Saturday’s remarks showed that the former president was still intently focused on a series of criminal charges against him.
Former President Donald Trump said „all bets were off“ in his battle against the Department of Justice (DOJ), pledging to launch investigations against federal prosecutors as well as main political opponent, Joe Biden, during a speech Saturday at a campaign rally in Pickens, South Carolina.
The former president’s comments came as part of his first major campaign rally since his federal indictment last month on charges stemming from his alleged removal of classified documents from the White House and relocating them to Mar-a-Lago, his resort residence in Florida, after leaving office in January 2021. The federal charges, which he has claimed is without merit and pleaded not guilty to, was tantamount to efforts by the Biden administration to interfere with his 2024 candidacy, Trump claimed, in a reprisal of claims of rampant election fraud he’d baselessly raised throughout previous presidential campaigns.
„They rigged the election of 2020,“ he said on Saturday. „But we’re not going to let them rig the election of 2024.“
If elected president, Trump said he plans to undertake a campaign of retribution, including launching inquiries into progressive district attorneys and prosecutors he claimed are soft on crime and the appointment of a special prosecutor committed solely to the prosecution of Biden and his family over claims of an alleged influence-peddling scheme.
„When they indicted me for nothing, I said all bets are off,“ he told an enthusiastic crowd of nearly 10,000 people at his rally.
Here are some other takeaways from Saturday’s event.
While much of the content in Trump’s near-80 minute speech on Saturday was derived from his stump speech—stronger immigration laws, a country in decline, banning transgender athletes from women’s sports—Saturday’s remarks showed that the former president was still intently focused on a series of criminal charges against him stemming from actions taken at the end of his presidency.
