Trump news today latest: Donald Trump expects to be arrested on Tuesday as Stormy Daniels ‘indictment’ looms

Donald Trump’s recent remarks echo his calls to supporters that fuelled the attack on the US Capitol and his apocalyptic visions of America from his time in office and on the campaign trail, depicting his us-versus-them political stakes and a brewing civil war with grim conclusions – rhetoric that has gripped the GOP in the wake of Mr Trump’s candidacy.

A five-year story finally looks to be nearing some kind of conclusion. The Independent’s John Bowden takes a look at the saga that may lead to criminal charges against Donald Trump:

The chief judge of the Washington, DC federal district court has ordered Evan Corcoran – who represented Trump in the weeks leading up to last year’s FBI search at Mar-a-Lago – to give evidence before a grand jury regarding conversations he had with the former president about efforts to find and return classified documents to the US government.

Leading Republican politicians were quick to defend Trump, despite the legal difficulties he appears to be facing from still-unannounced charges.

The lawmakers rushing to defend the ex-president have done so without awareness or knowledge of any potential indictment; Republicans are fighting a public relations battle intended to undermine any criminal case against the former president, the man who is still most likely to be the GOP’s 2024 nominee.

The new chief judge at the District Court in Washington, DC who will oversee the special counsel investigations into former President Donald Trump by the Department of Justice was once a roommate of Trump Supreme Court appointee Brett Kavanaugh while they were at law school.

Law enforcement agenices at the local, state and federal levels are reportedly preparing for the possibility that Donald Trump may be indicted as early as next week in relation to the hush money payment to Stormy Daniels.

Preliminary security assessments are being conducted, and officials are discussing potential security plans in the vicinity of the Manhattan Criminal Court at 100 Centre Street in case Mr Trump appears in person to face charges, according to NBC News, citing five senior officials familiar with the preparations.

After soliciting donations from his supporters through his Truth Social account, Donald Trump has once again invoked inflammatory and apocalyptic rhetoric around his 2024 campaign and potential criminal indictments after he predicted he would be arrested on Tuesday.

Another all-caps post on Saturday – roughly 45 minutes after asking supporters to “send your contribution” to his campaign – called on his supporters to “protest, protest, protest” to “save America.”

That post followed his other all-caps post urging his followers to “protest” after that he would be arrested next week.

In a follow-up post, he once again claimed that the US is being “led into World War III” while the Biden administration is “killing our nation.”

A spokesperson for Mr Trump said he wrote his posts without any direct knowledge of the timing of any arrest.

Donald Trump’s rcitics and activist groups have condemned his inflammatory rhetoric and a statement from House Speaker Kevin McCarthy as Republicans quickly rallied to the former president’s defense against possible criminal prosecution.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also condemned Mr Trump’s “reckless” announcement predicting his arrest, which she said has been used to “keep himself in the news and to foment unrest among his supporters” as he continues to use apocalyptic rhetoric around his 2024 campaign and potential criminal indictments.

The Republican leader issued a statement accusing the Manhattan district attorney’s office of an “outrageous abuse of power” and announced that he will direct House committees to “immediately investigate if federal funds are being used to subvert our democracy by interfering in elections with politically motivated prosecutions.

Democratic US Rep Ted Lieu struck back at Mr McCarthy’s suggestion that New York prosecutors are “subverting democracy” with their criminal investigation.

“Do you even know what the charges are? Have you seen any of the grand jury evidence? No,” Mr Lieu wrote. “You are being a craven, partisan politician who doesn’t respect the rule of law. In America, no one is above the law, including the person to whom you bend your knee.”

Across far-right social media, where QAnon influencers and Christian nationalists collide, debate over Marjorie Taylor Greene’s relevance and whether Donald Trump is the savior of a nation and Republican party in decline, the former president’s announcement that he expects to be arrested on Tuesday was the evidence they needed that the Biden administration has weaponised the federal government against him.

Mr Trump has called on his supporters to “protest, protest, protest,” but unlike the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, which was organised openly across social media platforms, discussion of Mr Trump’s potential arrest has largely revolved around denouncing the Manhattan district attorney’s investigation and echoing similar inflammatory and dramatic rhetoric about the state of the US.

QAnon accounts with large followings on Truth Social have echoed their accelerationist “trust the plan” slogan believing that Mr Trump’s potential arrest would trigger a national downfall. Others said his arrest would make him a martyr that his supporters would rally around.

QAnon influencer The Patriot Voice said the most effective protest would be wearing red “MAGA” hats. Laura Loomer told supporters not to show up outside Mar-a-Lago because streets will likely be shut down; she instead told people to show up at his first 2024 campaign rally in Texas on 25 March.

Ali Alexander, one of the organizers of the Stop the Steal rallies who is now campaigning alongside white supremacist Nick Fuentes for Kanye West, wrote: “Previously, I had said if Trump was arrested or under the threat of a perp walk, 100,000 patriots should shut down all routes to Mar-a-Lago. Now, I’m retired. I’ll pray for him though!”

He also said he spoke to Alex Jones and “he’s not protesting either.”

After denouncing Trump’s behaviour surrounding January 6, former Vice President Mike Pence came to his former boss’s defense on Saturday following his prediction that he will be arrested next weekw.

His told SiriusXM radio that New York prosecutors’ potentioal indictment “reeks of the kind of political prosecution that we endured back in the days of the Russia hoax,” referring to the GOP’s shorthand for the investigation into 2016 Russian interference in that year’s elections, with reports revealing a web of ties between the Trump campaign and Russian actors, none of which has a hoax.

“This is what the Manhattan DA says is their top priority?” Mr Pence added.