Former president Donald Trump may be coming to regret the statements he has made in the past – with a comment on the indictment of a president “grinding government to a halt” surely coming back to haunt him.
Of course Mr Trump did not imagine his comments about indicted presidents would apply to him – he made them when speaking in 2016 about his then-rival Hillary Clinton.
“We could very well have a sitting president under felony indictment and ultimately a criminal trial,” he told a rally in November 2016. “It would grind government to a halt.”
At another rally, Mr Trump mentioned the email server probe that dogged much of Ms Clinton’s presidential campaign, also suggesting that a potential indictment would wreak havoc in the White House.
“If she were to win, it would create an unprecedented Constitutional crisis that would cripple the operations of our government,” Mr Trump said. “She is likely to be under investigation for many years, and also it will probably end up – in my opinion – in a criminal trial. I mean, you take a look. Who knows? But it certainly looks that way.”
Now, the former president, who has once agan thrown his hat into the ring for the upcoming presidential election, has himself been indicted on 37 charges (all of which he denies) relating to the mishandling of records – becoming the first former president in history to face criminal charges.
The charges include willful retention of national defense secrets in violation of the Espionage Act, conspiracy to obstruct justice, corruptly concealing documents, conealing documents in a federal investigation, scheme to conceal, and making false statements.
The former president has branded the charges “false” and said that the case “should be dropped immediately”, although it has not hampered his plans to run for office.
