Trump says he’ll be arrested Tuesday as DA eyes charges

FILE – President Donald Trump speaks in the East Room of the White House in Washington on Feb. 20, 2018. Trump’s White House has failed to report more than 100 gifts from foreign nations worth more than a quarter-million dollars, and federal officials have been unable to find a life-size painting of Trump given by the president of El Salvador as well as golf clubs from the prime minister of Japan, according to a report Friday from House Democrats. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump said in a social media post that he expects to be arrested Tuesday as a New York prosecutor is eyeing charges in a case examining hush money paid to women who alleged sexual encounters with the former president.

Trump provided no evidence that suggested he was directly informed of a pending arrest and did not say how he knew of such plans.

But in a Saturday morning message on his Truth Social network, Trump noted “illegal leaks” from the Manhattan district attorney’s office that he said indicate “THE FAR & AWAY LEADING REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE & FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK.”

Danielle Filson of the district attorney’s office said prosecutors “will decline to confirm or comment” on questions pertaining to Trump’s post, as well as potential charges. A Trump spokesman did not immediately respond to calls for comment.

The indictment of Trump, 76, would be an extraordinary development after years of investigations into his business, political and personal dealings. It is likely to galvanize critics who say Trump, a 2024 presidential candidate, lied and cheated his way to the top and to embolden supporters who feel the Republican is being unfairly targeted by a Democratic prosecutor.

In his social media post, Trump repeated his lies that the 2020 presidential election he lost to Democrat Joe Biden was stolen and he urged his followers to “PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!” That language evoked the message from the then-president that preceded the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 when his supporters broke through doors and windows of that building and left officers beaten and bloodied as they tried to stop the certification of the election.Law enforcement officials in New York have been making security preparations for the possibility that Trump could be indicted.

There has been no public announcement of any time frame for the grand jury’s secret work in the case, including any potential vote on whether to indict the ex-president.

Trump’s posting echoes one made last summer when he broke the news on Truth Social that the FBI was searching his home as part of an investigation into the possible mishandling of classified documents.

The grand jury in Manhattan has been hearing from witnesses, including former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, who says he orchestrated payments in 2016 to two women to silence them about sexual encounters they said they had with Trump a decade earlier.

Trump denies the encounters occurred, says he did nothing wrong and has cast the investigation as a “witch hunt” by a Democratic prosecutor bent…