Amidst Increasing Legal Troubles, Trump Urges GOP to Rally Behind Him Threatening Primary Challenges

In the midst of escalating legal troubles, Donald Trump has intensified his appeals for his GOP competitors to withdraw from the 2024 presidential contest as he threatens to initiate primary challenges against Republican congressional members who neglect the investigation into Democratic President Joe Biden. He has also pressed them to stop providing military aid to Ukraine until the White House cooperates with their probes into Biden and his family.

“Every dollar used by Republicans to attack me is a dollar directly handed over to the Biden campaign,” Trump announced at a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, on Saturday evening. The ex-president and GOP favorite asserted that it was the right time for Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida and others he labeled as “clowns” to step aside, criticizing them for “squandering hundreds of millions of dollars that Republicans could utilize to establish a robust voter mobilization system” to challenge Biden in November.

These remarks emerged two days post the federal prosecutors’ disclosure of new criminal charges against Trump as part of a case accusing him of unlawfully keeping classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago club and failing to surrender them to investigators. The superseding indictment revealed on Thursday suggests that Trump and two employees attempted to erase surveillance at the club to hinder the Justice Department’s probe.

This lawsuit is only one among Trump’s proliferating legal confrontations. His team is presently preparing for potential further indictments, which could occur as early as next week, in connection with his efforts to reverse the 2020 election results, instigated by prosecutors in Washington and Georgia. Trump is already facing criminal charges in New York over hush-money payments to women who alleged sexual encounters during his 2016 presidential campaign.

However, Trump continues to be the early dominant frontrunner for the Republican nomination, with his lead only growing as the charges pile up and his rivals struggle to react. This challenge was visible at a GOP event in Iowa on Friday night, where most declined to confront Trump directly. The only one who did—accusing Trump of “campaigning to avoid prison”—was jeered as he exited the stage.

Meanwhile, Trump has embraced his legal challenges, making them the central theme of his campaign to regain the presidency, accusing Biden of using the Justice Department to harm his main political adversary. The White House has repeatedly stated that the president has no involvement in these cases.

At his rallies, including the one on Saturday, Trump has endeavored to portray the charges, which carry serious risks of imprisonment, as an attack not just on him, but on his supporters.

“These indictments are against you, not me. I just happen to be in their way,” he told the Erie crowd, adding, “Every time radical left Democrats, Marxists, communists, and fascists indict me, I view it as a notable badge of honor…. Because I’m being indicted on your behalf.”

However, the investigations are also consuming enormous resources that are being redirected away from the core aspects of the campaign. The Washington Post reported first on Saturday that Trump’s political action committee, Save America, will disclose on Monday that it expended over $40 million on legal fees in the first half of 2023 defending Trump and all current and former aides whose lawyers it is funding. This total surpasses the campaign’s fundraising in the second quarter of the year.

“To combat these outrageous acts by Biden’s allies and to shield these innocent individuals from financial ruin and total life destruction, the leadership PAC contributed to their legal fees to ensure they have representation against illegal harassment,” said Trump’s spokesman Steven Cheung.

At the rally—held in a location that Trump turned Republican in 2016 but which Biden won by a slim margin in 2020—Trump also threatened Congressional Republicans who resist supporting efforts to impeach Biden. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy mentioned last week that Republican lawmakers might contemplate an impeachment inquiry into the president over unverified accusations of financial misconduct.

Trump, who was impeached twice while in office, stated on Saturday that, “The major grievance that I receive is that the Republicans discover this information and then take no action about it.”

“Any Republican that doesn’t address Democratic fraud should immediately be primaried and get out — out!” he declared to the cheering crowd. “They need to play tough and … if they’re not ready to do it, we have many good, tough Republicans around … and they’re going to get my endorsement every single time.”

During the 2022 midterm elections, Trump vowed to punish those who had voted in favor of his second impeachment and succeeded in ousting most of them by supporting primary challengers.

At the rally, Trump also urged Republican Congressional members to stop approving additional military aid to Ukraine, which is embroiled in a war against Russia’s invasion, until the Biden administration collaborates with Republican investigations into Biden and his family’s business activities. This echoed the call that led to his first impeachment.

“He’s pulling us into a global conflict for the same country, Ukraine, that allegedly paid his family millions of dollars,” Trump claimed. “In light of this information,” he said, Congress “should refuse to authorize a single additional disbursement from our depleted stockpiles … the weapons stockpiles to Ukraine until the FBI, DOJ, and IRS hand over every bit of evidence they possess on the Biden crime family’s corrupt business transactions.”

House Republicans have been probing the Biden family’s finances, especially payments that Hunter, the president’s son, received from Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company that was implicated in Trump’s first impeachment.

An anonymous FBI informant alleged that Burisma officials in 2015 and 2016 tried to pay the Bidens $5 million each in exchange for their assistance in removing a Ukrainian prosecutor who was allegedly investigating the company. However, a Justice Department review in 2020, while Trump was president, was terminated eight months later due to insufficient evidence of misconduct.

Trump’s first impeachment by the House resulted in charges that he pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to probe into the Bidens while threatening to withhold military aid. Trump was subsequently acquitted by the Senate.

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More about Donald Trump’s Legal Challenges

• Donald Trump’s Legal Battles
• The GOP’s Struggle to Respond to Trump
• Details about Trump’s PAC, Save America
• Context on Trump’s first impeachment
• The Investigation into Biden’s son, Hunter