Trump, who made the comments during a nearly hourlong exclusive on-camera interview at his golf club here, is now facing additional charges from Democrat President Joe Biden’s Justice Department. In addition, a third defendant, Carlos De Oliveira—Mar-a-Lago’s head of maintenance—now also faces charges, joining Trump and Trump valet Walt Nauta. Trump said the Presidential Records Act should protect him, and bashed the DOJ for coming after him but ignoring Biden. Trump argued the way Biden handled documents was reckless.
“I just heard it as I’m sitting down. This is harassment. This is election interference,” Trump said when asked to respond to the superseding indictment and additional charges. “I’m protected by the Presidential Records Act totally. It shouldn’t even be a case. It’s not a criminal case. Where’s Biden with all the documents? He’s got 20 times, 30 times the documents I have, and he has not made it easy for them either. He has been hiding boxes. They’re sending boxes to Chinatown. Boxes are being sent to Chinatown, and yet China is paying them millions of dollars. You explain that one. You don’t even hear about it. All you hear about is Trump. No, this is a two-tier system of injustice. That’s what we have. We have a sick country. Our country is very sick right now. We have a failing nation and it’s a very sad thing to watch.”
Trump’s interview with Breitbart News, which was long-scheduled, came moments after the Special Counsel’s office unveiled the superseding indictment, which added additional charges against Trump and Nauta and introduced De Oliveira as a defendant. The central new allegation is that the Special Counsel claims Trump and the others sought to delete Mar-a-Lago security footage in the summer of 2022.
Trump spokesman Steven Cheung, in response, also blasted the move from Smith as a “continued desperate and flailing attempt by the Biden Crime Family and their Department of Justice to harass President Trump and those around him.”
Trump also told Breitbart News that if elected president again—he is currently the leading GOP candidate for the White House—he would fire Smith. Trump also cited failed cases Smith’s office has brought against other politicians from both political parties, particularly the cases his office failed on against former Virginia GOP Gov. Bob McDonnell and against former Sen. John Edwards (D-NC). In the McDonnell case, the conviction Smith’s office obtained was overturned unanimously by the U.S. Supreme Court. In the Edwards case, charges Smith’s office brought failed—Edwards was acquitted on one, and the jury deadlocked on the others, with the DOJ not retrying him in the end.
“I wouldn’t keep him,” Trump replied when asked if he would fire Smith. “Jack Smith? Why would I keep him? He is—look, he’s gone after other people. He’s been overturned unanimously in the Supreme Court. He’s destroyed a lot of lives. Lives have been destroyed. He’s destroyed people—he’s destroyed lives… He was Lois Lerner and the IRS case, which was one of the most egregious abuses what happened. The government had to apologize to people. He went after Christians. This is a guy—he’s a wild man. I call him deranged. He’s been overturned. He went after the governor of Virginia—overturned unanimously. He went after another senator or something and was overturned. What he’s done is just horrible. The abuse of power—it is prosecutorial misconduct.”
Asked specifically if he thinks the legal troubles he faces from Smith will end up like the McDonnell case or the Edwards case, Trump said he thinks history will remember this all as an “embarrassment” for Democrats and for the nation. Trump added that he believes the reason Biden’s Justice Department is bringing these charges is because...
