Former President Donald Trump released a video message Thursday night after news broke that a federal grand jury has indicted him on multiple criminal charges related to his handling of classified records after leaving office.
The former president referred to the case as the “boxes hoax,” focusing on past examples of when opponents and investigators came after him and failed to take him down.
“Very sadly we’re a nation in decline,” he said. “And yet, they go after a popular president, a president that got more votes than any sitting president in the history of our country, by far, and did much better the second time in the election than the first.”
“I’m an innocent man, I’m an innocent person,” he declared, later adding that he believes his current presidential campaign was doing so well that Democrats “figured the way they’re going to stop us is by using what’s called warfare. That’s what it is, this is warfare for the law. And we can’t let it happen. We can’t let it happen. Our country is going to hell.”
“And they come after Donald Trump, weaponizing the Justice Department, weaponizing the FBI, we can’t let this continue to go on because it’s ripping our country to shreds,” he continued. “They’re trying to destroy [my] reputation, so they can win an election. That’s just as bad as doing any of the other things that have been done over the last number of years, and especially during the 2020 election.”
Trump continued to state that he was “innocent” and he did “nothing wrong” and that he planned to “fight this out just like we’ve been fighting for seven years.”
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“But now, again, our country is in decline,” he said. “We’re a failing nation. And this is what they do. I’m an innocent man, we will prove that again. Seven years of proving it. And here we go, again. Very unfair. But that’s the way it is. I just want to thank everybody. We are doing something very special for our country. We’re putting America first, I always put America first. And that’s why we were in a position. Unfortunately, that position is no longer valid because they’ve done such a poor job. But we’re in a position where we’re going to make America great again. I’m innocent and we will prove that very, very soundly.”
WATCH:
I AM AN INNOCENT MAN. THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION IS TOTALLY CORRUPT. THIS IS ELECTION INTERFERENCE & A CONTINUATION OF THE GREATEST WITCH HUNT OF ALL TIME. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!pic.twitter.com/3lcIwvrPXe
— Team Trump (Text TRUMP to 88022) (@TeamTrump) June 9, 2023
ABC News’ Katherine Faulders said during a special report on the network that Trump appears to have been hit with seven charges ranging from willful retention of national defense information, conspiracy, a scheme to conceal, and false statements and representations.
A source told NBC News that seven charges don’t necessarily equate to seven counts because there can be multiple counts with each charge.