Lawyer compares Trump to Jesus Christ ahead of scheduled indictment

A lawyer known for defending participants in the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol Riot has compared former President Donald Trump to Jesus Christ in light of his rumored arrest next week.

Trump claimed Saturday morning on his Truth Social platform that he expected to be arrested Tuesday as part of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s investigation into him. Bragg’s office investigated the former president’s alleged involvement in a scheme to pay “silent money” to adult film star Stormy Daniels in 2016. The case recently began to take hold. scale, with signs that a criminal indictment was approaching.

Joseph D. McBride, a conservative attorney known for defending several Jan. 6 defendants, took to Twitter on Saturday to react to Trump’s claim of impending arrest. He compared Trump’s situation to the death and resurrection of Jesus. He also urged Trump supporters to peacefully protest the potential arrest and vote to re-elect him in 2024.

“President Trump will be arrested during Lent, a time of suffering and purification for followers of Jesus Christ,” McBride wrote on Twitter. “As Christ was crucified and then rose again on the 3rd day, so will it be [Donald Trump]. Violence is never the answer. Winning elections is. Vote Trump!”

He added in another tweet: “JESUS ​​LOVES DONALD TRUMP. JESUS ​​DIED FOR DONALD TRUMP. JESUS ​​LIVES INSIDE DONALD TRUMP. DEAL WITH IT.”

McBride’s tweet drew derision from some other Twitter users, including Trump critics such as Adam Kinzinger, the former GOP representative who served on the House select committee that investigated Jan. 6.

“Not a cult,” Kinzinger tweeted sarcastically in response to McBride.

Trump’s communications team played down his claim about a possible arrest next week, saying Newsweek in a comment for an earlier story that he received no official notification about it, attributing the knowledge to “illegal leaks” from the Justice Department and Bragg’s office. They also claimed that Trump would attend a rally in Texas next week.

McBride has previously drawn similar comparisons to Jesus when discussing the treatment of his clients and others arrested for participating in the Jan. 6 Capitol Riots.

“The Jan-Sixers are lion-fed for sports in DC and the FBI is targeting observant Catholics, calling us extremists,” McBride tweeted in February. “Evil has never been bolder, and good people have never been more afraid to stand up. We must nevertheless stand up. Never forget that Jesus was killed because he was one” extremist “.”