Source: Politics
Donald Trump will plead not guilty to charges connected to his handling of classified national security records, the former president told Fox News on Friday.
Trump told Fox News that he’s “totally innocent” and that the indictment is “election interference at the highest level.”
The former president, who is seeking reelection to the White House in next year’s election, announced Thursday that he had been indicted on charges connected to his handling of classified national security records. He wrote on social media that he had been summoned to federal court on Tuesday in Miami, where prosecutors are expected to charge Trump with seven criminal counts.
The indictment made public on Thursday apparently stems from an FBI raid of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence last August, when the federal government recovered more than 300 documents with classified markings, including some materials labeled “top secret,” seized months after Trump’s lawyers turned over 15 initial boxes of documents.
The special counsel has been investigating Trump’s handling of classified documents that were brought to Mar-a-Lago after he left the White House in 2021.
Trump’s lawyer, in a separate interview with Fox News, said Trump’s second indictment is nothing more than a “political weapon to sideline a candidate.”
“None of this is a surprise to the actual people at Archives, but they have turned it into a political weapon to sideline a candidate,” Trump lawyer Jim Trusty said on “Fox and Friends” Friday. “There’s a lot that’s wrong on the merits of these potential charges or what seems to be the indictment. But the flip side, even before you get to that, is the misconduct.”