Trump rails against ‘prosecutorial misconduct’
during Florida rally
By MATT
DIXON 07/03/2021 10:53 PM EDT
SARASOTA, Fla. — Donald Trump took his revenge tour to
his new home-state of Florida Saturday night but had a fresh target: the
indictments against the Trump Organization.
Trump held
his rally — the second since he left office — as the state and nation continue
to mourn a South Florida condo collapse that left at least 20 dead and more
than 100 still unaccounted for. It also comes two days after prosecutors
unsealed indictments alleging Trump Organization and its chief financial
officer did not pay $1.7 million in taxes tied to company fringe benefits.
Trump tore
into the indictments in front of thousands of cheering fans at a fairgrounds in
Sarasota, casting the allegations as a politically-motivated prosecution
against him, his family and business.
“You didn’t
pay taxes on the car, or company apartment...or education for your
grandchildren,” Trump said of the allegations facing the Trump Organization and
its longtime CFO Allen Weisselberg. “They indict people for that, but murder
and selling massive amount of the worst drugs in the world that kill people
left and right, and that’s alright?”
Those in
attendance, who spent much of the night getting soaked by heavy rains, brushed
off the charges against the Trump Organization.
“It’s all
fake news, you know that,” said Duane Schwingle, a Chiefland, Fla., resident
who was at the rally dressed as Uncle Sam costume. “Trump is our president, and
none of that is legitimate. It’s a witch hunt.”
For days,
the nation has been focused on rescue effort at the building disaster in
Surfside, Fla., which was acknowledged by a brief moment of silence hours
before Trump took the stage. That tragedy kept one of Trump’s top allies in the
state — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — from the Saturday night rally as he focused
on the ongoing crisis in Miami. DeSantis, who is becoming increasingly popular
with the conservative base across the country, is eyeing a 2024 bid for the
White House. That could put him on a collision course with the former
president, who has openly signaled he’s considering another run for president.
DeSantis
has a reputation as one of the nation’s most pro-Trump governors, and has made
huge inroads with Trump’s political base as he builds his profile and
fundraises across the country. Yet Trump’s rally offers a striking contrast
between the two men: DeSantis sat out the political rally amid the Surfside
crisis while Trump went ahead with his event.
Trump spoke
for more than 90 minutes to a packed house at the fairgrounds in Sarasota, a
reliably Republican area of the state that is Trump’s political home turf.
During the rally, Trump gave a shout-out to Joe Gruters, a Florida state
senator and Republican Party of Florida Chairman who, as local party chairman
here, picked Trump as the ‘Statesman of the Year’ long before he ran for
president. Others who spoke before Trump included Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), who
is under federal investigation in an ongoing sex-crimes investigation, and the
former president’s son, Donald Trump, Jr.
Trump spent
about 10 minutes railing against the New York prosecution against his company,
simultaneously downplaying the severity of the charges and painting it as part
of an ongoing witch hunt.
“I’ve been
targeted since I came down the elevator,” he told the crowd. He later added:
“It’s really called prosecutorial misconduct. It’s a terrible, terrible thing.”
Florida is
a friendly state for the former president, and Trump declared himself a
resident of the state in 2019. He won Florida by more than three-points in 2020
and many of his biggest supporters call Florida home. And he thanked the crowd
who attended his Saturday night event, one of several rallies that he’s billed
as a way for the president to seek revenge on the congressional Republicans who
voted for his second impeachment
“Together
we will take back the House, we will take back the Senate, and we will take
back America,” Trump said.
Trump
focused much of his speech on a slate of conservative issues that energized his
political base, replaying for the raucous audience the greatest hits they have
not heard since he left the White House in January, including securing the
border, praising his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and attacking
“socialist” Democrats.
“The
radical left is bringing a nightmare of mayhem and lawlessness to every state
and community in this country,” Trump said.
Though
Trump lost to President Joe Biden by more than 7 million votes, he has
continued to spread baseless claims about the 2020 election being stolen,
including recently promoting an election audit in Arizona’s most populous
county.
Some in the
party are concerned about the long term impact of partisan election audits, but
the positioning has energized Trump’s most ardent supporters and convinced some
of them that the former president could be reinstated.
One man who
attended the rally dressed in a suit and tie similar to Trump’s said he thinks
the audit in Arizona will reveal that Democrats “cheated.”
“They all
cheated,” said the man, who only identified himself as “Donald J. Trump.” “They
are fake news, they put these fake ballots out...they have dead people voting.”
While he
spoke, the people around him all cheered.
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