Mary Lou Masters
Former President Donald Trump made his first public speech Saturday since his indictment, where he persistently ripped on Special Counsel Jack Smith, the Department of Justice and the FBI and pledged to oust President Joe Biden in 2024.
Trump announced Thursday he’d been informed of the indictment that was released Friday, unveiling 31 counts of alleged violations of the Espionage Act tied with Smith’s documents probe and the August raid on Mar-a-Lago. The former president maintained his stance that the charges are “election interference,” immediately pointing to documents found in Biden’s home.
“Now the marxist left is once again using the same corrupt DOJ and the same corrupt FBI, and the attorney general and the local district attorneys to interfere in our elections at a level that our country, and few countries have ever seen before. They’re cheating, they’re crooked, they’re corrupt,” Trump said in a speech at Georgia’s Republican convention. “These criminals cannot be rewarded, they must be defeated, you have to defeat them, you have to defeat them. Because in the end, they are not coming after me, they‘re coming after you, and I am just standing in their way. Here I am, just standing in their way, and I always will be.”
Trump pointed to the documents found in the Penn-Biden Center, the president’s think tank in Washington, D.C., and Biden’s Delaware home from his time as vice president, as well as the classified document found in former Vice President Mike Pence’s home. He slammed Smith for being “deranged” and a “Trump-hater,” and criticized the lack of charges brought against both Pence and Biden.
“November 5, 2024, we will stand up to the corrupt political establishment. We will evict a totally corrupt president, Joe Biden, from the White House. We will finish the job that we started, the most successful president,” Trump said.
“The stakes of this election could not be more stark. Either we have a deep state or we have a democracy, we’re going to have one or the other, and we’re right at the tipping point,” said Trump. “Right now we’re way leaning toward deep state but deep state isn’t strong enough. It’s really a communist country, a marxist country — deep state’s not strong enough. Deep state now is a nice term compared to what we’re doing. Either we have a failed country, or a free and successful country, and either they win or we win, it’s very simple. It is simple, they win or you win.”
The indictment stems from a years-long investigation into the former president which included the FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago in August, where they recovered over 300 pages of classified documents. Trump was first alerted that an indictment in the documents probe was imminent on Wednesday when his counsel received a letter from federal prosecutors, informing the former president he was the target of their investigation.
“This is a sick nest of people that needs to be cleaned out immediately, get em’ out,” said Trump.
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