“Whenever they come up with an indictment, we go up in the polls,” Trump said in the southeastern U.S. state of Alabama. “One more accusation and this election is closed. No one even has a chance,” he added.
Despite the accumulating lawsuits, the businessman remains the favorite for the Republican nomination and has even widened the distance to the ‘number 2’, the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, after the most recent accusation.
The tycoon pleaded “not guilty” on Thursday in a lawsuit, which is taking place in Washington, and in which he is accused of a conspiracy to try to change the result of the 2020 presidential elections, in which he was defeated.
“Many of these lawsuits (…) could have been filed two and a half years ago. But they didn’t want to introduce them two and a half years ago, they wanted to wait. (…) And they waited until I became the dominant force in the polls,” Trump said.
In his speech in Alabama, the businessman described the accusation as “ridiculous” and illegal and a sign of the instrumentalization of the Department of Justice by the current US President, the Democrat Joe Biden.
“This is a desperate act by a pathetic Joe Biden – ‘The Scumbag’ – and his leftist radical thugs to keep their grip on power,” added the 77-year-old Republican.
Biden “is a corrupt and incompetent thief, and he should not be allowed to be President”, said Trump, before about 2,700 people, still accusing some Republicans of being “weak idiots”.
On Friday, the tycoon’s campaign launched an online ad attacking the Justice Department’s special counsel, Jack Smith, who led the investigation that culminated in the conspiracy charge.
On the same day, the Department of Justice asked the federal judge who is handling the case to intervene, after Trump made a publication on the Internet in which he promised revenge against those who accused him.
Hours before the speech in Alabama, Trump had also proclaimed his innocence in new accusations, made public at the end of July, in the case of alleged negligent handling of confidential White House documents.
The former president is the target of 37 charges in this process, including illegal retention of information related to national security (including military plans or information about nuclear weapons), obstruction of justice and false testimony.
The businessman was also indicted for falsifying commercial documents in a case involving pornographic actress Stormy Daniels, with whom Trump had an affair in 2006, in a process that is taking place in New York.
*With Lusa
