The former president asserts prosecution would “tear this country apart.”
QUICK FACTS:
- President Donald Trump says all documents from Mar-a-Lago seized by the Federal Bureau of Investigation during their recent raid were all declassified.
- The former president told Hugh Hewitt during an interview that he did nothing wrong, all official records were allowable, and the Department of Justice was in the wrong.
- “There is no reason that they can be other than if they are just sick and deranged, which is always possible because I did absolutely – you see the legal papers – absolutely nothing wrong,” Trump said.
MORE FROM TRUMP:
- “The people would not stand for it,” Trump told Hewitt. “I think you’d have problems in this country the likes of which you have ever seen before. If they ever did anything on indictment I just think it would just tear this country apart. I think this country would be torn apart,” Trump responded.
- Hewitt asked the former president if he believed he was being treated differently: “Every former president has papers that should not be with them by accident. Did you take those papers down there after declassifying them intentionally or did you have any idea they were there?”
- “Remember this – everything was declassified, number one,” Trump said. “And if you look at the presidential, if you look at the act that was passed, it talks about what you can – anything.”
BACKGROUND:
- The former legal team has consistently invoked the Presidential Records Act while defending Trump against accusations from the Department of Justice.
- The law provides that “the presidential records of a former president shall be available to such former president or the former president’s designated representative.”
