(NewsNation) — Former President Donald Trump called the unsealing of documents in his election interference case a “weaponization of the government” during an exclusive interview with NewsNation on Wednesday in Houston, Texas.
The Republican nominee was at a private fundraiser when he told NewsNation’s Ali Bradley that special counsel Jack Smith is a “deranged person” following the dismissal of his classified documents case.
“This was a weaponization of the government … and released 30 days before the election,” Trump said. “My poll numbers have gone up instead of down. It is pure election interference.”
The interview came after prosecutors in a court filing unsealed Wednesday said Trump “resorted to crimes” after losing the 2020 election by disregarding the advice of his vice president and other aides.
The filing was submitted by Smith’s team following a Supreme Court opinion that conferred broad immunity on presidents for official acts they take in office, narrowing the scope of the prosecution charging Trump with conspiring to overturn the results of the election he lost to Democrat Joe Biden.
“So what?” the filing quotes Trump as telling an aide after being advised that his vice president, Mike Pence, had been rushed to a secure location after a crowd of violent Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to try to prevent the counting of electoral votes.
“The details don’t matter,” Trump said, when told by an adviser that a lawyer who was mounting his legal challenges wouldn’t be able to prove the false allegations in court, the filing states.
The brief was made public over the Trump legal team’s objections
“The people know it, I know it, everybody knows it,” Trump told NewsNation Wednesday in alleging Democrats are trying to rig the 2024 election.
The filing from Smith’s team offers the most comprehensive view to date of what prosecutors intend to prove if the case charging Trump with conspiring to overturn the election reaches trial.
Though a monthslong congressional investigation and the indictment itself have chronicled in stark detail Trump’s efforts to undo the election, the new filing cites previously unknown accounts offered by Trump’s closest aides to paint a portrait of an “increasingly desperate” president who while losing his grip on the White House “used deceit to target every stage of the electoral process.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
