by Sharon Rondeau
(Apr. 4, 2023) — Since landing in New York Monday afternoon, 45th President and 2024 Republican candidate Donald J. Trump has posted not only the results of a number of recent presidential primary polls, but also the accusation that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg “leaked” the charges which Bragg himself placed “under seal” after their issuance Thursday by a local grand jury.
Bragg is prosecuting Trump on a reported multitude of felony charges over a 2016 non-disclosure agreement with adult-film actress “Stormy Daniels” resulting in Trump’s expected arraignment Tuesday afternoon at the Manhattan Criminal Court.
Since the leak of the indictment, Trump’s poll numbers have risen considerably and his campaign raised approximately $7 million, according to Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump on Monday’s “Hannity” (begins at 29:45 here) and campaign adviser Jason Miller.
Trump spent the night in Trump Tower in New York City and will face a judge at 2:15 this afternoon, multiple reports say.
Although his Twitter account was reinstated several months ago by new CEO Elon Musk, Trump posts exclusively at TruthSocial, the site one of his companies built and launched in February 2022.
At approximately 9:00 p.m. Monday, Trump wrote, “D.A. BRAGG JUST ILLEGALLY LEAKED THE 33 points of indictment. There are no changes or surprises from those he leaked days ago directly out of the Grand Jury. No Crime by Trump. What a MESS. Bragg should resign, NOW!”
Fox News Legal Analysts Gregg Jarrett and Alan Dershowitz have said that leaking grand-jury deliberations are a felony in New York State and that the case against Trump is contrived out of an alleged state-level misdemeanor and federal election law which Justice Department prosecutors chose not to pursue.
Just prior to that, Trump wrote that he “knows the reporter” to whom the grand-jury indictment details were “leaked,” as does Bragg. “This means that he (Bragg) MUST BE IMMEDIATELY INDICTED,” Trump continued. “Now, if he wants to really clean up his reputation, he will do the honorable thing and, as District Attorney, INDICT HIMSELF. He will go down in Judicial history, and his Trump Hating wife will be, I am sure, very proud of him!”
According to Twitter user @Deejo53513317, Bragg’s wife, Jamila Ponton Bragg, “has been leaking inside information to the media during the Trump grand jury.”
Ponton Bragg’s Twitter account is “protected,” meaning “Only approved followers can see @jpontonbragg’s Tweets. To request access, click Follow.”
In the string of posts from Monday evening to early Tuesday morning, Trump also accused Special Counsel Jack Smith, appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate Trump’s handling of classified documents after he left office and his alleged role in the January 6, 2021 Capitol “insurrection,” of leaking “massive amounts of information to The Washington ComPost,” meaning The Washington Post.
According to The Post on Sunday, “Justice Department and FBI investigators have amassed fresh evidence pointing to possible obstruction by former president Donald Trump in the investigation into top-secret documents found at his Mar-a-Lago home, according to people familiar with the matter.”
The article continues:
The additional evidence comes as investigators have used emails and text messages from a former Trump aide to help understand key moments last year, said the people, who like others interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing criminal investigation.
The new details highlight the degree to which special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the potential mishandling of hundreds of classified national security papers at Trump’s Florida home and private club has come to focus on the obstruction elements of the case — whether the former president took or directed actions to impede government efforts to collect all the sensitive records.
“This is illegal, and I assume this Radical Left Lunatic, much to the chagrin of his Trump Hating wife and family, will be PROSECUTED?” Trump continued Monday’s commentary. “He is a totally biased Thug who should be let loose on the Biden Documents hidden in Chinatown, and the 1,850 BOXES secretly stored in Delaware, which Biden REFUSES to give up. Biden is guilty of Obstruction, I am not!”
Trump has often pointed to the differing treatment Joe Biden has received as a result of classified documents having been found by his attorneys in two of his homes and a prior office.
On August 8, 2022, Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort was raided by the FBI, who reportedly rummaged through drawers of personal items after ransacking a secured area where Trump was maintaining documents he claims were declassified when he left office.
On January 19, Biden declared there was no “‘there’ there” in regard to the discoveries of classified material on his properties.
Trump has maintained that as president, he had the authority to declassify any government documents but that as vice-president or U.S. senator, Biden did not.
While Garland appointed a special counsel to investigate Biden’s handling of classified documents, there appear to have been no leaks from the presumed ongoing probe. Special Counsel Robert Hur has asked two “Trump-Era” prosecutors to assist, Bloomberg Law reported last week.
One of those attorneys served as “counsel” to then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, the article reported.
The poll results Trump “retruthed” were mainly from “Interactive Polls” and show Trump leading his closest Republican contender, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, by 14 points on March 20 and 29 points on April 3.
Although DeSantis has been touring the country to purportedly promote his new book, he has not yet announced a presidential campaign. The media has strongly suggested DeSantis is expected to officially join the race in the near future.