Former US President Donald Trump has warned that criminal charges wouldn’t prevent him from running for office in 2024, but would cause “big problems” in the country. Beset by multiple investigations, which he argues are politically motivated, Trump insisted that he broke no laws.
“I can’t imagine being indicted. I’ve done nothing wrong,” Trump told radio host Hugh Hewitt on Thursday. However, should he be slapped with criminal charges, he doesn’t “think the people of the United States would stand for it.”
“I think if it happened, I think you'd have problems in this country the likes of which perhaps, we've never seen before…big problems,” he added.
Trump is currently facing three grand jury investigations. One District of Columbia probe is examining his alleged mishandling of classified documents in his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, while another federal investigation is looking into his role in the riot on Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021. Meanwhile, a state probe in Georgia is investigating whether the former president broke the law by pressuring state officials to overturn Joe Biden’s electoral victory in the state in 2020.
The January 6 investigation has seen federal agents seize communications records of Trump’s allies, while the DC probe saw FBI agents stage a raid on Mar-a-Lago in search of secret documents. Trump maintains that he declassified any documents on his property, and that the raid was a “third world” example of “political persecution.”
Should Trump actually be indicted, he said that he “would have no prohibition against running” for office again. While Trump has not formally announced another bid for the presidency in 2024, he is widely believed to be preparing to run, and leads most polls of Republican candidates.
“There is no reason that they can [indict me],” Trump told Hewitt, “other than if they’re just sick and deranged, which is always possible.”