Cult Pastor Says Trump Is Making ‘Statement’ With Waco Rally

By choosing Waco, Texas, as the setting for what he calls the first rally of his 2024 campaignformer president donald trump raised a few eyebrows.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the 51-day standoff between federal agencies and members of the Branch Davidian sect who took refuge in their heavily armed compound, apparently convinced by leader David Koresh that the apocalypse was at their front door. The complex exploded on April 19, 1993, killing 76 people, including two dozen children, bringing the total death toll from the incident to 86.

This week, a pastor from the group, Charles Pace, told various outlets that he believes Trump’s choice to meet in Waco was definitely “a statement” as the former president awaits possible criminal charges.

The Branch Davidians still exist today. They were founded as a branch of Seventh-day Adventists long before Koresh came on the scene and convinced his followers that he was their prophet.

Trump is “making a statement, I think, by coming to these territories where the government, the FBI, besieged this community just like they besieged Mar-a-Lago and they came in and took their stuff. That’s what they wanted to do here, they wanted to come in and take the guns and everything,” Pace told Texas Tribune reporter Robert Downen.

rhythm made similar comments to The New York Timessaying that the FBI was “accusing (Trump) of different things that are not really true, just like the FBI accused David Koresh.”

The Times noted that Pace had spoken highly of Trump in his sermons, calling him “God’s anointed.”

Trump has not mentioned the events in Waco himself; a spokesman told various media that the city was simply “located in the center of the four largest metropolitan areas in Texas.”

“He doesn’t come right out and say, ‘I’m doing it because I want you to know that what happened there was wrong,’ but he hints at it,” Pace saying of Trump.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is widely reported to be considering criminal charges against Trump involving hush money payments made to an adult film star in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election. Investigations, including a federal inquiry into his handling of classified government documents that precipitated the Mar-a-Lago raid, are also pending.

Trump recently declared his arrest imminent and criticized law enforcement on Truth Social, his social media platform, warning Friday that his arrest would bring “potential death and destruction”. Previously, he called on his supporters to “PROTEST, TAKE BACK OUR NATION!”

Anti-government extremists were immediately drawn to Waco at the time of the confrontation. Timothy McVeigh went to see how events unfolded and then chose April 19, 1995 to carry out his deadly Oklahoma City bombing.

On the far right, particularly among opponents of gun control, the incident still looks as an excellent example of government overreach, beginning with the February 28, 1993 execution of a search warrant by ATF agents who suspected Branch Davidians of illegally modifying a large cache of high-powered weaponry.

Mary Trump, the former president’s niece, tweeted Friday that her uncle’s choice of venue was “a ploy.”

She added: “He wants the same violent chaos to rescue him from justice.”