By Nathan Layne and Rich McKay
PALM BEACH, Florida (Reuters) – Former President Donald Trump said on Tuesday night, hours after being charged in court, that he was the victim of election interference and he lashed out at New York prosecutor Alvin Bragg for bringing criminal charges against him.
“I never thought anything like this could happen in America,” Trump told supporters gathered at his Mar-a-Lago retreat in Palm Beach, Florida. “The only crime that I’ve committed has been to fearlessly defend our nation against those who seek to destroy it.”
Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, as Manhattan prosecutors accused him of orchestrating payments to two women before the 2016 U.S. election to suppress publication of their sexual encounters with him.
Trump accused Bragg of being out to get him “before he knew anything about me.” He said the judge in the case, Juan Merchan, is “a Trump-hating judge.”
In a subdued tone, Trump reviewed all the various legal cases against him, from the handling of classified documents that were taken to Mar-a-Lago when Trump moved out of the White House in early 2021, and the election interference case he is facing in Georgia from the 2020 election.
The documents case is being pursued by a “lunatic special counsel,” Trump said, referring to prosecutor Jack Smith.
The various legal predicaments are entangling Trump has he makes another run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.
“Now, there’s massive election interference at a scale never seen,” he said.
(Reporting by Nathan Layne and Rich McKay in Palm Beach; Writing by Steve Holland; Editing by Christian Schmollinger and Grant McCool)
