By Catherine Yang
Former President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social on Monday that he is expecting an indictment from the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol breach investigation to come “any day now.”
Mr. Trump emphasized in capitalized letters that his speech that day was made “peacefully and patriotically” but he expects charges from special counsel Jack Smith regardless.
He called the indictments “election interference” and “prosecutorial misconduct” on the part of the Biden administration, saying they are also being used to distract from investigations into the Biden family’s own financial dealings with foreign nationals, including the use of President Joe Biden’s current position as well as his previous position as vice president in the Obama administration in order to solicit business and funds.
“The Radical Left Democrat Thugs shouldn’t be allowed to investigate me during, and in the middle of, my campaign for President. Why didn’t they file these ridiculous charges 2.5 years ago?” Mr. Trump wrote.
“They waited because they wanted to illegally and negatively influence the 2024 Presidential Election, arguably the most important Election in the history of the USA. We are going to take our now Third World Nation (Airports, Elections, Roads/Highways, Borders, etc.) and, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN. BE STRONG!”
Mr. Trump said on July 27 that his lawyers had met with the Justice Department and had a “productive meeting,” and that “an indictment of me would only further destroy our country.”
Jurors were seen entering a courthouse Thursday morning, and news reports had claimed an indictment could come as soon as that same day.
More than 1,000 people have already been charged with Jan. 6-related offenses.
Multiple Cases
Mr. Trump is facing another investigation in Georgia, where Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney on Monday rejected Mr. Trump’s bid to disqualify Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from prosecuting the case.
The criminal investigation centers around a phone call Mr. Trump made to Republican Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in 2020, asking about the number of votes for him in the state.
“I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,” then-President Trump said to Mr. Raffensperger.
Ms. Willis maintains that Mr. Trump tried to illegally overturn the results of the presidential election in the state of Georgia. Mr. Trump says the investigation is “strictly a political witch hunt.”
Mr. Trump’s legal team argued that she had a partisan interest in the case, which should disqualify her. Judge McBurney wrote that the team failed to show Ms. Willis was biased in her actions.
The case will be heard on Aug. 10.
Meanwhile, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp has been contacted by Mr. Smith’s office, presumably about the Jan. 6 case.
Mr. Smith is also in charge of the Mar-a-Lago case concerning classified documents, in which he last week announced three new charges.
Last week, the special counsel charged Mr. Trump with willful retention of national defense information and two charges in connection to the claims that he told a Mar-a-Lago worker to delete security tapes to prevent a grand jury from seeing them. In that filing, the Department of Justice (DOJ) named Mar-a-Lago staffer Carlos De Oliveira as a third defendant in the complaint.
On Sunday, Mr. Trump denied all three charges.
“Mar-a-Lago security tapes were not deleted,” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social. “They were voluntarily handed over to the thugs, headed up by deranged Jack Smith. We did not even go to court to stop them from getting these tapes. I never told anybody to delete them. Prosecutorial fiction & misconduct! Election interference!”
“They knowingly accuse you of a fake crime, a crime that they actually make up, you fight these false charges hard, and they try and get you on ‘obstruction,’” Mr. Trump wrote. “We are dealing with sick and evil people!”
Alina Habba, spokesperson and attorney for Mr. Trump, told Fox News in a July 30 interview that Mr. Trump never directed an employee to delete tapes.
“When he has his turn in court, and when we get to file our papers, you will see that every single video, every single surveillance tape that was requested, was turned over,” Ms. Habba said. “If President Trump didn’t want something turned over, I assure you, that is something that could have been done. But he never would act like that. He is the most ethical American I know.
“The new superseding indictment that came out, which they tried to get another headline for President Trump, was facts that said that President Trump did what? What was the obstruction of justice because no tapes were deleted. He turned them over; he cooperated as he always does. But they would like the American public to believe in these bogus indictments that there are some facts that say that President Trump was obstructing justice.”
Mr. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges and maintains that as president, he had the right to take the documents as well as the right to declassify them. The case is set to go to trial in May 2024.
