Trump Calls Federal Indictment Ridiculous and Baseless

Former US President Donald Trump on Saturday called his historic federal indictment “ridiculous” and “baseless” and an attack on his supporters.

In the first public appearance since the 37 felony chargesDonald Trump said it was an attack on his supporters, trying to turn a legal issue into a political advantage.

Speaking at the Georgia Republican Convention, Donald Trump called his Justice Department prosecution an attempt to damage his chances of returning to the White House as he campaigns for a second term.

“They launched one witch hunt after another to try to stop our movement, to thwart the will of the American people,” said Donald Trump, later adding: “At the end of the day they are not coming after me. They are coming after you “, he said, in front of hundreds of supporters.

Donald Trump, president from 2017 to 2021, remains the frontrunner for the 2024 GOP nomination despite his growing legal troubles.

“This ridiculous and baseless accusation against me, made by Joe Biden’s Department of Justice, will be remembered as the worst abuse of power in the history of our country”, said the former head of state, in a speech full of false claims.

The audience, many wearing Donald Trump’s characteristic red caps, reacted with applause to the former president’s words and did not hesitate to boo when the Republican referred to the President of the United States, Democrat Joe Biden.

Joe Biden, who has already announced that he will run for re-election in 2024, has not yet taken a position on Donald Trump’s new accusation, the second after he was indicted in March of this year in New York in a tax fraud case.

According to the indictment, known on Friday, 37 crimes are at stake. After leaving office in 2021, Trump ordered that dozens of boxes containing newspaper clippings, letters, photographs and hundreds of classified documents, including information about nuclear secrets and plans to attack other countries, be moved from the White House to his mansion in Sea-a-Lago, Florida.

Those documents were not securely stored, and ended up in different corners of Trump’s mansion, including a bedroom, a ballroom and a bathroom, according to photographs included in the indictment.

Under the Presidential Records Act of 1978, all of a president’s documents are public property of the United States government and not private, so Donald Trump, upon leaving the White House, should have handed over classified documents to the National Archives, which have your custody.

A few months after Donald Trump left the White House, the National Archives discovered that they had not been given all the classified documents of his presidency and, as the former president did not return them, they turned to the FBI, which resulted in the opening of a judicial inquiry.

In August 2022, the FBI searched the former president’s mansion to seize the boxes of classified documents that were still in his custody.

Despite the intervention of the FBI, according to the indictment, Donald Trump may have endangered the security of the United States not only because the documents were not stored securely, but also because the former president showed them to people who were not authorized. to see them.