly did in September after federal agents searched his Mar-a-Lago home as part of an investigation into classified documents, and again March when Trump was indicted in New York on allegations that he falsified records related to money he allegedly paid to cover up affairs before the 2016 presidential election.
Hours before the Georgia event began, the Trump side released a poll showing him leading DeSantis 44-21 in Iowa and saying he is the “clear front-runner” in the key state for DeSantis.
