President Joe Biden is "using his police power" to attack former President Donald Trump through the indictment that was announced last week, former acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker said on Newsmax Monday.
"You cannot divorce the fact that this is Joe Biden using his police power to go after his previous opponent, a former president of the United States, and most likely his future opponent," Whitaker, who served under Trump, told Newsmax's "Wake Up America." "[Special Counsel] Jack Smith is not independent of [Attorney General] Merrick Garland. Garland is not independent of Joe Biden and the White House."
This means the indictment is a "very serious use of presidential police powers against the opposite party," Whitaker added. "This is something that our Founding Fathers were really concerned about."
His comments come after another former Trump attorney general, Bill Barr, said Sunday that the idea that Trump is being portrayed as the victim of a witch hunt is "ridiculous," and that if even half of the indictment claims against him are true, Trump "is toast."
Meanwhile, Whitaker said that nobody has been able to explain to him how Trump is being charged with several alleged violations of the Espionage Act when the Presidential Records Act covers the classifications of records and documents.
The records act, he said, was passed about 50 years after the Espionage Act, meaning that District Court Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, who is presiding over Trump's court appearance Tuesday, will have a "very interesting question on her hands."
"I think that one of the reasons that Jack Smith chose the Espionage Act is that it gets him out of classified land," said Whitaker, adding that this means Smith won't have to deal with the facts of Mike Pence and President Joe Biden also having classified documents.
"There are a lot of nuances in this case," he said. "I just think the shock of the initial charges caused people to not do a deep dive into these statutes that are used and why they may have been used as opposed to maybe other statutes."
Whitaker also on Monday said he does not think the case against Trump will be held until after the Novembe, 2024 election.
"We have the first [GOP] debate in August coming up, and then we're in the primary calendar," said Whitaker. "Then they have the conventions, and then you're in general election land. I just don't see anything happening until after November 2024."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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