BEDMINSTER, N.J. — Hours after being arraigned in Miami on federal charges, former President Donald Trump told supporters in Bedminster, New Jersey, on Tuesday night "whatever documents the president decides to take with him he has the right to do so. It's an absolute right. This is the law."
Trump spoke outside the clubhouse at Trump National Golf Club for roughly 30 minutes, starting at 8:45 p.m. About 30 miles away, his private plane landed at Newark Liberty International Airport from Miami International Airport.
“I’ve never seen love in the streets like that,” he said about his trip between the Miami courthouse and the airport. “I’ve never seen love like that.”
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Much of his speech touched on past comments, including last weekend before party leaders in Georgia and North Carolina. He also called special counsel Jack Smith a "thug" and “deranged lunatic” who “viciously arrests” public figures.
That includes himself being arrested on "fake and fabricated charges."
He also called the prosecution "election interference." Trump said something similar on April 4, when he spoke to supporters at a Mar-a-Lago ballroom hours after being arraigned in Manhattan, where he faced criminal charges stemming from a hush money payment to a porn actor during his 2016 campaign. He said then the "fake case was brought only to interfere with the upcoming 2024 election."
Like at Mar-a-Lago, on hand Tuesday were a few hundred of his supporters, including members of the golf club, which has played a role in the federal indictment against him.
At the location, he was conducting his first fundraiser for his 2024 campaign. The campaign said it expects to raise $2 million at the event, Politico reported.
Guests included former Justice Department official Kash Patel, former New York Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik and MyPillow businessman and conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell.
Audience members shouted Happy Birthday during his speech. Trump turns 77 on Wednesday.
The arrival of Trump’s motorcade at 8:40 p.m. was met with cheers.
He began his remarks by slamming the Biden administration over his indictment.
“Today we witnessed the most evil and heinous abuse of power in the history of our country," he said. "Very sad thing to watch, a corrupt sitting president had his top political opponent arrested on fake and fabricated charges of which he and numerous other presidents would be guilty, right in the middle of a presidential election in which he’s losing very badly."
Trump mentioned the Presidential Records Act, saying "I was supposed to negotiate with NARA, which is exactly what I was doing until Mar-a-Lago was raided by FBI agents."
In a news release last week, the agency said the Presidential Records Act "requires that all records created by Presidents (and Vice Presidents) be turned over to the National Archives and Records Administration at the end of their administrations” and that outgoing presidents are required to separate personal documents from presidential records before they leave office, NBC reported.
Trump took aim at the current administration, including its policies, and promised to “appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America Joe Biden and the entire Biden crime family.”
The former president gave his first speech since pleading not guilty to charges of keeping classified documents and blocking the government’s efforts to get them back.
Charges stem from his handling and retention of classified documents he took from the White House to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach.
In August or September of 2021 at Bedminster, Trump showed a representative of his political action committee who did not possess a security clearance, a classified map related to a military operation.
Trump is said to have told the associate that he should not be showing it to the person and that they should not get too close.
The former president discounted the facts in the 49-page indictment, including photos showing where the documents were stored, including a bathroom and a ballroom stage.
“This day will go down in infamy and Joe Biden will forever be remembered as not only the most corrupt president in the history of our country but, perhaps even more importantly, as the president who, together with a band of his closest thugs, misfits and Marxists, tried to destroy American democracy,” the former president said.
He also attacked his 2016 election opponent, Hillary Clinton, about her email server as well as documents found at Joe Biden's residence in Delaware from his time as vice president.
CNN and Associated Press contributed to this report.
