Ivanka Trump, the daughter of Donald Trump took to Instagram, to break her silence on the former US president's indictment. She said that she was "pained" for Trump and the country.
She released the statement 18 hours after a grand jury voted to indict Trump. He was charged the criminal charges of giving hush money to adult film star Stormy Daniels.
“I love my father and I love my country. Today I am pained for both,” she wrote on her Instagram story.
“I appreciate the voices across the political spectrum expressing support and concern.”
In connection with the payments made to Daniels, Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to federal tax evasion and campaign finance violations in 2018. He was given a three-year prison sentence but was freed in the middle of the COVID-19 epidemic in mid-2020.
The historic indictment of the 76-year-old Republican — who denies all wrongdoing in connection with the payments made ahead of the 2016 election that sent him to the White House — is certain to upend the current presidential race in which Trump hopes to regain office.
On March 18, Trump had declared he expected to be arrested within days over the payment to Daniels — who received $130,000 weeks before the election that brought Trump to power, to stop her from going public about a tryst she claims they had a decade earlier.
In predicting his indictment, Trump had issued a call for demonstrations and dark warnings that it could lead to "potential death & destruction" that "could be catastrophic for our Country."
In a statement on Thursday, the former president called the indictment a "Political Persecution and Election Interference at the highest level in history." His lawyers said in a statement "we will vigorously fight this."
"Even before I was sworn in as your President of the United States, the Radical Left Democrats — the enemy of the hard-working men and women of this Country — have been engaged in a Witch-Hunt to destroy the Make America Great Again movement," Trump said on Truth Social.
Trump’s sons Eric and Don Jr leaped into action and raged against what they described as “third-world prosecutorial misconduct”.
“This is third-world prosecutorial misconduct,” tweeted Eric. “It is the opportunistic targeting of a political opponent in a campaign year.”
Don Jr called it the “weaponisation of our Govt against their political enemies” on Twitter.
“Let’s be clear, folks, this is like communist-level s***,” he said. “This is stuff that would make Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot, it would make them blush.”
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