Trump says he won’t pull out of 2024 race — even if he gets a PRISON sentence

Former President Donald Trump raised the specter of campaigning from a prison cell on Friday as he insisted he had done nothing wrong a day after more evidence emerged of a cover-up at Mar-a-Lago, where he is accused of keeping of classified documents.

A new indictment expands the charges against him, alleging that he ordered security videos erased.

Conservative radio host John Fredericks asked him if his campaign would end if he were convicted.

“Not at all,” he said. “There’s nothing in the Constitution to say that.”

Either way, the new charge deepens his legal woes, even as he and his supporters shrug off each new set of charges against him.

This week they are bracing for charges in an investigation by Special Counsel Jack Smith into a case related to the January 6 violence.

Prosecutors in Georgia are also said to be close to issuing charges in a 2020 election case.

Instead, the next step came when Smith filed an extensive series of charges in the case involving classified documents.

It revolves around surveillance footage from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. It alleges that the former president asked for the footage to be removed after FBI agents visited in June 2022 as they attempted to retrieve classified documents.

And it expands the number of defendants to include a Mar-a-Lago property manager, Carlos De Oliveira, who has worked for Trump for 20 years, as well as another aide, Walt Nauta.

All three are suspected of altering, destroying, mutilating or concealing an object.

With a trial date set for May next year, a conviction could have serious implications for Trump’s presidential run.

Even as the evidence against him mounts, Trump insists he did nothing wrong and claims to be the victim of a witch hunt.

He claimed he handed over surveillance footage when asked and said the charges were all part of an effort to get associates to fall over him.

“They’re trying to intimidate people so that people will make up lies about me because I haven’t done anything wrong,” he said.

He then defended Nauta and De Oliveira.

“These are two great employees,” he said. “They’ve been with me for a long time and they’re wonderful people and they want to destroy their lives.”

He said the nation would be better off if politicians were allowed to rule instead of getting caught up in “gotcha” lawsuits.

“These people are sick. What they are doing is absolutely appalling,” he told Fredericks.

Republicans were quick to repeat his talking points, avoiding the purport of allegations that he had misled investigators and could have compromised national security, instead accusing the Justice Department and FBI of being politicized. touch.

Even some of his 2024 presidential rivals have avoided an outright conviction for fear of alienating the Trump base.

After a town hall meeting in Ankeny, Iowa on Thursday, Senator Tim Scott pointed out what he said was another treatment of Trump and President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter.

“Ultimately, we should all be very concerned about arming the Justice Department,” he told reporters.

“We have to be very careful about how we use immense power against political opponents. That is not good for the soul of our country.

“Lady Justice must wear a blindfold. And what we’re seeing today, not just with the charges against the former president, but also against the son of the current president, are two very different tracks.”