Former president and Republican 2024 frontrunner Donald Trump lashed out at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and FBI in a series of posts on his Truth social media account on Tuesday over their ongoing investigation of his handling of classified documents.
In November, Attorney General Merrick Garland had appointed prosecutor Jack Smith to lead a special counsel investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents after leaving the White House. The investigation has also been probing Trump’s involvement in the breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and whether Trump broke any laws in raising objections about the 2020 election results.
“Joe Biden kept (keeps) thousand of documents, in many locations, some illegally taken from skiffs while he was a Senator, a big portion of which were classified. He didn’t want to give them back, and still doesn’t,” Trump continued. “Nothing happens to him, with same reasonable prosecutor who correctly exonerated Mike Pence.”
“I have a much different prosecutor, a Trump hater!”
“They don’t want to run against me. I ran twice, I did much better the second time, getting millions and millions more votes than the first, a record for a sitting President, and am leading Biden in the polls, by a lot. They are the Party of Disinformation! They are using the DOJ & FBI against me to Rigg (sic) the 2024 Election,” Trump said. “They’ll hit Hunter with something small to make their strike on me look ‘fair.’ Nothing about these Fascists is fair or honest. FIGHT!”
Classified Documents Cases Compared
Trump has repeatedly argued that he had the authority as president to unilaterally declassify documents. This defense follows the logic that the power to classify and declassify information originates with the president, as the head of the executive branch. By contrast, the DOJ has argued that Trump has no proof that he had actually declassified documents he took with him after the presidency.The DOJ had been aware that Trump possessed numerous documents from his time as president and had been involved in legal negotiations to gain access to those documents. The DOJ has said Trump or members of his team “concealed and removed” documents in a move that may have obstructed investigators before the FBI raided Trump’s home in August.