Former President Donald Trump said Wednesday that the public does not want President Biden to be indicted when he leaves office, suggesting he would not seek retribution for criminal charges filed against him if elected to the White House in November.
Trump, 77, has alleged that the 81-year-old president and his administration are engaging in “incredible criminal activity” in connection with charges filed against him since he announced his candidacy, and said it would be “easy” to bring the full force of the Justice Department to bear on Biden, but downplayed Biden’s interest in doing so.
“This can’t be allowed to happen,” Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, told Fox News host Sean Hannity, referring to Republican allegations that the Biden administration is waging a legal war to undermine his presidential campaign.
“Because the country doesn’t want Biden to walk out and everybody says ‘bye,’ and then two days later he’s indicted,” Trump said.
“They didn’t want that for Hillary Clinton either,” the former president continued, noting that he didn’t use the Justice Department to go after the former secretary of state during the 2016 campaign, despite his supporters chanting “put her in lockup.”
“Wouldn’t it be terrible if I put the wife of a former president of the United States in prison and then put the former secretary of state in prison?” he argued. “That would be terrible.”
“I want to unite the country.”
Trump said anyone suggesting he would go after political opponents if elected to a second term was “wrong.”
“This has got to stop,” Trump said of the “weaponization” of the Justice Department.
However, he said, [the Biden administration has] Once that is done, I will be fully within my rights to pursue them.”
Asked by a Fox News host if he would pledge to “restore equal justice and equal application of the law,” Trump replied, “We must do that,” before going on to say he believed the Biden administration had been targeting him since he left office.
Last week, Trump was convicted in a Manhattan hush money trial of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
He still faces three criminal charges in a Georgia state court for allegedly trying to interfere with the results of the 2020 election, in a Washington, D.C. federal court for his alleged role in the January 6 attack on the Capitol, and in a Florida federal court for allegedly mishandling classified documents.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges against him.
