According to Alina Habba, an attorney and spokesperson for Donald Trump, unfavourable news about the former president amounts to “election interference.”
During an appearance on right-wing network Newsmax, Habba was asked by guest anchor representative Matt Gaetz (Republican, Florida) to comment on a new Daily Beast report.
The outlet reported on Monday that Bernie Kerik, a former New York police commissioner who helped Trump look into supposed election fraud in 2020, has cut a deal to turn over thousands of pages of documents to special counsel Jack Smith as part of the Justice Department investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Habba told Gaetz she couldn’t “get into any details,” then pivoted to attacking The Daily Beast, Hunter Biden and the media.
“They come out with this for a reason,” she said. “And everything is done in specific timing. Headlines are done for election interference.”
She accused the media of reporting on the former president in an attempt to distract from stories about Hunter Biden.
“They say, look at the shiny ball guys, don’t look over here, we don’t want you to see it, we want to give you another headline,” she said.
The media, including The Daily Beast, have been reporting on investigations into President Joe Biden’s son, who agreed to plead guilty last month to two federal misdemeanoir offences for tax evasion. Two IRS whistleblowers have since testified to Congress that the Justice Department hampered their investigation and watered down the charges.
The media has also been reporting on investigations into Trump, who was indicted in March and then again in June on dozens of felony charges.
The March indictment, a state-level case, was tied to an alleged hush money scheme to influence the 2016 election.
The federal indictment in June was over Trump’s handling of classified documents after leaving office and his alleged efforts to obstruct that investigation.
He may soon face additional charges in Smith’s probe into 2020 election interference and the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol. He’s also under investigation in Georgia for plotting to overturn the state’s 2020 vote for Joe Biden.
Trump is currently the front-runner for the Republican 2024 presidential nomination.