Former president Trump said Saturday that he has no plans to drop out of the 2024 presidential race even if he is indicted by the Justice Department for his alleged incitement of the January 6 Capitol Riot and in other cases at the state level.
Trump emphasized that he’d remain a candidate, while adding that formal legal charges being brought against him would mark a dangerous precedent.
“Oh, absolutely, I won’t even think about leaving,” Trump said ahead of his speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), The Hill reported. “Probably, it’ll enhance my numbers, but it’s a very bad thing for America. It’s very bad for the country.”
Trump is engulfed in several state and federal probes including a New York State civil inquiry, a Manhattan criminal case, a classified documents inquiry, a Georgia criminal inquiry, and others, according to the New York Times. The Georgia investigation deals with Trump’s alleged interference to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state. A special grand jury just ended its probe in Georgia. Judge Robert C.I. McBurney recently released portions of the final report to the public.
At the event Saturday, Trump blasted the Georgia probe and the recent strange media tour of one of its grand jury forepersons, Emily Kohrs, who sat down for interviews with multiple mainstream outlets.
“Jury foreman, a rather bizarre young woman is going around doing media interviews and saying exactly what’s going on, one of many grand juries,” Trump said at CPAC. His political adversaries, he said, “would do anything they can to hurt me politically because they’re afraid of me and they’re afraid of you, that’s what it is.”
Though Trump faces federal and state scrutiny from prosecutors, he has been keeping up on the campaign trail, calling out rivals like Florida governor Ron DeSantis and promising to redeem the GOP from its errors and historically uninspiring contenders.
“In 2016, I declared I am your voice. Today I add: I am your warrior. I am your justice, and for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution,” Trump said in his address to the audience, the Hill noted.