WASHINGTON: Former US president Donald Trump said on Friday he would not end his run for the White House if he were convicted and sentenced in any of the criminal investigations mounting against him.

The 77-year-old Republican frontrunner was asked about his reaction to the federal and state charges he faces as he bids for a second term in 2024, a day after federal prosecutors added three felony counts to the indictment against him over his handling of classified documents.

Asked by radio host John Fredericks if being sentenced would stop his campaign, he quickly responded: “Not at all. There’s nothing in the Constitution to say that it could. And even the radical left crazies are saying not at all, that wouldn’t stop (me) — and it wouldn’t stop me either. These people are sick. What they are doing is absolutely horrible.”

Trump said previous presidents including Barack Obama and George W. Bush “took documents”, suggesting falsely that his predecessors had engaged in conduct similar to the alleged crimes for which he has been charged.

“Nobody has ever gone through this. This is crazy,” he added, mischaracterising the law and a previous civil dispute over presidential documents to argue that he had done nothing wrong.

The twice-impeached former president was first indicted in the classified documents case last month, accused of endangering national security by holding on to top secret nuclear and defence information after leaving the White House.

He denied wrongdoing in his handling of security tapes sought by federal investigators, a day after prosecutors added new charges alleging the former president ordered employees at his Florida resort to delete the videos.

Trump said he believed he wasn’t required to hand over security tapes from his Mar-a-Lago resort but did so anyway. “These were security tapes. We handed them over to them. ... I’m not even sure what they’re saying,” he remarked.

US Special Counsel Jack Smith filed three new criminal counts against Trump on July 27, bringing the total to 40, and charged a maintenance worker at the Mar-a-Lago resort, Carlos De Oliveira, with conspiracy to obstruct justice, accusing him of helping Trump to hide documents.

De Oliveira, 56, told another worker at the resort where Trump lives that “the boss” wanted security videos of the property in Florida deleted after the Justice Department subpoenaed them.

Prosecutors also charged De Oliveira with lying to the FBI during a voluntary interview, falsely claiming he had no involvement in moving boxes of classified documents at the resort.

Trump’s defiant radio interview came as he and rival Ron DeSantis prepared to appear on the same platform for the first in the campaign alongside almost the entire Republican presidential field at the Iowa party’s annual Lincoln Dinner.

DeSantis, who has been restrained in his responses as he has been attacked relentlessly by Trump, told SiriusXM’s “The Megyn Kelly Show” in a segment due to air Friday that he was against the former president’s prosecution. “I’m going to do what’s right for the country. I don’t think it would be good for the country to have an almost 80-year-old former president go to prison... I think the country wants a fresh start,” he said.

Published in Dawn, July 29th, 2023