2023-06-22 12:36:28
Donald Trump performs at a Republican party event.
Image: John Bazemore/AP/dpa
For his first interview since his indictment in the secret documents affair, Donald Trump was met with scorn and ridicule. There are also legal consequences – he could also have incriminated himself.
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Donald Trump has given the news channel Fox News his first interview since his indictment in the secret documents affair. Trump’s answers to the unexpectedly critical questions could be used against him in the upcoming trial. Trump indirectly admitted that the government’s request to return the documents was not to have complied. He acted in this way because there was private property in the boxes in question and he was too busy to take care of them. Mainly liberal, but sometimes conservative observers* reacted with malice to the interview.
This performance did not go well for Donald Trump: In an interview with his former home broadcaster Fox News, the former president and leading candidate for the Republican nomination in the 2024 presidential election may have incriminated himself in his charges of storing classified documents.
When asked why he didn’t turn the documents over to the National Archives after they had claimed them, Trump said the boxes containing the documents also contained personal items that he wanted removed first.
But he was too busy for that. “The boxes were full of many things: golf shirts, pants, shoes, there were many things,” Trump said. The statement can be read as an admission that Trump has not complied with the authorities’ demands.
“Just a bunch of papers”
The Republican also tried to defuse an audio recording in which he appears to boast to visitors that he has classified documents about a planned attack on Iran.
“I didn’t have a document per se,” Trump said. All he had was “a pile of papers” dealing “with Iran and other things”. Trump will probably argue in court that he should speak in the recording of documents that he didn’t even have.
“A Criminal Defense Attorney’s Nightmare”
With the interview, Trump drew ridicule from the liberal media. “Trump’s Fox News interview was a criminal defense attorney’s nightmare.” titled the news site “Vox”. The news channel MSNBC spoke of Trump’s statements as “the whisper of an airbag that is running out of air”.
The political magazine «The New Republic» wroteTrump admitted he committed a crime, “but only because he was busy and needed to find his golf shirts and shoes … which he kept in a state secrets box, which is how you do it.”
Sea According to “Rolling Stone”, Trump himself assumed that he had cut a very good figure in the interview because he would have parried the questions well. Former Trump attorney Ty Cobb, on the other hand, said: “It was a disaster if you look at it as a lawyer.” Trump gave the government a great gift – “and they will get more of it because [seine Anwälte] will not silence him».
A conservative love-hate relationship
Fox News’ leading political expert, Brit Hume, also portrayed Trump’s performance in an unflattering light. Trump’s answers were “on the verge of incoherence”. It sounded like he was arguing that he could have done what he wanted with the secret documents. “I don’t think that will stand up in court.”
Trump’s relationship with Fox News is characterized by a love-hate relationship: During the 2016 presidential campaign, the ultra-conservative news channel did everything it could to prevent Donald Trump’s candidacy for the Republicans. During Trump’s presidency, however, he became his public mouthpiece.
Claim for damages with consequences
It was not until the beginning of the year that there were signs of an end to Donald Trump’s good relationship with Fox News: the dissemination of his claim that the 2020 presidential election was illegitimate, for example because voting machines had been manipulated, brought the broadcaster a lawsuit from the manufacturer of these machines, Dominion . Fox News paid the broadcaster $787.5 million to pre-empt a verdict.
But Fox News corrected course again and jumped the former US President in the course of his civil indictment in the hush money scandal. Last May, the broadcaster cut out all of Trump’s references to the allegedly stolen election from another interview.
Trump wants to skip the TV debate
It is possible that the indictment at federal level in the course of the secret documents affair is now a number too big for the broadcaster. In any case, the harsh tone of the last interview seems to signal a new position on the controversial politician.
Fox News will also host the first televised debate of Republican candidates for the 2024 presidential election this summer. Trump does not want to attend the event, after all, the broadcaster is “hostile” to him.
In addition, his leadership in recent surveys raises him above the competition: “Why should I allow people who come to one, two and zero percent to attack me with questions all night?”
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