Donald Trump’s first defiant speech after indictment at Georgia convention

“They tried to frame me for treason and now they’re trying to do it again,” a defiant Mr Trump said in an often rambling 84-minute speech before a crowd of more than 3500 Republican state party delegates and guests at the Columbus Convention and Trade Center in Columbus, Georgia, the New York Post reports.

“Biden is trying to jail his leading political opponent … just like they do in Stalinist Russia or in communist China.

“I never thought such a thing could happen in America.”

“I’ve put everything on the line for you and I will never yield.”

Mr Trump’s speech at Georgia’s annual GOP convention — held without Georgia’s Governor Brian Kemp, who is a longtime Trump critic — was his first public comments after he was indicted over his handling of classified documents on Friday.

The charge means the US ex-president is facing his most serious legal threat yet as a firestorm of criminal investigations imperil his bid for a second White House term.

“I’m the only candidate who has what it takes to smash this corrupt system,” he said.

Mr Trump slammed Mr Biden, blaming him for the US’ ruinous economy and weakness on the world stage.

“If you took the worst five presidents in the history of the United States and added them up. they would not have done near the destruction to our country as Joe Biden has done,” Mr Trump said.

“We are nation in decline, and now these radical left lunatics want to interfere with our elections by using law enforcement,” he declared, referring again to the federal cases against him.

“It’s totally corrupt and we can’t let it happen,” he said. “We will drive out the globalists, we will cast out the communists, and we will throw off the sick political class that hates our country.”

It was the first of two campaign-style stops for Mr Trump, who remains the frontrunner in the Republican presidential primary race despite his cascading legal woes.

The federal case unsealed in Miami on Friday came after a federal grand jury heard evidence that Mr Trump illicitly retained classified documents and kept them at his Mar-a-Lago home.

The charges, including the wilful retention of national defence documents and conspiring to obstruct justice, follow Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s April indictment for Mr Trump’s alleged falsification of business records.

“We didn’t do any obstruction,” Mr Trump insisted in his speech, in which he debuted a new nickname – “Deranged Jack Smith” – for the special prosecutor who brought Friday’s indictment against him.

“They take one charge and they turned it into 36 charges,” Mr Trump said.

“We have a thug who’s in charge,” he said, referring to Smith. “This is a political hit job,” he added, carried out by “a sick nest of people that needs to be cleaned out immediately.”

Mr Trump addressed the Georgia investigation – which reportedly focuses on his 2020 phone calls to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in the wake of his election loss — at length.

Those two cases may soon be joined by additional indictments: in Georgia over accusations of election interference, and in Washington, D.C. for the former president’s actions surrounding the January 6 Capitol riot.

Mr Trump addressed the Georgia investigation – which involves his 2020 phone calls to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in the wake of his election loss — at length Saturday.

“I was complaining about an election that I thought was rigged, complaining to the proper authorities,” he said. “And the day you’re not allowed to complain about an election, we are in communist China.”

In messages to supporters in the speech on Saturday, local time, Mr Trump sought to use the prosecutions as fuel for his quest to win the Republican presidential nomination once again.

“I could throw in the towel tomorrow, close down my 2024 presidential campaign, and all charges against me would magically be dropped!” he wrote in a fundraising email.

Doing so, he added, “would be turning my back on our country” — casting his expected Tuesday arraignment as an attack on America itself.

Meanwhile, Mr Trump made a string of posts on social media, including one all-caps missive claiming that “AMERICA WENT TO SLEEP LAST NIGHT WITH TEARS IN ITS EYES” over the indictment, which some Republicans have denounced as a politically motivated power grab.

But Mr Kemp’s pointed absence signalled rifts within the Republican Party over Mr Trump’s candidacy, particularly in the must-win swing state of Georgia, which the former president narrowly lost to President Biden in 2020.

A poll released Friday by Kemp’s Hardworking Americans PAC found that Mr Trump would have the support of just 42 per cent of likely Georgia voters in a rematch against Mr Biden — fully six points less than the 48 per cent support that a generic Republican candidate would receive in such a race.

The statewide survey of 600 voters, taken before news of the indictment dropped, found that Mr Trump would barely edge out Mr Biden 42 per cent to 41 per cent if the presidential election was held today, while any other GOP candidate would beat the incumbent by 10 points, 48 per cent to 38 per cent.

The poll had a 4 per cent margin of error.

After the Georgia speech, Mr Trump was scheduled to head to North Carolina to campaign at that state’s annual Republican convention.

This article originally appeared on the New York Post and was reproduced with permission