'A body of patriots.' At a Northern Kentucky bar, group prays and protests for Trump

A small but vocal crowd traveled Tuesday to a rural corner of Northern Kentucky to support former President Donald Trump.

About 40 people mingled in their Trump hats and shirts among the patrons of a one-story red brick bar, aptly named Boonedocks Pub and Grub, near Union, Kentucky. It's a community 22 miles south of Cincinnati, still rural but on the edge of new subdivisions.

They chanted Trump's name. They prayed for Trump.

These were the diehard Trump fans who heeded his call to protest his anticipated indictment and what he predicted would be his arrest.

Across the country, Trump's call for protest was met with small crowds in New York City and elsewhere. In some cases, Trump supporters online warned others that public events are a "trap" set by law enforcement.

Those who came out to Boonedocks Pub and Grub in Northern Kentucky weren't afraid of an FBI trap.

They came at the invitation of Kentucky gubernatorial candidate Eric Deters, who organized the event. Deters, a conservative firebrand and suspended lawyer, has promoted himself as a staunch supporter of Trump. He's brought in Trump's children to headline rallies held on his Morning View farm, also in a rural area of Northern Kentucky.

Verona, Kentucky, resident Angie Prickel and her husband, Randy Prickel, have traveled the country attending prayer conventions and Trump rallies.

"We’re here formed as a body of patriots, Lord, but first and foremost as a body of Christians, just coming before you asking for your holy hand over the situation, over our country, over President Trump, over his family," said Prickel, 51, while leading the prayer on Tuesday. "We ask Lord, that you lay your hand in protection around them."

Trump accusations don’t concern them

The accusations against Trump don't faze Prickel and those assembled, they said.

The Manhattan district attorney is investigating Trump for a $130,000 payment he made just before the 2016 election to silence adult film star Stormy Daniels about an earlier affair. The former president has denied wrongdoing.

Prickel told the Enquirer she doesn't believe Trump did it.

"I just feel a lot of this is fabricated nonsense, just like everything else they've fabricated the last six years," Prickel said, expressing distrust in the media that many of her fellow Trump supporters also harbored.

Even if Trump did make the payments to the adult film star, that wouldn't shake her conviction in Trump

"No one is going to be a perfect person, unless we have Jesus himself," Prickel said. "If he was running this country he’d be perfect. But he’s not."

Karen Strayer, wearing her red Trump hat and "Don't blame me, I voted for Trump shirt," said she doesn't care if Trump paid off an adult film actress.

"They've been going after him since he came down the escalator," said Strayer, 63, of Florence, referring to Trump's campaign launch in 2015 when he rode down an escalator in Trump Tower. "They're always trying to get him and they can't get him. This is another trumped-up misdemeanor."

'He told them to stick it'

Those in attendance still saw Trump as an anti-establishment hero.

That’s what Bill Albright likes about him. Albright’s silver pickup truck sat outside Tuesday’s rally, a pirate skull affixed to the hood. A wooden sign in the pickup truck’s bed proclaimed “Will not comply” and “This is the government the founders warned us about.”

“This is why I’m on board with Trump,” said Albright, a 54-year-old resident of Batavia, a town east of Cincinnati in conservative Clermont County. “He told them to stick it.”

Deters will send footage to Trump family

Deters, the event organizer, said he didn't expect a large crowd on such short notice. The bar in rural Kentucky was chosen because it was available and his cousin knows the owners.

Deters told the crowd he's befriended the Trump family and would send video of the event to Kimberly Guilfoyle, Donald Trump Jr.'s fiance. Deters said he will ask Guilfoyle to share the video with Trump.

“What’s the message we want to send to the president?" Deters said to the crowd. "Here in the Midwest, the president is loved and supported. We loved his policies...We all know this is bad. It’s all political baloney.”

Trump didn't endorse Deters for governor. Instead, Trump endorsed Daniel Cameron, Kentucky's attorney general. But Deters said he hopes he can change Trump's mind. Deters' recent guilty plea to misdemeanor harassment and menacing charges related to a truck chase on his property also hasn't deterred his campaign.

"I'm not giving up," Deters said. "I'm working it hard and I'm making progress. I am confident and I'm hopeful that I'm still going to get that endorsement."

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Here's who heeded Trump's call for protest in Northern Kentucky