A day after a New York judge issued a $355 million fine against him and his businesses, former President Donald Trump launched a Michigan rally by calling the decision “a lawless, unconstitutional atrocity that sets fire to our laws.”
Speaking to a crowd that overflowed an airport hangar in Waterford Township northwest of Detroit on Feb. 17, President Trump declared, “When we win back the White House, we will have no higher priority than ending the weaponization of this horrible legal system that has developed around us.”
The Republican frontrunner for the presidential nomination blames Democrats for spearheading multiple civil and criminal cases against him as “election interference.”
Regardless, President Trump has won by historic proportions in all four Republican presidential preference contests thus far: Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
He and his sole remaining GOP rival, Nikki Haley, will face off against each other in South Carolina, the state where she formerly served as governor, on Feb. 24. Three days later, Michigan will hold its Republican primary.
President Trump said he expects “a monumental victory” in the Wolverine State, he told the crowd. That would send a message to Democrat President Joe Biden and his allies ahead of the Nov. 5 general election, President Trump said, adding: “We have to let ‘em know that a freight train is coming in November.”
During his 80-minute speech, President Trump asserted that President Biden’s policies are hurting Michigan’s automobile manufacturing industry and threatening good-paying union jobs.
But first the former president spent several minutes telling the audience why he considers the New York case “a complete and total sham.”
A Case Unlike Any Other
On Feb. 16, New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron ruled that President Trump and the Trump Organization were liable for inflating the value of their assets to receive better rates from lenders and insurers.
“Judge Engoron just fined me $355 million for doing everything right,” he told the Michigan crowd, adding, “And these repulsive abuses of power are not just an attack on me; they’re really an attack on you and all Americans.”
The state’s attorney general, Letitia James, brought the civil fraud case even though, as President Trump put it, “there were no victims, no defaults, no damages, no complaints.”
“This was a case of satisfied banks and insurance companies, which made a lot of money dealing with me,” President Trump said, adding, “They were very happy and they testified that way.”
Ms. James hailed Justice Engoron’s decision as “a tremendous victory for this state, this nation, and for everyone who believes that we all must play by the same rules—even former presidents.”
She said that President Trump is “finally facing accountability for his lying, cheating, and staggering fraud.”
But President Trump says he has done nothing wrong–and that Ms. James and others are singling him out unfairly because they are his political enemies.
Ms. James advanced the civil case against him “under a consumer fraud statute that has never ever been used before for this purpose,” President Trump said. One news outlet that had been “unfriendly” to him even acknowledged that its extensive research found no such case “ever brought like this in the history of New York State.”
The court denied President Trump the right to a trial by jury “because under the statute, they have the right to do whatever they want to do,” he said.
Noting that an appeal of Justice Engoron’s ruling is planned, President Trump said, “Hopefully, the whole thing is going to be thrown out and reversed.”
He predicts the case will have far-reaching implications.
“As a result of this decision, businesses are going to flee New York State … taking with them tens of thousands of jobs because they can’t subject themselves to this,” President Trump said.
And, he said, “if this persecution of political opponents continues, no one will want to do business in the United States of America any longer.”
Lost Money Serving as President
President Trump said the big judgment against him is ironic, given that the presidency cost him money—yet other politicians find ways of raking in more cash while they hold public office.
Republicans in Congress are tracing millions of dollars that flowed into the bank accounts of President Biden’s relatives.
“Crooked Joe is not working for you. He’s working for himself,” President Trump alleged, adding, “As President Harry Truman said, ‘Show me a man that gets rich being a politician and I will show you a crook.’”
President Trump, who donated at least $1 million of his $400,000 annual presidential salary to government agencies, saw his net worth drop substantially. In 2017, it was $3.5 billion. By the time he left office it had dipped one-third, to $2.4 billion, according to figures from Forbes and Newsweek magazines.
President Trump said he knew it would cost him to campaign for office and to serve as president. Yet it was “the best thing I ever did,” President Trump said, as the audience erupted in cheers, because his presidency made America great.
During the Biden administration, “they’ve blown it.”
“But,” he said, “we’re gonna make it greater than ever before.”
The Battle for Unions’ Support
About halfway through his speech, the crowd chanted, “We love Trump!”
The former president replied, “Thank you … I love you, too, or I wouldn’t be doing this.”
At one point, President Trump spotted a man in the crowd, whom he’d met backstage; he invited the man, who was wearing an “Auto Workers for Trump” T-shirt, to join him onstage.
“Thank you, President Trump. We got your back,” the man said into the microphone. “The auto workers are gonna support this guy, like we did in ’16, ’20; we’re gonna do it again in ’24! Eighty-five million of us are gonna vote for this guy. They can’t cheat enough to beat him!”
President Trump said the policies of the Biden administration are hurting Michigan’s auto workers and other citizens.
The Biden administration is mandating electric vehicles, President Trump said, calling it a “hit job on Michigan manufacturing jobs.”
President Trump and President Biden have both been wooing union leaders. President Biden recently received the endorsement of the United Auto Workers. Last month, President Trump met with the head of the Teamsters union.
But President Trump told his rally audience, which included many auto workers: “A vote for Biden is a vote to send tens of thousands of Michigan jobs to China and other places that we don’t want ‘em to go. A vote for Trump is a vote to keep those manufacturing jobs in America, and add a lot of jobs.”
He criticized President Biden’s refusal to continue building the U.S.-Mexico border wall. That decision, coupled with leniency for illegal immigrants, represents “the biggest threat to your unions,” President Trump said.
Illegal immigrants will displace union workers because they’re willing to work for much lower wages, he said.
President Trump also accused President Biden of implementing policies that are shifting businesses away from America.
President Trump estimated that 2.5 million illegal immigrants have received work permits during the Biden administration; he thinks up to 18 million additional illegal immigrants will have entered the country illegally by the time President Biden’s term is up in 2025.
‘Migrant Crime’
Illegal immigrants are committing crimes that affect all citizens, President Trump said.
“We have a new category of crime in our country; it’s called ‘migrant crime,’ and it’s taking over America,” he said, later referring to it as “Biden migrant crime.”
In Michigan’s Oakland County, where President Trump was holding his rally, “your sheriff has recently stated that organized criminal squads of illegal alien gang members are hiding in the trees,” President Trump said.
These “squads” are breaking into rural and suburban homes at nighttime and “plundering them for jewelry, purses, electronics, cash, watches, and anything else they can get their hands on,” President Trump said.
“If you don’t want to have illegal alien criminals crawling through your windows and going through your drawers … then vote against Crooked Joe Biden,” he said.
President Trump said he believes more people are supporting him because they know he will combat such problems. They also remember being “better off” during his presidency, he said.
Michigan is considered a battleground state for the November general election; President Trump won the state in 2016 but lost it in 2020. Now he’s leading President Biden by about 5 percentage points in the RealClearPolitics average of opinion polls.
President Trump said he recognizes the importance of the Wolverine State, which carries 15 of the 270 Electoral College votes needed to secure the presidency: “If we win Michigan, we win the election.”
From The Epoch Times
