Donald Trump walks across the tarmac as he arrives to speak at a campaign rally at Waco Regional Airport in Waco, Texas.
Ex-US president Donald Trump has shrugged off his possible indictment as he used his first presidential campaign rally for the 2024 election to take aim at his political opponents.
"The district attorney of New York under the auspices and direction of the 'department of injustice' in Washington DC was investigating me for something that is not a crime, not a misdemeanor, not an affair," he told supporters in Waco, Texas state.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is investigating a $130,000 payment from Trump's office to adult actress Stormy Daniels in the weeks leading up to the 2016 presidential election.
A special counsel appointed by the Department of Justice is investigating allegations he hoarded top-secret documents and masterminded a plot seeking to overturn the 2020 election.
"I never liked 'Horse Face'," Trump said, using his derogatory name for Daniels.
"That wouldn't be the one. There is no one. We have a great First Lady."
Trump had said he would be arrested last week, warning that his indictment could result in "potential death & destruction," apparently from angry supporters.
He would become the first former or sitting president to ever be charged with a crime if the grand jury, a panel of citizens convened by Bragg, decides to indict.
'Witch hunt'
Trump employed dark and conspiratorial language to fire up his base ahead of next year's Republican primary elections.
Trump told supporters the investigations swirling around him were "something straight out of the Stalinist Russia horror show."
"From the beginning it's been one witch hunt and phony investigation after another," he said.
The legal threats hanging over the former president were front of mind for some attendees, many of whom flashed signs saying "WITCH HUNT."
Republican lawmaker Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of Trump's most vocal supporters in Congress, told the crowd it was time to "take back" the Department of Justice.
"You have to understand: they are not just coming after President Trump, they are coming after you, and President Trump is just the only one standing in their way," she said.
Trump's rally is happening in Waco as the city marks the 30th anniversary of a raid by federal agents on the Branch Davidians religious sect there that resulted in 86 deaths, including four law-enforcement officers.
Many right-wing extremists see the raid as a seminal moment of government overreach, and critics saw the rally's timing as a nod to Trump's far-right supporters.
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