Speaking to conservative talk show host Hugh Hewitt ahead of his rally near Youngstown, Ohio, later this week, Trump was asked if he thinks he will be indicted over the classified documents the FBI seized from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
The former president replied that he does not think he will be indicted because he has “done nothing wrong.”
“Well, there’s no reason that they can, [indict Trump] other than if they’re just sick and deranged, which is always possible, because I did absolutely, you’ve seen the legal papers, absolutely nothing wrong. And there’s no reason that they can do that.”
But when pressed about what he thinks would happen if he were indicted, Trump stated that the American people would not stand for it.
“If they ever did anything on indictment, I just think it would just tear this country apart. I think this country would be torn apart,” Trump said. “I think they’d have big problems, big problems. I just don’t think [the American people would] stand for it. They will not, they will not sit still and stand for this ultimate of hoaxes.” He later added that Americans “know I’m totally innocent.”
15 September 2022, 07:07 GMT
Trump also stated that if he were indicted, it would not prevent him from running for president in 2024.
Hewitt predicted that “legacy media” would interpret Trump’s comments as inciting violence, but Trump stated that he was not.
“That's not inciting. I’m just saying what my opinion is. I don’t think the people of this country would stand for it.”
Trump has been accused of inciting the riot that led to his supporters storming the capitol building. The House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol is looking into his actions that day to determine what role he played. That is separate from the Mar-a-Lago raid that was looking for classified documents, which was related to an investigation of Trump and his allies’ attempts to overturn the 2020 election.
The former president argued during the interview, and previously, that he declassified all of the documents he took from the White House. However, that is not an argument his legal team has been making in court.