CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Donald Trump accepted a key endorsement from one of the nation's most influential law enforcement lobbies on Friday by offering a sweeping indictment of the U.S. legal system that has convicted him of almost three dozen felony counts and indicted him in three other pending cases.
The Fraternal Order of Police convention in the battleground state of North Carolina was billed as a way for Trump to pitch himself as a law-and-order figure and cast his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, a former prosecutor and California attorney general, as weak.
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But in between remarks about crime and law enforcement, the former president and Republican nominee celebrated a New York judge's decision earlier in the day to postpone his sentencing on 34 felony counts in a business fraud case until after Election Day. He repeated his false assertions that the U.S. election system is rife with massive voter fraud and that his 2020 defeat was rigged — arguments rejected in dozens of state and federal courts. He promised to crack down on “Marxist prosecutors,” and he seemed to suggest that domestic police forces could more actively prevent voter fraud because people are scared of them.
Trump's latest broadsides and untruths also underscored the unusual circumstances of a national law enforcement group embracing a political leader who has repeatedly denigrated U.S. institutions and championed a mob of his supporters who assaulted law enforcement officers at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 — a siege at the core of Trump's continuing legal peril as he attempts a comeback bid.
But on Friday, top of mind was the New York case, which he mentioned early on in his remarks. “Big news today is the Manhattan D.A. witch hunt against me has been postponed because everyone realizes that there was no case — because I did nothing wrong,” Trump said.
Patrick Yoes, the FOP's national president, said Trump had tamped down the “defund the police” movement and supported law enforcement in the summer of 2020 during nationwide protests against police brutality after the murder of George Floyd.
“During his time in the White House, we had a partner and a leader,” Yoes said. "We have your back.”
Despite Trump's status as the only U.S. president in history to be charged or convicted with a felony, the former president used the room of law enforcement officers as a backdrop to attack Harris over crime.
“American cities, suburbs and towns are totally under siege. Kamala Harris and the communist left have unleashed a brutal plague of bloodshed, crime, chaos, misery and death upon their land,” Trump said, adding that police are “not allowed to do your jobs.”
Trump pledged unyielding support for police, including expanded use of force: “We have to get back to power and respect.”
And he seemingly encouraged police to use their power in the upcoming election to “watch for voter fraud," which is rare in the United States despite his insistence to the contrary.
“I hope you as the greatest people ... watch for voter fraud,” he said. “I hope you can watch and you're all over the place. Watch for the voter fraud. Because we win. Without voter fraud, we win so easily. Hopefully, we're going to win anyway. But we want to keep it down. You can keep it down just by watching. Because believe it or not, they're afraid of that badge. They're afraid of you people.”
For her part, Harris has showcased her status as a one-time top prosecutor in her home state, regularly saying “I know Donald Trump’s type” after she talks about the “perpetrators of all kinds” in her former roles.
She’s had some help with that messaging from two officers who were at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and have become surrogates for the Democratic ticket.
"Donald Trump is still that threat,” former Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn told a group of voters in Arizona this summer. “His deranged, self-centered, obsessive quest for power is the reason violent insurrectionists assaulted my coworkers and I.”
Ahead of Trump's North Carolina trip, the Harris campaign organized a press call with current and former law enforcement officials, including Dunn, who said Trump only supports police when they’re loyal to him.
“He put my life and the lives of my fellow Capitol Police officers in danger," he said.
The Harris campaign also issued a letter signed by more than 100 law enforcement officials across the country, lauding Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, as “the only candidates we trust to keep our communities safe" and arguing that Trump “will sow chaos, defund critical law enforcement agencies, and put all Americans at risk.”
The FOP joins other police groups that have already lined up behind Trump, including the National Association of Police Organizations and International Union of Police Associations.
Trump's support from law officers also butts up against sympathies he has shown for those who have defied the orders of police, including his pledge to pardon those charged with beating officers during the Capitol siege.
Judges and juries considering those cases have heard police officers describe being savagely attacked while defending the building. All told, about 140 officers were injured that day, making it “likely the largest single day mass assault of law enforcement” in American history, Matthew Graves, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, has said.
Over 900 people have pleaded guilty to Jan. 6 crimes, and approximately 200 others have been convicted at trial. More than 950 people have been sentenced, with roughly two-thirds getting time behind bars — terms ranging from a few days to 22 years.
Trump has long expressed support for Jan. 6 defendants. “Those J6 warriors, they were warriors, but ... they’re victims of what happened,” Trump said at a rally in Nevada this summer. He falsely claimed that police welcomed rioters into the Capitol by saying, “Go in, go in, go in, go in.”
Trump's misrepresentation of what happened did not concern his ardent supporters gathered in Charlotte.
“I wish they could let them all out of jail,” said Janice Moody, a retired fingerprint technician with the Las Vegas Police Department and spouse of a retired Las Vegas officer.
“I don't think they did it on purpose,” she added.
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Barrow reported from Atlanta. Associated Press writer Chris Megerian in Washington contributed to this report.
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Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP