STORY: Former President Donald Trump appeared a day after his arraignment in Washington D.C. facing charges of subverting the 2020 election
and told his supporters in Alabama that his legal troubles wouldn’t hinder his 2024 campaign.
“Every time they file an indictment, we go way up in the polls. We need one more indictment to close out this election. One more indictment. And this election is closed out. Nobody has even a chance.”
Speaking at a Republican dinner, Trump called the charges outlined in his indictment an “act of desperation” by the Biden administration.
“The fake charges put forth in their sham indictment are an outrageous criminalization of political speech as orders. You make a statement, ‘Oh, we have to indict him because he said we were dishonest. Let’s indict him’. They tried to make it illegal to question the results of a bad election. It was a very bad election. Everybody knows that. But only a party that cheats in elections would try to make it illegal, because if you have nothing to hide, why would you do that? And why would you be afraid to have those results come out?
The former president faces four felonies over his efforts to undo his 2020 election loss to Biden
including conspiracy to defraud the U.S., to deprive citizens of their voting rights, and to obstruct an official proceeding.
The most serious charge carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
He pleaded not guilty to the charges brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith, who he called on Friday
“…a deranged, sick person.”
Then on Friday, Trump pleaded not guilty to three new charges, relating to his handling of U.S. classified documents after he left the White House in 2021.
The new charges against Trump in the documents case include an additional count for unlawful retention of national defense information and two more counts of obstruction of justice.
U.S. prosecutors on Friday also made a filing flagging a threatening social media post from Donald Trump.
The former president wrote “If you go after me, I’m coming after you” on his Truth Social site, which prosecutors argued it suggests he might intimidate witnesses by improperly disclosing evidence.
Trump’s other legal woes include charges in the state of New York over hush money payments to a porn star, and an ongoing investigation in Georgia on whether he illegally interfered with the state’s 2020 election.