- A day after the indictment in the US secret documents affair was published, ex-President Donald Trump sharply attacked the investigating Department of Justice.
- Trump appeared at a Republican Party event in the state of Georgia.
- The 76-year-old spoke of a politically motivated campaign.
The lawsuit is intended to prevent his return to the White House, said Trump, who is running again for the presidential election in 2024. The administration of President Joe Biden is using the Justice Department “as a weapon” and the allegations are “ridiculous and baseless”. Trump did not provide any evidence of this. It was his first public appearance since the 37 charges against him became public on Friday.
According to the indictment, Trump is said to have illegally withheld confidential and top-secret documents on the US nuclear program and possible US weaknesses in the event of an attack when he left the White House in early 2021. Trump is also accused of obstruction of justice. According to earlier statements, Trump is scheduled to appear in court in Florida on Tuesday – one day before his 77th birthday.
Around 13,000 documents confiscated
The Justice Department reiterated that all decisions regarding investigations should be impartial. President Biden has said he will not play a role in the Trump investigation. Immediately after the publication, Trump sharply attacked the special counsel Jack Smith on his Truth Social platform. At the Georgia appearance, he said the charges against him would go down in US history as “one of the most horrific forms of abuse of power”.
Legend:
According to Trump, he is due to appear in federal court in Miami on Tuesday.
Keystone/EPA/ERIK LESSER
The only good thing about the indictment is that it will boost his approval ratings within the Republican Party, Trump said. Indeed, this was the case once before, when Trump was indicted in March in connection with a hush money payment to porn actress Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 election. Trump pleaded not guilty in the case but was convicted.
According to the Justice Department, around 13,000 documents were confiscated during a raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida in August. About 100 of them are said to have been classified, some of them top secret. A US law requires that a president’s correspondence be archived for posterity.