Former President Donald Trump responded Thursday to the news of his indictment by a grand jury in New York over alleged hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels with a lengthy missive repeating many of his frequent unproven and unsubstantiated claims.
“This is Political Persecution and Election Interference at the highest level in history," Trump said in the statement.
"From the time I came down the golden escalator at Trump Tower, and even before I was sworn in as your President of the United States, the Radical Left Democrats - the enemy of the hard-working men and women of this Country - have been engaged in a Witch-Hunt to destroy the Make America Great Again movement. You remember it just like I do: Russia, Russia, Russia; the Mueller Hoax; Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine; Impeachment Hoax 1; Impeachment Hoax 2; the illegal and unconstitutional Mar-a-Lago raid; and now this," he said.
The grand jury has been hearing testimony in the case of the hush money payments Trump allegedly authorized in 2016. It was not clear what charge or charges Trump faces in the indictment, as the Manhattan district attorney's office has not said.
Trump's defense attorneys were notified of the indictment, and said in a statement that "He did not commit any crime. We will vigorously fight this political prosecution in Court."
Get Tri-state area news delivered to your inbox. Sign up for NBC New York's News Headlines newsletter.
“The Democrats have lied, cheated and stolen in their obsession with trying to ‘Get Trump,’ but now they’ve done the unthinkable - indicting a completely innocent person in an act of blatant Election Interference," he continued in his own statement.
As he has continuously done in the past, Trump once again called the investigation a "Witch-hunt." He went on to go after Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who he called "a disgrace...doing Joe Biden’s dirty work, ignoring the murders and burglaries and assaults he should be focused on."
Prosecutors have been investigating since Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen admitted in 2018 that he paid Daniels $130,000 before the presidential election to silence her claims about an alleged sexual encounter the two had years earlier.
The twice-impeached Trump is the first commander-in-chief in American history to be criminally indicted.
Read the rest of Trumps's statement below:
“Never before in our Nation’s history has this been done. The Democrats have cheated countless times over the decades, including spying on my campaign, but weaponizing our justice system to punish a political opponent, who just so happens to be a President of the United States and by far the leading Republican candidate for President, has never happened before. Ever.
“Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, who was hand-picked and funded by George Soros, is a disgrace. Rather than stopping the unprecedented crime wave taking over New York City, he’s doing Joe Biden’s dirty work, ignoring the murders and burglaries and assaults he should be focused on. This is how Bragg spends his time!
“I believe this Witch-Hunt will backfire massively on Joe Biden. The American people realize exactly what the Radical Left Democrats are doing here. Everyone can see it. So our Movement, and our Party - united and strong - will first defeat Alvin Bragg, and then we will defeat Joe Biden, and we are going to throw every last one of these Crooked Democrats out of office so we can MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
