Some prominent civil-rights figures including Rev. Al Sharpton are calling the arrest of former President Donald Trump a moment of “social justice,” while Mr. Trump is slamming Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and two other Black prosecutors pursuing him as racists.
Mr. Sharpton noted with satisfaction that Mr. Trump’s arrest on 34 felony counts in New York on Tuesday came on the anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968.
He said the arrest was a sort of “spiritual” payback for Mr. Trump’s policies as president and for his call for the death penalty in 1989 for five Black and Hispanic teenagers who were wrongfully imprisoned and later exonerated of raping a White woman in Central Park.
“I’m always looking for the spiritual interpretation of something. And I think it’s very ironic that on … the 55th anniversary of Dr. King’s assassination, that the president that tried to turn back a lot of what King did is going to be arraigned in Manhattan Supreme Court by a Black DA,” Mr. Sharpton said at a forum at New York University before Mr. Trump’s arraignment. “I’m thinking of Dr. King as the first Black Manhattan DA will deliver us justice and bring criminal charges against President Trump.”
His audience laughed and applauded enthusiastically.
Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung responded to The Washington Times, “Mr. Sharpton should get his own house in order before talking about something he has no clue about.”
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Mr. Trump was charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal before the 2016 election.
Some Trump supporters also see spirituality in the timing of Mr. Trump’s arrest for a very different reason, noting that it came during Holy Week. Among them is Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia Republican, who traveled to New York to protest his arrest.
“Jesus was arrested and murdered by the Roman government,” she told NBC News. “There have been many people throughout history that have been arrested and persecuted by radical corrupt governments, and it’s beginning [Tuesday] in New York City.”
Civil-rights figure Jennifer Jones Austin, at the same event with Mr. Sharpton, called Mr. Trump’s arrest “a real marker, a true indicator of progress.” She is CEO of the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies, an anti-poverty and advocacy group.
“As we remember Dr. King [on Tuesday] and all that he stood for, the first Black Manhattan District Attorney is holding President Trump accountable for his crimes,” she said. “A man who has built his legacy on the backs of those less fortunate and less powerful is finally being brought to justice.”
Mr. Trump says he is a victim of reverse racism by Mr. Bragg, by Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Lani Willis and by New York State Attorney General Letitia James, all of whom are Black.
“They’ve got a local racist Democrat district attorney in Atlanta who is doing everything in her power to indict me over an absolutely perfect phone call,” Mr. Trump said in Florida after his court appearance, referring to Ms. Willis’ grand jury probe of Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia.
He called Mr. Bragg a “failed district attorney,” after earlier calling him a “racist in reverse.”
“The criminal is the district attorney because he illegally leaked massive amounts of grand jury information, for which he should be prosecuted or at a minimum, he should resign,” he said of Mr. Bragg.
Mr. Trump unloaded most of his criticism on Ms. James over her ongoing $250 million civil fraud lawsuit against him, his family and the Trump Organization.
“This time it’s civil investigation by another racist in reverse who also campaigned on, ‘I will get Trump, I will get him,’” Mr. Trump said. “Her name is Letitia James and she proclaimed while campaigning quote, ‘I look forward to going into the office of the attorney general every single day suing him and then going home.’”
He also referred to special counsel Jack Smith, who is investigating Mr. Trump for mishandling classified documents and for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, as a “radical left lunatic known as a bomb-thrower.” Mr. Smith is White.
Mr. Sharpton, who is president of the activist organization National Action Network and host of MSNBC’s “Politics Nation,” also cited Mr. Trump’s involvement in the infamous case known at the time as the “Central Park 5,” in which Mr. Trump paid for a full-page newspaper ad in 1989 calling for their executions.
“I’m thinking of the Exonerated 5, who were not just victims of a criminal justice system that did not protect them, but also of vitriol and hate spewed by men like Trump,” he said. “But today we see progress with the arc of history bending towards justice, just as Dr. King said. While we celebrate this moment of justice on the anniversary of King’s assassination, we have to remember the work is not done.”
He expressed a sense of vindication that Mr. Trump was being arraigned in New York “by a Black DA who only got to Harvard University because of Martin Luther King, [and] being investigated in Georgia by a Black woman DA.”
“You might say the arc of justice is long, but it bends towards [justice] and I think that that often comes full circle,” Mr. Sharpton said.
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.