Donald Trump attacked the appointment of “super radical left special counsel” Jack Smith as the former president insisted he was “one of the most honest and innocent people in the history of our country.”
Mr Trump made his inflammatory comments just hours after the Justice Department handed control over the multiple investigations into the one-term president to the former war crimes prosecutor.
The former president told an audience at his Mar-a-Lago home on Friday night that he was being subjected to “witch hunts that started a long time ago.”
“I thought the investigation into the document hoax was dying, dead or over. And January 6 and my very peaceful and patriotic speech, I thought that was dead, only to find that the corrupt and highly political Justice Department just appointed a super radical left special counsel.”
And he added: “No collusion, they want to do bad things to the greatest movement in the history of our country and particularly bad things to me. But I have got used to it luckily. This is a rigged deal just like the 2020 election was rigged and we cannot let them get away with it.”
Mr Trump went on to attack Joe Biden, calling the president “a corrupt and incompetent political hack” and branding his son, Hunter Biden, a “corrupt drug addict and implementer for his father.”
“We are innocent, they are not innocent by any stretch of the imagination, the proof is out there for anyone to see. Why isn’t a special counsel being set up for them? They are corrupt, they are criminals, I have done nothing wrong.”
Mr Trump called the investigations into him “double jeopardy” and falsely claimed that he had “won” the “false impeachment hoax.”
And he finally added: “This will not be a fair investigation, but again I thought this was done or close to being done. These people are corrupt and they go after innocent people.”
Special Counsel Smith is a former head of the Department of Justice public integrity section and who has held positions at the International Criminal Court and the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York.
