Former President Donald Trump implied that if he were to win the presidency in the upcoming year, his administration could take action against those who have charged him with indictments.
“If they do this, and they’ve already done it, but if they follow through on this, yeah, it could certainly happen in reverse. It could certainly happen in reverse,” Trump said in an interview with Univision that aired Thursday, according to the Washington Times. “What they’ve done is they’ve released the genie out of the box. You understand that, they’ve done something that nobody thought would happen.”
The 45th President also labelled the indictments brought by the Biden Administration as “pathetic”, suggesting they were motivated in aiding President Biden’s re-election campaign. Furthermore, he asserted that Biden had utilized the Justice Department and FBI as weapons of political warfare.
“They’ve done indictments in order to win an election. They call it weaponization, and the people aren’t going to stand for it,” Trump told the Spanish-language network. “If I happen to be president and I see somebody who’s doing well and beating me very badly, I say, ‘Go down and indict them.’ Mostly what that would be, you know, they would be out of business. They’d be out, they’d be out of the election.”
The Times reported further:
The former president has been indicted in four separate cases this year, both federal and state. The Justice Department has charged him in Florida for mishandling classified documents and in Washington for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.
He is also facing charges in New York for hush money payments to cover up extramarital affairs and in Georgia for trying to overturn the state’s 2020 election results.
President Trump has entered a plea of not guilty to all the charges. He has stated that he believes the indictments have been beneficial in terms of his re-election prospects. Additionally, he has referred to the accusations as “political persecution” and “a political hoax.”
“I’m probably the only guy ever indicted whose poll numbers have shot up through the roof,” he said.
Other Republicans have expressed their concern regarding the charges brought against former President Donald Trump, claiming they are politically motivated.
Following the FBI’s raid on the former president’s Mar-a-Lago estate in August 2022, radio host and former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino heavily criticized the Biden administration and Justice Department for its perceived politicization.
During an interview on Jesse Watters’ “Primetime” program, Bongino denounced what he deemed as a “third-world” situation.
“This is some third-world bullshit right here,” Bongino said. “Let me say it again, third-world bullshit. I mean every word of that. I don’t care that it’s cable news.
“I was a federal agent, I raised my right hand. And I swore to protect and defend the constitution of the United States. And I love this country. This is a freaking disgrace. A disgrace. We don’t live in Cuba. We don’t live under Kim Jong Un” of North Korea, he continued.
“We live in a constitutional republic. A representative democracy. You have a bunch of FBI agents raiding the home of a former president because they don’t like his politics? Are you kidding me?” he added.
“This is some third-world garbage that happened tonight,” he continued.
Following the raid, Trump asserted that it was politically motivated and intended to prevent his potential re-election in 2024.
“These are dark times for our Nation, as my beautiful home, Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, is currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents,” Trump said. “Nothing like this has ever happened to a President of the United States before. After working and cooperating with the relevant Government agencies, this unannounced raid on my home was not necessary or appropriate.”
Michael Tabman, the former head of the FBI’s Minneapolis Field Office, stated to Fox News that the raid on a former president was “unprecedented”.
“We just haven’t investigated presidents after they’ve served their term,” he said. “But it is a huge move by the FBI in that the political sensitivities are clear. It’s obvious that they’re dealing on a very, sort of tenuous political climate when you go out and you investigate a president, especially one who says he may run for office again.”
