Trump attorney John Lauro, the Tampa lawyer representing the former president in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s January 6 centric probe, told Fox News his client did “absolutely nothing wrong.”
Lauro called Smith, a former Kosovo War crimes prosecutor in The Hague and Obama Justice Department public integrity chief, “the Jim Comey of 2024” – in reference to how ex-FBI Director James Comey executed the Russia investigation against Trump.
“Look what’s happening to our beautiful country,” Lauro lamented on “America Reports” Friday. “For the first time in our history, a sitting president is using the Department of Justice to go after a political opponent criminally while that political opponent is leading in the polls.”
Lauro pointed out the “interesting” coincidence that Trump was invited before a District of Columbia grand jury in Smith’s probe within days of President Biden being hit with a “massive” bribery and influence-peddling allegation.
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The attorney dismissed Trump’s need to travel the thousand miles up I-95 for the appearance, saying Trump is innocent and that he was entitled to take the official positions he did when faced with allegations of “election discrepancies” in places like Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and Michigan.
“He did what any president was required to do because he took an oath to do exactly that,” Lauro said, adding that Smith is essentially faulting Trump for requesting audits of elector slates from states where there were allegations of fraud or discrepancy, and characterizing such as obstruction.
“The only thing that President Trump asked is a pause in the counting so those seven contested states could either re-audit or recertify,” he said. “I’ve never heard of anyone get indicted for asking for an audit.”
Trump was in search of accurate elector counts in that regard, and in the other area of January 6 Smith is investigating – whether Trump intimidated anyone, the accusations are also flawed.
“That’s an example of really the criminal justice system use that being used against the victim. Because here what the president was saying in real time after November is all these election discrepancies, all these unlawful acts at a state level… what he asked ultimately was to find out the truth,” he said.
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Lauro later added that Smith appears to be playing the role of Comey ahead of the 2024 contest by ensnaring Trump in proceedings that are “outrageous and incredibly unfair to the American people, who want to hear these candidates… talk about the issues.”
After former Connecticut prosecutor John Durham released his report on the origins of Comey’s investigation, Trump told Fox News the former G-man must be held accountable for his “long-running and treasonous charade.”
“[T]hey started with ‘Plan B’ back in 2016. We’re now up to ‘Plan X’,” Lauro said Friday. “The plan is now to use the criminal justice process to intimidate President Trump, to intimidate his supporters, to go after them. And that has got to stop.”
Attorney General Merrick Garland has denied the DOJ’s probes into Trump are politically motivated and has said Smith was appointed as a veteran prosecutor to insulate the investigation from politically-appointed bureaucrats at main justice.
Lauro rejected that assertion, saying Garland must ultimately sign off on any of Smith’s indictments and that in order for him to remain in office under Biden, he must prosecute the Delawarean’s chief opponent.
“If I appear in court, I’m going to be representing not only the president of the United States, but the sovereign citizens of this country who deserve to hear the truth,” he said.
Fox News’ Brooke Singman contributed to this report.
