Donald Trump has claimed he has been investigated more than some of the country's most notorious figures combined, including gangster Al Capone, while claiming the Democrats have "weaponized" the judicial system.
In an interview with Sean Hannity, the Fox News host asked Trump if President Joe Biden has been "compromised" by recent revelations regarding emails sent from his son Hunter Biden's laptop, which were originally dismissed by large sections of the media.
In response, the former president suggested the New York Post—which first reported on the content of the laptop which Hunter Biden left in a repair shop in Delaware, and which detailed his business dealings in China and Ukraine—has "enhanced their reputation" after The New York Times and The Washington Post authenticated some of the original claims, more than 18 months after story first appeared.
Trump added the dismissal of the Hunter Biden story, which was published just weeks before the 2020 Election, may have affected the outcome while once again pushing false claims the election was rigged, and hit out at the investigations against him over his attempts to overturn the results.
"What they're doing is they suppressed the vote, and they artificially suppressed the vote, and probably illegally suppressed the vote. And nobody wants to talk about it. But it's a very dangerous thing," Trump said.
"Now what they do is they use prosecutors... look, I've gotten through in five years more investigations than Al Capone, Jesse James, and Billy the Kid put together. If I fly over Democrat states in my aeroplane, I end up before a grand jury. It's a disgrace.
"The people of this country aren't going to take it," Trump added. "They've weaponized law enforcement, they've weaponized the AGs in the states, and the Attorney General, and the district attorneys. I mean, it's such a horrible thing that they're doing."
Despite being linked to a number of murders during his time as a prohibition-era mobster, Capone was only jailed over charges of tax fraud.
Hunter Biden is under a federal investigation over his finances, including claims of money laundering and alleged business dealings with foreign countries, including China, which he denies.
President Biden is not implicated in the investigation.
Trump is facing a number of criminal and civil investigations, but has not been charged or indicted in any of them.
These include allegations he committed a crime with his attempts to stop Congress certifying the election results in favor of Biden on January 6. Trump is also being investigated for alleged election interference in relation to a phone call he had with Georgia's Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in which the former president asked him to "find" 11,780 votes to overturn Biden's win in the state.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is also looking into allegations of tax fraud at The Trump Organization.
Elsewhere during the Hannity interview, Trump suggested former Attorney General Bill Barr refused to look into his baseless claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election because he was worried about getting impeached.
Barr resigned as attorney general in December 2020 over Trump's false insistence the election was rigged, soon after revealing the Justice Department had found no evidence of widespread voter fraud.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Ewan Palmer is a Newsweek News Reporter based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on US politics, domestic policy ... Read more
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