🎙️ Voice is AI-generated. Inconsistencies may occur.
Donald Trump has claimed that he will not be able to get a fair trial ahead of his arraignment in Special Counsel Jack Smith's 2020 election probe.
The former president is due to appear in a Washington, D.C. court on Thursday to be arraigned on charges of conspiracy against rights of citizens, obstructing an official proceeding and conspiring to obstruct an official proceeding in connection with the federal probe into the events leading up to January 6 attack.
Trump, the front runner in the 2024 GOP presidential primary, is expected to plead not guilty to all charges, and has long accused federal prosecutors of "election interference" over their investigations into him.
In a post on Truth Social hours before his arraignment, Trump alleged that it will be "impossible" for him to get a fair trial in the nation's capital.
"The latest Fake 'case' brought by Crooked Joe Biden & Deranged Jack Smith will hopefully be moved to an impartial Venue, such as the politically unbiased nearby State of West Virginia," Trump wrote.
"IMPOSSIBLE to get a fair trial in Washington, D.C., which is over 95% anti-Trump, & for which I have called for a Federal TAKEOVER in order to bring our Capital back to Greatness," he wrote. "It is now a high crime embarrassment to our Nation and, indeed, the World. This Indictment is all about Election Interference!!!"
Trump beat Joe Biden in West Virginia in the 2020 election, winning 68.6 percent of the vote to Biden's 29.7 percent.
In comparison, Biden beat Trump in the District of Columbia by an overwhelming 92 percent to Trump's 5 percent in 2020.
The Department of Justice has been contacted for comment.
Trump had previously called for a trial in New York—where he is accused of 34 counts of falsifying business records in relation to "hush money" paid to adult film star Stormy Daniels—to be moved out of Manhattan to the more Republican leaning borough of Staten Island in order to improve his chances of a fair jury.
Trump has denied any wrongdoing in connection with Smith's indictment while citing First Amendment protection. A similar defense is being pushed by the former president's lawyers.
"The Radical Left wants to Criminalize Free Speech," Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Legal experts have suggested that it may be difficult for a jury to return a guilty verdict in the January 6 case unless federal prosecutors can prove Trump's criminal intent, and cannot just rely on his words and false election fraud claims.
"Prosecutors will have to prove some sort of knowledge of wrongdoing. They have to prove Trump knew that he was committing fraud," former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani, president of West Coast Trial Lawyers, told Newsweek.
"So if Trump says, 'I just relied on the advice of my attorneys, and I didn't know it was wrong or illegal,' then that's a defense in this case," Rahmani said. "If he can prove it was only aggressive lawyering, then he can be acquitted."
The 45-page indictment against Trump states that the former president "had a right, like every American" to speak out against the 2020 election results, and even to "claim, falsely, that there had been outcome-determinative fraud during the election and that he had won."
However, prosecutors added that Trump and six co-conspirators also pursued "unlawful means" of discounting legitimate votes and subverting the election results.
"In so doing, the Defendant perpetrated three criminal conspiracies," federal prosecutors said. "Each of these conspiracies—which built on the widespread mistrust the Defendant was creating through pervasive and destabilizing lies about election fraud—targeted a bedrock function of the United States federal government: the nation's process of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the presidential election."
About the writer
Ewan Palmer is a Newsweek News Reporter based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on US politics, and Florida ... Read more