Whether one loves Donald Trump or loathes the ground on which he walks, there’s one point on which virtually all Trump watchers can agree: The former president seemingly believes he did zero wrong in either the classified documents case or the case on his alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election.
As Trump sees both cases, “deranged” Special Counsel Jack Smith is “harassing” him because he’s “up by a lot” in various early 2024 presidential election surveys. This is the point where the aforementioned agreement blows apart with a fury — depending on one’s predisposed predilections.
As my colleague Becca Lower reported on Thursday, Trump reacted angrily after Smith filed a superseding indictment in the classified documents case, adding three new felony charges against the former president, including claims that he asked a Mar-a-Lago employee to delete security camera footage sought by federal investigators investigating his handling of classified documents, and possession of a highly classified war plan that he allegedly shared with people lacking security clearances — months after his presidency ended.
It should be noted that these charges are very specific in nature — hardly the stuff of “made-up charges.”
This is not to suggest that Trump is guilty of either, but rather that it’s highly unlikely they were concocted out of thin air. Specifically, the Mar-a-Lago employee charge could quickly become problematic for Trump if the employee testifies under oath that Trump did indeed ask him to delete security camera footage.
Yet, Trump exclusively told Fox News Digital:
“It’s election interference at the highest level,” Trump told Fox News Digital just after he learned of the latest indictment. “They’re harassing my company, they’re harassing my family and by far, least importantly of all, they’re harassing me.”
“[T]he charges are ridiculous, and they know it better than anyone.”
“This is prosecutorial misconduct used at a level never seen before. If I weren’t leading Biden by a lot in numerous polls, and wasn’t going to be the Republican nominee, it wouldn’t be happening. It wouldn’t be happening.”
“But I am way up as a Republican and way up in the general election and this is what you get.”
I think I’ll just leave that there.
In addition, Trump issued a fiery statement on Thursday in which he called Smith “deranged.”
This is nothing more than a continued desperate and flailing attempt by the Biden Crime Family and their Department of Justice to harass President Trump and those around him.
Deranged Jack Smith knows that they have no case and is casting about for any way to salvage their illegal witch hunt and to get someone other than Donald Trump to run against Crooked Joe Biden.
Again, come to your own conclusions.
“This is nothing more than a continued desperate and flailing attempt by the Biden Crime Family and their Department of Justice to harass President Trump and those around him.
— Liz Harrington (@realLizUSA) July 27, 2023
Deranged Jack Smith knows that they have no case and is casting about for any way to salvage… pic.twitter.com/GnD1t0h42p
Finally, Trump exclusively told Breitbart News in a nearly hour-long interview that Smith’s case(s) against him constitute nothing more than “harassment.”
I just heard it as I’m sitting down. This is harassment. This is election interference. I’m protected by the Presidential Records Act totally. It shouldn’t even be a case. It’s not a criminal case. Where’s Biden with all the documents?
He’s got 20 times, 30 times the documents I have, and he has not made it easy for them either. He has been hiding boxes. They’re sending boxes to Chinatown. Boxes are being sent to Chinatown, and yet China is paying them millions of dollars.
You explain that one. You don’t even hear about it. All you hear about is Trump. No, this is a two-tier system of injustice. That’s what we have. We have a sick country. Our country is very sick right now. We have a failing nation and it’s a very sad thing to watch.
Trump also commented about how he thinks history will remember the indictments against him — and yet again repeated his “up by a lot” assertion as the reason he’s being targeted.
I think they’ll end up being an embarrassment to the Democrats and an embarrassment to our country and they have lifted my poll numbers, in all fairness. They didn’t want to run against me. That’s why they did it. They did this so I wouldn’t get the nomination. It’s actually had the reverse effect. It’s lifted my numbers—but I was winning anyway by a lot.
Now the polls just came out today and I’m winning by like 40 points, 45 points, and I’m also beating Biden by a lot—and DeSantis, or DeSanctimonious as I call him, is losing very badly to Biden. I’m winning by a lot to [sic] Biden. …
It’s had a reverse impact because the public is smart and they see this stuff for now, maybe a January 6 case — maybe not too — because I did nothing wrong. But what they’re doing, it’s not been received very well by the public, because the poll numbers are through the roof.
They did this in order to get me out. It’s incredible, because the public gets it and it had the opposite impact.
One can use any number of descriptors to explain Donald Trump and the things he says. At or near the top of the list is Trump’s propensity to stick to a simplistic story, which he repeats over and over, changing up the words a bit along the way, but always arriving at the same place: He did nothing wrong.
In Trump’s view, every charge against him that comes down the pike is somebody else’s fault and is driven solely by ulterior motives.
