Former President Donald Trump’s campaign responded to his latest indictment by saying these “fake charges” amount to “election interference” and comparing the investigation to Nazi Germany.
The campaign’s remarks came after a federal grand jury charged Trump based on the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and his attempt to remain in power despite losing the 2020 election.
“This is nothing more than the latest corrupt chapter in the continued pathetic attempt by the Biden Crime Family and their weaponised Department of Justice to interfere with the 2024 Presidential Election, in which President Trump is the undisputed frontrunner, and leading by substantial margins,” the campaign said.
Trump first said on July 18 that “deranged Jack Smith”, whom the Justice Department appointed as special counsel in charge of the investigation, had sent his lawyers a letter saying he was a target of their investigation, adding he was told he had four days to report to a grand jury.
On Tuesday, Trump’s campaign insisted that the charges amount to “election interference” in his bid for the 2024 Republican nomination and compared the legal challenges to Nazi Germany and other dictatorships.
“The lawlessness of these persecutions of President Trump and his supporters is reminiscent of Nazi Germany in the 1930s, the former Soviet Union, and other authoritarian, dictatorial regimes,” the campaign said. “President Trump has always followed the law and the Constitution, with advice from many highly accomplished attorneys.”
Smith reportedly spoke to dozens of witnesses in Trump’s orbit about his behaviour following his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden, including former Vice President Mike Pence, former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and former aide Stephen Miller.
The indictment is the latest in a string of serious legal woes for the former president. Trump was indicted last month on 37 felony charges over his handling of classified documents after he left the White House and his alleged efforts to obstruct their return to the government. The district attorney in Georgia’s Fulton County is also investigating Trump’s efforts to overturn election results in the state in 2020.
The former president was also indicted on 34 state charges in New York in March in a case centred on hush money payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 election.
Trump and his allies attempted to overturn the 2020 results in several ways, including dozens of lawsuits that challenged the certification of votes, attempts to install so-called fake electors in swing states and direct calls from Trump to state election officials trying to persuade them change vote results to make him the winner instead of Democrat Joe Biden.
All of those efforts failed, but Trump has continued to reject the results of the 2020 presidential election and blasted any effort to hold him legally accountable as yet another “witch hunt.”
On July 18, Michigan’s attorney general filed felony charges against 16 Republicans who acted as fake electors in an attempt to challenge the state’s certified Electoral College votes. They are accused of submitting false certificates that claimed they were the legitimate electors even though Biden had won the state in 2020.
The latest charges will further complicate the 2024 presidential race. Trump so far is the major front-runner among GOP candidates, according to polls about potential matchups. But he will likely be forced to defend himself on multiple fronts, in multiple court rooms, in multiple states as election season begins in earnest.
His attorneys have attempted to delay the trial in his classified documents case, arguing that any legal action during an election season would amount to a “miscarriage of justice.”