Trump Indictment Could Be a 2024 Cash Cow

For most people, getting arrested is usually a bad thing. Then again, most people aren't former President Donald Trump.

Ahead of his impending indictment by the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, some believe the former president's arrest could be just the boost his presidential campaign needs as he seeks to consolidate conservative support ahead of the next election, offering him an opportunity to galvanize his political base and boost fundraising off of the outrage of his arrest at the hands of liberal district attorney Alvin Bragg.

His campaign, it seems, is already running with it. While Trump was not arrested Tuesday as previously expected, his campaign sent scores of emails and communications to his supporters over the weekend seeking to rile up voters about the arrest, with a prompt to donate clearly listed at the end of each email.

In some emails, he described the effort to charge him with crimes for alleged hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels in the 2016 election as a "political witch hunt" by Democrats to force the "Make America Great Again" movement into silence—rhetoric that has since been adopted by others on the right.

"Trump represents 74 million voters," Jesse Watters, a Fox News personality, said on his show Monday night. "What happens when you throw 74 million voters in jail?"

In other emails to supporters, Trump characterized the 2024 election in apocalyptic prose as voters' "last chance" to save the country. In others, he encouraged his supporters to actively protest his impending arrest, drawing comparisons to his alleged role in instigating the Jan. 6 2021 riots at the U.S. Capitol.

And at every turn, he was raising money.

"Barricades are being set up around Manhattan Criminal Court—our nation awaits an announcement on whether President Donald J. Trump will be INDICTED despite having committed NO CRIME," one email from his campaign sent just before noon on Tuesday read. "But President Trump knows that true vindication will come on November 5, 2024 when We The People win back the White House and Make America Great Again! Please make a contribution to stand with President Trump at this critical moment—for 1,500% impact."

Newsweek has reached out to the Trump campaign for comment.

It's not a new tactic for Trump, whose campaign has proven to be a small-dollar fundraising juggernaut that has surpassed his entire party's fundraising infrastructure, drawing ire from some who felt he should have done more to help the GOP's chances over the course of the 2022 midterm elections. But it's also most effective when Trump is personally in peril.

After Trump saw a dip in fundraising last summer that left him trailing political rival Ron DeSantis, the former President saw a substantial boost in polling and in fundraising after the Federal Bureau of Investigation raided his Mar-a-Lago home after his refusal to return a number of classified documents—an episode Trump used as evidence of persecution by the so-called "deep state."

His recent emails have taken a page from that book as well.

"The more they attack us, the more I see just how rotten the Deep State has become and how desperately it must be OBLITERATED," a March 18 fundraising email from his campaign read.

In that regard, Trump's arrest by the Manhattan District Attorney when (or if) it comes could be just the talking point his campaign needs, observers say. In this scenario, his political enemies aren't just coming after him: they're trying to put him in jail—the same way he once urged the government to "lock up" political rival Hillary Clinton.

"In a situation that I think is very unlikely, if he gets convicted, perversely, the most embarrassing picture for most people, a mugshot, may be Trump's best campaign poster," Chris Cuomo, the former CNN anchor and brother of disgraced New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on his podcast earlier this week. "Trump then becomes the real enemy of the state. He becomes the guy who is reeling against the same things we are all angry at and afraid of. He is our guy and he proved that because look at how much they hate him."