WASHINGTON: Donald Trump will appear in court on Thursday to answer charges of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election, a case set to cast a dark and volatile cloud over the 2024 White House race for which he remains the presumptive Republican nominee.

“I am now going to Washington, D.C. to be arrested for having challenged a corrupt, rigged and stolen election,” the billionaire posted on his Truth Social site, defiantly repeating what special counsel Jack Smith has called the “lies” about the 2020 vote that are at the heart of the indictment against him.

“It is a great honor, because I am being arrested for you,” Trump told his social media followers.

Metal barricades and municipal trucks formed a security ring around the E. Barrett Prettyman courthouse in Washington, where the arrest and arraignment of the former president will take place within sight of the US Capitol that was stormed by his supporters on January 6, 2021.