Trump Pencils In Own Arrest For Tuesday, Summons Nation To Protest Charges No Prosecutor Has Filed

PALM BEACH, Fla. Demonstrating the long-range planning that has come to define his relationship with the criminal justice system, former President Donald J. Trump announced on his social media platform early Saturday morning that he would be arrested on Tuesday, furnishing the American public with a firm date for a law enforcement action that no law enforcement agency had scheduled.

In an all-capitals post published before dawn, Trump informed the nation that "THE FAR & AWAY LEADING REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE & FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK," attributing his advance knowledge to what he described as illegal leaks. The forecast preceded any indictment, any charge, and any contact from prosecutors, with Trump's own attorneys acknowledging that they had received no such notification and that the date appeared to have been assembled from news reports.

Having settled the matter of when he would be taken into custody, the former president proceeded directly to the civic portion of the morning, instructing followers in a separate post to "PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!" Observers noted that the appeal closely resembled an earlier occasion on which Trump had summoned a crowd to Washington to contest an outcome he found disagreeable, an event that veterans of his administration have described as having gone reasonably well from his point of view.

Tuesday arrived and departed without an arrest. The grand jury reviewing a hush-money payment made to an adult film actress during his 2016 campaign continued its work at its own pace, and an indictment was not returned until the end of the month, by which point the date Trump had chosen for the country to rise up had already passed into history. The mass protests he requested did not materialize at any measurable scale, leaving a thin crowd of supporters, a considerably larger crowd of reporters, and a generous arrangement of metal barricades arrayed outside a courthouse where nothing had been scheduled to occur.

Polling released in the following weeks showed the former president's lead over the Republican primary field widening, and his campaign reported a surge of donations timed to the arrest he had announced, confirming for aides that the most efficient path to the 2024 nomination ran through a booking photo that did not yet exist.

At press time, Trump had released the dates of his conviction, his appeal, his second arrest, and his ultimate vindication, none of which had been scheduled by anyone other than himself.