In an overnight post on social media, former President Donald J. Trump predicted there could be “potential death and destruction” if, as expected, he is charged by the Manhattan district attorney in connection with payments of secret money to a porn star made during the 2016. campaign.
Trump’s comments, made between 1 a.m. and 5 p.m. Trump said that he would be unfounded.
“What kind of person,” Trump wrote of Bragg, “can impeach another person, in this case a former president of the United States, who got more votes than any sitting president in history, and leading candidate (by far! ) for the Republican Party nomination, with a crime, when everyone knows that NO crime has been committed, and also that the potential death and destruction on such a bogus charge could be catastrophic for our country?”
“Why and who would do such a thing? Just a degenerate psychopath who really hates America!” wrote the former president.
A Bragg spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In an email to his staff last week, Mr. Bragg wrote that the office “will continue to apply the law uniformly and fairly, and will speak publicly only when appropriate.”
“We do not tolerate attempts to intimidate our office or threaten the rule of law in New York,” he added.
Trump is also under investigation by the Department of Justice in connection with his efforts to remain in power prior to the attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob that he had just targeted on January 6, 2021.
In an early Saturday morning post, Trump wrongly claimed he would be arrested three days later and urged people to protest and “take back our nation.”
Since then, he has called Mr. Bragg, the first black district attorney in Manhattan, an “animal” and appeared to mock calls by some of his own allies for people to protest peacefully, or not protest at all.
“Our country is being destroyed while we are being told to be peaceful,” Trump said in a post on Thursday.
Trump has also attacked Bragg for receiving indirect financial support from billionaire philanthropist George Soros.
So far, Trump’s calls for protests have been largely ignored, with only a handful of people turning out for a rally on Monday organized by some of his New York Republican allies.
In a statement published Friday in Politico’s New York Playbook Newslettera group of civil rights leaders, including the Rev. Al Sharpton and former Gov. David Paterson, condemned Trump’s remarks.
“This shameful attack It is not a dog whistle, but a megaphone of incendiary racist and anti-Semitic bile, hurled for the sole purpose of intimidating and sabotaging a legitimate, fact-based, legal investigation,” they said. “These ugly and hateful attacks on our judicial system must be universally condemned.”
Bragg is weighing charges against Trump in connection with secret money that his former mediator and attorney, Michael D. Cohen, paid late in the 2016 campaign cycle to Stormy Daniels, a porn star who claimed she had an affair with Mr. .Trump.
Jonas E. Bromwich contributed reporting.
