Former President Donald Trump insisted he ‘very legally’ took secret government documents from the White House in a new interview.
The 77-year-old sat down with Newsmax’s Greg Kelly on Wednesday to challenge the FBI’s execution of a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago in August 2022.
“I dealt with them,” Trump said. ‘We had a good time. And then all of a sudden they looted this house. They attacked Mar-a-Lago.’
He denounced the FBI as ‘corrupt’.
Prosecutors allege that Trump packed hundreds of classified documents into boxes as he prepared to leave the White House in 2021.
Former President Donald Trump blasted the federal government’s handling of his classified documents case in a Wednesday interview with Newsmax
Trump noted that President Joe Biden was similarly accused of keeping classified documents but was not indicted
After retrieving hundreds of documents from the Florida property in January 2022, the government reached out to Trump, believing he still had materials in his possession.
Trump’s lawyer signed a letter saying that as far as she knew, no such documents remained at the site.
But during the raid later that year, more than 100 other documents were recovered from boxes neatly stored in a ballroom, a bathroom and a storage room.
In Wednesday’s interview, Trump noted that President Joe Biden faced similar allegations of keeping classified documents.
“But they’re releasing Biden,” Trump raged.
‘Something is happening because they are viciously after me. Then it suddenly emerges that Biden took 10 times as many documents as I did.’
He claimed he took the materials ‘very legally’ and ‘wasn’t hiding anything’.
Also in 2022, FBI agents raided Biden’s home in Delaware and found that he had kept classified documents from his time as senator and vice president.
These included files on Afghanistan and drafts of a handwritten memo to former President Barack Obama urging him not to send more troops into the country.
The 77-year-old insisted he took the materials ‘very legally’ and ‘wasn’t hiding anything’
In a report released last month, special counsel Robert Hur explained that Biden cooperated with the government while Trump ‘obstructed justice’ in thwarting their efforts
Biden was found to have kept classified documents from his time as senator and vice president, including a handwritten memo to former President Barack Obama
In a report released early last month, special counsel Robert Hur compared the two cases and outlined the decision to charge Trump and not Biden.
The refrain was that Trump ‘obstructed justice’ by thwarting the government’s efforts to recover the documents while Biden cooperated.
He portrayed the sitting president as an elderly man with a failing memory, a characterization that has been met with opposition on both sides of the aisle.
The differences between the two cases were ‘clear’, Hur wrote.
While Biden agreed to a search of his properties and sat for a voluntary interview, the allegations in Trump’s case present “serious aggravating facts.”
“Most notably, after being given multiple chances to return classified documents and avoid prosecution, Mr. Trump allegedly did the opposite,” Hur wrote.
Trump was hit with 32 counts of willful withholding of national defense information, each involving a specific document labeled ‘SECRET’ or ‘TOP SECRET’.
The information in the files concerned US nuclear weapons and the nuclear capability of a foreign country.
Trump faces a total of 40 felony charges in the case.
Trump was accused of taking documents clearly marked ‘SECRET’ or ‘TOP SECRET’
After an initial search yielded hundreds of classified documents, the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago in 2022 and found more than 100 others neatly stored in boxes throughout the property
During the interview, Trump unleashed his fury on special counsel Jack Smith, the attorney leading the charge to prosecute him in the classified documents case.
Smith, who filed the charges in Washington, DC and South Florida, was considered ‘a total animal’ and ‘an insane individual’.
Trump then suggested that Smith was acting on the orders of the current president.
“He was told to do a number on me because they think that’s the way Biden gets elected,” Trump said.
‘This has never happened in this country before. If I had to fight it in a nice way, I don’t think I would succeed’.
Trump was sure to praise his administration’s achievements in comparison to the perceived failures of the Biden administration.
These included ‘safest border’, ‘biggest economy’, ‘biggest regulatory cuts’, ‘rebuilt the military’ and ‘created space force’.
The GOP front-runner said he had to ‘fight back’ and denied being ‘fake.’
“If I didn’t fight hard, if I didn’t fight nasty and do it the way I need to do it, I wouldn’t be being interviewed right now,” he said.
“No, I have to make it strong.”
Trump blasted the infamous Steele dossier written by former British spy Christopher Steele, which alluded to ties between his 2016 presidential campaign and the Kremlin
The 77-year-old insisted the country achieved the ‘most secure border’ and ‘biggest economy’ during his presidency
Amid the ongoing legal turmoil, Trump insisted he was being targeted by investigators and prosecutors, calling them ‘evil people’.
‘These people, a lot of them, you know, they make up fake stories like Russia, Russia, Russia fraud. It was a hoax. It was a long time – it took me two years to get rid of that thing,’ he blurted out.
He was speaking in reference to the Steele dossier, a research report prepared by former British spy Christopher Steele, who once ran the Russia desk of MI6.
The case detailed alleged links between Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and the Kremlin.
It also included now-infamous allegations of sexual activity Trump engaged in at a Moscow hotel.
Last week, the former president was ordered to pay $382,000 in legal fees to Orbis Business Intelligence, Steele’s firm, after unsuccessfully trying to sue.