'Vultures circling': Donald Trump warns donors of 'plot against us' as indictments reshape 2024 GOP race
WASHINGTON — A defiant Donald Trump and his Republican campaign challengers are starting a new phase of the 2024 presidential race in the shadow of a familiar issue: Trump indictments.
A grand jury indicted Trump for a third time this year on Tuesday, accusing him of organizing a conspiracy to steal the 2020 election from President Joe Biden. That comes after Trump was charged with mishandling classified documents and falsifying business records.
Trump has long denied wrongdoing in the cases, alleging the prosecution is politically motivated while continuing to campaign for president in 2024.
"If I weren't running, I would have nobody coming after me," Trump said Friday night during a short, policy-heavy speech at a Lincoln Dinner in Iowa.
Trump and more than 10 rivals spoke in Iowa a day after his attorneys met with prosecutors about the investigation into 2020 election fraud - and also a day after another grand jury leveled more charges in the obstruction of justice case concerning classified documents.
Ron DeSantis and most of the other GOP candidates did not mention Trump's legal troubles at the Iowa event, although a pair of longshot candidates told Republicans that nominating Trump again would damage the party.
"Donald Trump is running to stay out of prison," said former U.S. Rep. Will Hurd, R-Tex., drawing boos from the Iowa GOP crowd in Des Moines. Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson was met with silence when he said that Iowa will be voting "while multiple criminal cases are pending against former President Trump" and "we need a new direction for America and for the GOP."
The Republican nomination contest begins with the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 15.
'Plot against us'
Trump, who said early Friday he is willing to campaign from prison if necessary, is expected to ratchet up his attacks on prosecutors.
In a plea to donors on Friday, Trump warned of a "time table set for plot against us," setting the stage for how he will talk about his legal challenges in campaign appearances moving forward.
"As of the moment I’m writing you this email, I am waiting to hear if I will be INDICTED and ARRESTED for a crime I did not commit!" he said in the campaign fundraising email.
He also decried recent calls from Sen. Mitt Romney and other Republican senators, who he described as Republicans in Name Only, to coalesce donor money around one Trump challenger and avoid giving him the benefit of a crowded field.
"They have exposed themselves to be VULTURES circling the skies, waiting and hoping to use our injustice and misfortune for their own personal gain," Trump said in the email.
'Voters have to make this decision'
DeSantis and most other Republican candidates have long said relatively little about Trump's legal problems. They have responded only when asked in interviews, even as the allegations mount against the former president.
"I think voters have to make this decision on that," DeSantis told CBS News this week.
In another interview, DeSantis suggested he might support a pardon of Trump if he is convicted of anything. "I don't think it would be good for the country to have an almost 80-year-old former president go to prison," DeSantis told "The Megyn Kelly Show" on SiriusXM.
Trump's trial schedule
Trump and his challengers will have many opportunities to comment on his legal travails.
The former president's legal agenda has many items:
- New York Attorney General Letitia James has a $250 million civil trial scheduled to start Oct. 2 against Trump’s namesake company on allegations of fraud for lying for a decade about the value of properties.
- E. Jean Carroll won a $5 million defamation case against Trump, which he is appealing. She has another trial scheduled to begin in New York on Jan. 15 – the day of Iowa Republican presidential caucuses.
- New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg has a criminal trial scheduled to start March 25 on 34 charges of falsifying business records to pay hush money before the 2016 election to a woman who claimed to have had sex with him.
- Smith has a federal trial tentatively scheduled to start May 20 in Florida on charges related to classified documents found at his Mar-a-Lago estate a year and a half after leaving the White House. Trump faces 40 charges including conspiracy to obstruct justice, retaining national defense records and concealing the records from authorities.