Trump calls prosecutor ‘thug’ and vows to keep talking about criminal cases
9 August 2023, 06:44
His comments came even as prosecutors sought a protective order to limit the evidence that Mr Trump and his team could share.
Former president Donald Trump has kept up his attacks on special counsel Jack Smith and vowed to continue talking about his criminal cases.
His comments came even as prosecutors sought a protective order to limit the evidence that Mr Trump and his team could share.
In the early voting state of New Hampshire, Mr Trump assailed Mr Smith as a “thug prosecutor” and a “deranged guy” a week after being indicted on felony charges for his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the run-up to the insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6 2021.
The former president lobbed the insults at Mr Smith just days after the Department of Justice asked a judge to approve a protective order stopping Mr Trump from publicly disclosing evidence.
Federal prosecutors contend that Mr Trump is seeking to “try the case in the media rather than in the courtroom”.
The judge overseeing the case has scheduled a hearing over the protective order for Friday morning. Mr Trump, after his rally on Tuesday, made a post on his social media network attacking the judge, Tanya Chutkan.
Mr Trump’s lawyers have argued that the prospective order is too broad and would restrict his First Amendment rights of free speech, something Mr Trump echoed on stage on Tuesday.
“I will talk about it. They’re not taking away my First Amendment,” Mr Trump said, speaking to supporters during a rally at a high school in the south-eastern New Hampshire town of Windham.
The former president said he needs to be able to respond to reporters’ questions about the case on the campaign trail — something he has not made a practice of doing — and cited the movie 2000 Mules, which made various debunked claims about mail ballots, drop boxes and ballot collection in the 2020 presidential election.
“All of this will come up during this trial,” Mr Trump said.
In the four-count indictment filed against Mr Trump last week, the Justice Department accused him of orchestrating a scheme to block the peaceful transfer of power.
He was told by multiple people in trusted positions that his claims were false, prosecutors said, but he spread them anyway to sow public mistrust about the election.
Mr Trump, who pleaded not guilty to the charges, repeated his lies about the election on Tuesday, despite the fact that numerous federal and local election officials of both parties, a long list of courts, top former campaign staffers and even his attorney general have all said there is no evidence of the fraud he alleges.
He said: “There was never a second of any day that I didn’t believe that that election was rigged.
“It was a rigged election, and it was a stolen, disgusting election and this country should be ashamed.”
Mr Trump, who is also facing charges in Florida and New York, is gearing up for a possible fourth indictment, in a case out of Fulton County, Georgia, over alleged efforts by him and his allies to illegally meddle in the 2020 election in that state.
The county district attorney, Fani Willis, has signalled that any indictments in the case would likely come this month.
Mr Trump alluded to that on Tuesday, predicting that when it comes to indictments, “I should have four by sometime next week”.
He also launched into a highly personal attack on Ms Willis, who is black, calling the 52-year-old prosecutor “a young woman, a young racist in Atlanta”.
A spokesperson for Ms Willis declined to comment.
