Dozens of supporters of former president Donald Trump rallied on land and sea near Madeira Beach, FL on Saturday to celebrate the former president’s upcoming 77th birthday, even in spite of Trump being indicted on 37 felony counts for mishandling classified documents.
In addition to the charge about mishandling documents, former president Trump has been found liable of sexual assault in New York, and has an open investigation into whether he tried to overturn election results in Georgia. Judy Smith is an independent, but plans to vote Trump for a third time.
“Right now I’m still for Trump, he’s the front-runner.”
She said she doesn’t believe in the decision made by a New York grand jury to hold the former president liable for sexual assault. She also doubts the complicity of all those in attendance on January 6th, when a mob violently invaded the US Capitol after the former president made false allegations of election fraud.
“All the people in the back that went in, I don’t think they understood what was going on up in front.”
Paul Hodgkins was there. He was the first of the January 6th rioters to receive a felony conviction for walking on the floor of the Senate carrying a red Trump flag. He was charged with obstructing the certification of the presidential election. He served 7 months in prison and was released in April last year. He hopes that Trump will also overcome serious felony charges.
“Just a couple of months ago we already had one indictment come across, and we knew was that they had these other cases pending, so I don’t think it was as shocking, this one being a federal one, so a little different. Again, I think this is something that he will overcome.”
Cliff Gephart organized the event. He agreed that the charges Trump is facing would be serious if he were convicted, but isn’t convinced either way whether the president is in the wrong.
“I’m not going to say if it’s valid or not valid because I’ll let the courts play that out. But we know definitively that Donald Trump at some point could have declassified everything. If he did or didn’t, that’s not for us to know. But we know Vice President Biden was not capable of declassifying anything.”
Trump made that claim in a January interview, which Politifact has rated false, based on an Executive Order signed by former president Barack Obama in 2009, which extended declassification authority to the vice president. Trump’s supporters feel he has a better chance to win than Governor Ron DeSantis, who they said might have more support if he waits to run until 2028.
