“How can DOJ possibly charge me?”: Trump explodes on Truth Social as lawyers try to stop indictment

Trump's team expected an indictment ahead of Monday's meeting and the meeting did not change their expectations

By Igor Derysh

Managing Editor

Published June 6, 2023 10:25AM (EDT)

Former President Donald Trump | The Justice Department building (Photo illustration by Salon/Getty Images)
Former President Donald Trump | The Justice Department building (Photo illustration by Salon/Getty Images)

Former President Donald Trump lashed out on Truth Social Monday as his lawyers met with special counsel Jack Smith in an attempt to avert a possible indictment.

Trump attorneys James Trusty, Lindsey Halligan and John Rowley met with Smith and DOJ officials for about two hours on Monday as they made their case that the government should not criminally charge the former president, according to The Washington Post. The lawyers raised allegations of prosecutorial misconduct at the meeting, according to CNN. Two Trump advisers told the Post they are preparing for a potential indictment in the coming weeks and that the meeting did not change their expectations.

"It's possible that their lout of a client insisted that the lawyers waste their meeting with general grievances about prosecutorial misconduct that already have been rejected by the courts," tweeted former U.S. Attorney Harry Litman. "But if so, it was tantamount to throwing away the meeting."

Trump, meanwhile, has been busy posting in all caps on his social media platform over the past 24 hours.

"HOW CAN DOJ POSSIBLY CHARGE ME, WHO DID NOTHING WRONG, WHEN NO OTHER PRESIDENT'S WERE CHARGED, WHEN JOE BIDEN WON'T BE CHARGED FOR ANYTHING, INCLUDING THE FACT THAT HE HAS 1,850 BOXES, MUCH OF IT CLASSIFIED, AND SOME DATING BACK TO HIS SENATE DAY WHEN EVEN DEMOCRAT SENATORS ARE SHOCKED. ALSO, PRESIDENT CLINTON HAD DOCUMENTS, AND WON IN COURT. CROOKED HILLARY DELETED 33,000 EMAILS, MANY CLASSIFIED, AND WASN'T EVEN CLOSE TO BEING CHARGED! ONLY TRUMP - THE GREATEST WITCH HUNT OF ALL TIME!" Trump wrote.

Trump continued to compare his case to President Joe Biden's, whose attorneys discovered classified documents at several locations and turned them over. Biden's handling of the documents is being investigated by the DOJ. But Trump refused to turn over documents in response to requests from the National Archives and later failed to comply with a grand jury subpoena to return the documents before the FBI seized hundreds of classified materials from his Mar-a-Lago residence. Investigators have reportedly focused on potential obstruction and Espionage Act charges in the probe.


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"The Marxists and Fascists in the DOJ & FBI are going after me at a level and speed never seen before in our Country, and I did nothing wrong," Trump posted on Tuesday morning. "Joe Biden kept (keeps) thousand of documents, in many locations, some illegally taken from skiffs while he was a Senator, a big portion of which were classified. He didn't want to give them back, and still doesn't. Nothing happens to him, with same reasonable prosecutor who correctly exonerated Mike Pence. I have a much different prosecutor, a Trump hater!"

Trump in a subsequent post described the probe as "election interference" and urged his supporters to "FIGHT."

"They don't want to run against me. I ran twice, I did much better the second time, getting millions and millions more votes than the first, a record for a sitting President, and am leading Biden in the polls, by a lot. They are the Party of Disinformation! They are using the DOJ & FBI against me to Rigg the 2024 Election. They'll hit Hunter with something small to make their strike on me look 'fair.' Nothing about these Fascists is fair or honest. FIGHT!"


By Igor Derysh

Igor Derysh is Salon's managing editor. His work has also appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Boston Herald and Baltimore Sun.

MORE FROM Igor Derysh


Related Topics ------------------------------------------

Aggregate Donald Trump Jack Smith Mar-a-lago Politics