Former President Donald Trump is now hinting that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg may have dropped the case against him, about a week after he claimed he would be arrested.
After a rally in Waco, Texas, on Saturday, Trump told reporters on his plane, “I think they’ve already dropped the case … they have absolutely nothing.” Trump did not provide evidence for his claim Saturday.
“It’s a bogus case. Some phony cases, they have absolutely nothing,” the former president said. Trump also reiterated his criticism of Michael Cohen, a former Trump lawyer who testified against him in the Manhattan grand jury case and previously served time in federal prison for tax fraud and other charges.
Trump also denied mainstream media reports that he was trying to incite violence with his Truth Social posts criticizing the Bragg investigation, “No, I don’t like violence and I’m not for violence. But a lot of people are upset.”
On Truth Social, the former president made a similar statement about his belief that the Bragg case is “DEAD.” He wrote that the “Witch Hunt against me is DEAD, there is absolutely no evidence, and it has been conclusively proven that I did nothing wrong.” He dismissed Cohen as a “disbarred lawyer & convicted felon.”
Last week, a lawyer in Trump’s circle, Robert Costello, told the media that he testified before the grand jury and tried to denigrate Cohen’s testimony against the 45th president in the investigation, which would be related to so-called hush money payments given to adult actress Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign. A lawyer for Cohen, when contacted for comment, declined to issue a statement, though Cohen told MSNBC last week that Costello never represented him and disputed his testimony.
Bragg’s has not responded to a request for comment, and The Epoch Times was unable to verify the authenticity of Trump’s claims. Previous requests by The Epoch Times for comment from the U.S. attorney’s office have gone unanswered.
Over the past week, Bragg’s office issued a public statement about the case in response to a letter from House Republicans seeking testimony and information about the prosecutor’s case or whether his office would arrest Trump. A letter sent by his general counsel said it was Trump who created a “false expectation” that he would be indicted last week, though he did not elaborate.
In response to the House GOP letter, Bragg’s lawyer wrote that it “came only after Donald Trump created a false expectation that he would be arrested the next day, and his lawyers would have urged him to intervene. Neither fact is a legitimate basis for a congressional investigation.”
During the Waco rally, Trump declared that his “enemies are desperate to stop us” and that “our opponents have done everything they can to crush our spirit and break our will,” and that the Manhattan district attorney was investigating him “for something that is not a crime, not a misdemeanor, not an affair.”
He added: “But they failed. They’ve only made us stronger. And 2024 is the final battle, it’s going to be the big one. If they put me back in the White House, their reign will be over and America will be a free nation again.”
Trump made no direct reference in his speech to the Waco story, telling the crowd of thousands that he told Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick that he wanted to hold his rally in a place with overwhelming support, not “one of those 50-50 areas,” and said he had told Texas officials, “We’re going to go right to the heart of this.”
At several points, Trump criticized Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who, though unannounced, has long been expected to run for president in 2024 and is seen as Trump’s strongest possible rival for the GOP nomination. Trump called his former ally disloyal and said he was “dropping like a rock” in the polls.
In addition to the Manhattan case, Trump also faces an investigation in Georgia, as well as federal investigations into his handling of allegedly classified documents and possible obstruction, as well as statements he made on Jan. 6, 2021. The former president has denied wrongdoing in those cases.