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Former President Donald Trump struck a defiant tone Saturday in his first public appearance since being indicted on 37 counts of mishandling classified documents, calling the prosecution by the Biden Justice Department a dangerous abuse of power to stop his campaign as the frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination.
Mr. Trump told an audience at the Georgia Republican Party convention that the indictment against him is politically motivated and that President Biden had a hand in the decision to go after him.
“The ridiculous and baseless indictment of me by the Biden administration’s weaponized Department of Injustice will go down as among the most horrific abuses of power in the history of our country,” Mr. Trump said. “This vicious persecution is a travesty of justice.”
Mr. Trump said Mr. Biden is trying to deflect attention from a probe by congressional Republicans of his family’s overseas financial dealings.
“He said ‘let’s try and arrest a president that served before him and had an unbelievable success record,” Mr. Trump said. “It’s no coincidence they indicted me the very same day that it was revealed the FBI had hidden explosive evidence [alleging] that Joe Biden took a $5 million illegal bribe from Ukraine.”
Mr. Biden said he had no role in the investigation of his predecessor.
The former president also offered a glimpse of his agenda for a second term. He said he would carry out the largest deportation operation of illegal migrants in U.S. history; ban birthright citizenship for children of illegal aliens; prohibit federal funding of schools that teach Critical Race Theory, engage in “transgender insanity” or institute vaccine or mask mandates and stop natural-born men from participating in women’s sports.
