Former President Donald Trump posted to Facebook and to YouTube on Friday for the first time since Jan. 6, 2021, and just hours before declaring that he expected to be arrested next week on charges stemming from a Manhattan district attorney investigation into his 2016 campaign.
His message was brief: “I’M BACK!”
It came with a short video taken from CNN the night he was elected president more than six years ago.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” Trump says in the clip. “Complicated business. Complicated.”
Trump was booted from major social media platforms after the deadly Capitol riot in 2021, when he refused to stop saying the most recent presidential election had been “stolen” from him. Trump’s access to his Twitter, Facebook and Instagram pages has been reinstated in recent months; his YouTube page was just restored this week as he continues his campaign to take back the White House in 2024.
On Saturday morning, Trump posted a lengthy, all-caps message to Truth Social, the Twitter knockoff he launched last year, suggesting that will be arrested Tuesday.
He included an alarming call to action, writing, “PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!”
The timing on any possible indictment is unknown, and it is not fully clear why Trump believes he will be taken into custody next week, hinting only at “ILLEGAL LEAKS” from the New York County district attorney.
Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s office reportedly signaled earlier this month that his investigation into the former president — one of multiple in various jurisdictions around the country — was nearing a conclusion. And officials told NBC News on Friday that local, state and federal law enforcement agencies were preparing logistically for Trump’s indictment.