Trump asks for donations up to $3,300 off arrest rumours and launches ‘petition’ over charges

Donald Trump launched a plea for donations on Monday which condemned the criminal investigations closing in on him as a means of intimidating Republican voters.

The email urged supporters to sign a petition, which was really just a link to the former president’s fundraising page. A message appears stating that the recipient’s name has been added to the petition, though the document does not appear elsewhere on the website and there does not appear to be any way to view the signatures.

The fundraising page, meanwhile, suggests donations as high as $3,000 to help the twice-impeached and likely soon to be criminally charged former president retake the White House in 2024.

“[T]he Trump for President 2024 campaign is compiling millions and millions of petition signatures from Americans like you CONDEMNING these threats of a possible arrest," reads the email.

Text on the fundraising page then takes an almost religious turn, explaining that “this has always been our destiny, because this is what it takes to DEFEAT a broken, corrupt and sinister political machine that has crushed the American people for far too long.”

It’s one of the most dire tones that the former president’s team have embraced in memory, and shows the real concern that the president and his team are apparently feeling as criminal investigations in New York and Fulton County, Georgia appear to be nearing indictments for Mr Trump or possibly others in his inner circle.

The ex-president raged at his supposedly imminent arrest in a Truth Social posting over the weekend, and in subsequent postings has sought to deny that any crime was committed in the process of making a hush payment to porn star Stormy Daniels in the days leading up to the 2016 election. It’s a tough argument to make, given that his former attorney Michael Cohen was previously sentenced to prison over the matter.

The Fulton County investigation, as well as the DoJ’s related probe in Washington, are not tied to the Daniels payment and instead are the result of Mr Trump’s months-long effort to resist his election defeat to President Joe Biden. The DoJ has appointed a special counsel to determine whether Mr Trump will face charges at the federal level, while a grand jury investigation recently concluded in Georgia.