Former President Donald J. Trump was meeting with his top political advisers in the office near his poolside cottage at his club in Bedminster, NJ, when his phone rang around 7 pm on Thursday. On the line, according to two people with knowledge of the call, was one of his lawyers, informing him that he had been indicted for the second time in less than three months.
Unlike the first indictment, in a Manhattan state court related to allegations that he paid hush money to a porn star during the 2016 election, the current charges were federal and stemmed from his conduct just before he left the position and for approximately 18 months thereafter.
Mr. Trump, always compartmentalized, immediately moved to a political backlash.
At 7:21 p.m., he did what he used to do so often when he was president: He personally programmed the chirons on every news channel in the country. He broke the news of his own accusation: drafting and then sending one statement in three parts on his social network, Truth Social, which soon disrupted late-night shows on Fox News, MSNBC and CNN.
The former president released a statement against the Biden administration, but buried within his attacks on Democrats were pertinent details: not only had he been indicted, but he had also been subpoenaed to appear in a Miami court on Tuesday at afternoon
A studio van was brought to Bedminster so that one of his lawyers could appear on television. Another Trump lawyer, James Trusty, soon went on CNN to outline some of the charges and explained his client’s reaction.
“He thought so,” said Mr. Trusty. “He said, ‘This is just a sad day. I can’t believe he’s been charged.’” Mr. Trusty continued: “These are my words in summary of what he said. But at the same time, he immediately recognizes the historical nature of this. This is crossing the Rubicon.”
For days, Trump’s team had been seeking information about his impeachment, after three of his lawyers met with Justice Department officials on Monday. They entered the meeting having said charges were likely, and nothing that was said changed that outlook, according to people close to Mr. trump But even though they suspected an indictment was imminent, they operated more on rumor, gossip and news than on verified facts.
As speculation intensified ahead of the Justice Department’s notification of the indictment, Mr. Trump previously recorded a video of the former president reacting to the expected charges in a direct-to-camera speech, standing in front of what appeared to be a version of a painting of President Theodore Roosevelt and Kaiser Wilhelm II, Germany’s leader during the First World War.
Half an hour after announcing his indictment, he published the video on their social media website. In it, he slams Democrats, portrays the indictment as evidence of “a nation in decline” and calls himself “an innocent man.”
Trump’s team had urged Republicans close to him to start issuing statements, and soon his allies obliged: Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said in a tweet: ” Sad day for America. God bless President Trump.”
Speaker Kevin McCarthy went further, calling it a “dark day” and vowing, “House Republicans will be held accountable for this blatant weaponization of power.”
That Mr. Trump was surrounded in Bedminster by his political and communications circle, and not by most of his lawyers, reflected both the uncertainty of when charges might come and the way Mr. Trump has consistently approached his legal challenges.
His political advisers had been preparing for weeks to use the federal indictment to full effect. His team has come to see federal law enforcement actions against him as a critical part of their fundraising strategy. Online fundraising, which has long been the lifeblood of Mr. Trump’s political operation because he is largely shunned by high-end Republican donors, has dried up for all Republican candidates during the recent years, including Mr. Trump.
GOP donors are exhausted by the constant hysterical calls to give money to Mr. Trump to keep the Democrats from destroying the nation. It takes a lot these days to capture the attention of these collaborators; the indictments are among the few events that energize the base enough to line their pockets.
The last time Mr. Trump was indicted, in New York, his campaign said it had raised more than $12 million in the week after the indictment, a big blow to his previously anemic fundraising. Since then, the fundraising of Mr. Trump has fallen back to a disappointing low, according to people briefed on the situation.
Not even an hour had passed since Mr. Trump learned of his indictment before his campaign sent its first mass email to monetize the sense of shared persecution and victimhood the former president has fostered among his supporters. Trump’s fundraising appeal around 7:45 p.m. Thursday began: “We are watching our Republic DYING before our eyes.”
The allies of Mr. Trump outside his official campaign structure have also prepared to milk this moment and to boost their political antibodies.
Officials at the main pro-Trump super PAC, MAGA Inc., have been feeding opposition probes from allies so they have talking points to attack Jack Smith, the special counsel who brought the case against Trump , in television and radio appearances and on social networks. media The group has even distributed information about the wife of Mr. Smith to try to suggest that her donations to Democratic politicians have created a conflict of interest for her husband.
Last week, as allies of the former president saw reports that Mr. Smith was likely nearing the end of his investigation, strategists working with Trump’s super PAC began drafting a TV ad to match with federal indictment expected.
The ad will go live Friday for the national cable placement, according to a person with direct knowledge of the plans. The ad’s messages will tie into the talking points circulating among some of Trump’s most ardent supporters on Capitol Hill. They will present the impeachment as a partisan plot by President Biden’s Department of Justice.
Those allies also plan to insinuate, without any evidence, that the Justice Department has timed this indictment to distract from House Republican investigations into the business affairs of Mr. Biden and his family.
As Mr. Trump prepares for his appearance Tuesday afternoon in federal court in Miami, some of his closest allies are preparing a campaign to pressure his competitors in the Republican presidential nomination contest to rally around him.
“Every ‘Republican’ running for president should suspend their campaign and go to Miami as a show of support,” tweeted Charlie Kirk, a young conservative activist close to Mr. trump
“If you don’t,” added Mr. Kirk, “you are part of the problem. Either we have an opposition party or we don’t.”
Agents for several rival campaigns had privately acknowledged that they feared the indictment because it would take over the news cycle and deprive their candidates of media attention.
A senior adviser to one of Mr. Trump in the Republican primary, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Republican voters overwhelmingly believed that any charges against Mr. Trump was a plot by the Democrats and they wanted to see all the Republicans fight. to defend the former president.
This leaves most Republicans running in 2024 in the abject position of feeling as if the only way they can appease their voters is to thoroughly defend Mr. Trump and halt efforts to match his record with the seats
Mr. Trump’s team ran the same lobbying campaign the last time he was impeached, in New York, and it worked to great effect.
In mid-March, the former president predicted his arrest was imminent, and his political operation and allies in the media began publicly harassing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to run in defense of Mr. Trump, which he eventually did.
This time, Mr. DeSantis attacked the prosecutors, but also did not defend Mr. Trump. Without promising to pardon Mr. Trump, as another candidate, Vivek Ramaswamy, diddeclared Mr. DeSantis on Twitter: “The DeSantis administration will hold the DOJ accountable, eliminate political bias, and end gun violence once and for all.”
There were other, more eccentric parallels Thursday night with the first indictment of Mr. trump
About 90 minutes after learning of his latest troubles, Mr. Trump, who was playing disc jockey on the patio of his club at Mar-a-Lago after his appearance in April, went to the Bedminster main building for outdoor dining.
Wearing a red Make America Great Again cap, he DJed again, according to one person there, using an iPad to play some of his favorites: Elvis, opera singer Pavarotti and his showbiz idol, James Brown.
