President Donald J. Trump issued a scathing response to special counsel Jack Smith’s filing of additional charges against him in his classified documents case, while also indicting a third person within Trump’s orbit in the process.
Last week, Smith filed a superseding indictment against Trump, which included new charges related to the willful retention of national defense information and obstruction. The prosecutors alleged that Trump and his aides were involved in instructing a staff member at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida to delete security camera footage deliberately. Smith alleged the action was taken with the intention of preventing the presentation of evidence to a federal grand jury.
Trump, however, denied the allegations categorically and said he ensured his legal team handed over any and all requested security footage unaltered.
“Mar-a-Lago security tapes were not deleted,” Trump wrote on TRUTH Social. “They were voluntarily handed over to the thugs, headed up by deranged Jack Smith. We did not even go to court to stop them from getting these tapes. I never told anybody to delete them. Prosecutorial fiction & misconduct! Election interference!”
In a subsequent post, he compared the current allegations against him to the “Russia, Russia, Russia hoax.”
“They knowingly accuse you of a fake crime, a crime that they actually makeup, you fight these false charges hard, and they try and get you on ‘obstruction.’ We are dealing with sick and evil people!” he added.
According to court documents reported by The Epoch Times, DOJ prosecutors assert that in the latest court filings, a Mar-a-Lago employee named Carlos De Olivera informed another staff member that “the boss” wanted a server “deleted” on June 27, 2022. That allegedly occurred approximately two months before FBI agents conducted a raid at Trump’s residence, during which they purportedly uncovered documents in a storage area.
In a Sunday interview on Fox News, Trump attorney Alina Habba dismissed any potential government claim that Trump ‘obstructed’ any investigation.
“What was the obstruction of justice? Because no tapes were deleted,” Habba said. “He turned them over. He cooperated as he always does. But they would like the American public to believe in these bogus indictments.”
“When he has his turn in court, and when we get to file our papers, you will see that every single video, every single surveillance tape that was requested, was turned over,” she noted further. “If President Trump didn’t want something turned over, I assure you, that is something that could have been done. But he never would act like that. He is the most ethical American I know.”
In yet another Truth Social post, Trump said that the Justice Department allegedly admitted that the tapes were not deleted.
“The Crooked Election Interference ‘Thugs’ from the DOJ, headed by the worst Thug of them all, Deranged Jack Smith, are now admitting that the Mar-a-Lago Security Tapes were NOT DELETED,” he said. “That’s not what they were illegally leaking to the press. These guys should be prosecuted for MISCONDUCT. Also, whatever happened to Crooked Joe’s Documents? Where are the ones he sent and stored in Chinatown? Is Deranged Jack going to Indict him for this and, at the same time, receiving BRIBES FROM CHINA?”
Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Robert Hur as a special counsel to look into Biden’s possession of classified documents, which — as a U.S. senator and even vice president — he had no legal authority to personally declassify. But Hur has not been heard from for months and it is unclear what progress, if any, he has made in his investigation.
“The legal jeopardy Trump faces extends beyond the case of the document. He may also face charges stemming from Smith’s inquiry into efforts geared toward fighting the outcome of the 2020 election,” The Daily Wire reported.
“Trump also faces state-level charges in the New York hush-money case brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. Charges in a 2020 election-focused inquiry in Georgia could also follow,” the outlet continued.