(Headline USA) Former President Donald Trump said he won’t be holding a news conference next week to unveil “new” evidence of fraud in Georgia’s 2020 presidential election, citing the advice of lawyers as he prepares to face trial in at least four criminal cases seeking to interfere with his 2024 presedential campaign.
Two of those cases spuriously aim to punish him for challenging the 2020 outcome in an unprecedented maneuver that could have chilling constitutional implications and ultimately come back to haunt Democrats.
“Rather than releasing the Report on the Rigged & Stolen Georgia 2020 Presidential Election on Monday, my lawyers would prefer putting this, I believe, Irrefutable & Overwhelming evidence of Election Fraud & Irregularities in formal Legal Filings as we fight to dismiss this disgraceful Indictment,” Trump wrote on his social media site Thursday in announcing his reversal.
Trump had announced that he would be holding the event hours after a Fulton County grand jury voted to charge him and 18 others late Monday in an ambitious lawfare attack led by District Attorney Fani Willis, who campaigned on the promise to indict the then-president in 2020.
Trump had said he would use the “major News Conference” at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club Monday morning to release what he claimed was an “almost complete” report that would exonerate him.
A federal judge overseeing the election conspiracy case brought against Trump in Washington last week warned him that there are limits to what he can publicly say about evidence in the investigation as he campaigns for a second term in the White House.
The judge said that the more “inflammatory” statements are made about the case, the greater her urgency will be to move quickly to trial to prevent witness intimidation or jury pool contamination.
“I will take whatever measures are necessary to safeguard the integrity of the case,” she said.
Still, Trump has made clear that he sees the cases brought against him in Georgia and Washington as an opportunity to try to relitigate 2020 election fraud allegations, many of which were dismissed in court not on their merits but due to lack of standing, laches and other technicalities that fall largely on the discretion of the judges.
Trump’s renewed attacks on the integrity of Georgia’s vote this week drew swift criticism from state’s Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, whom Trump had tried to lobby as part of his efforts to overturn his loss in the battleground state.
“The 2020 election in Georgia was not stolen. For nearly three years now, anyone with evidence of fraud has failed to come forward – under oath – and prove anything in a court of law,” Kemp wrote on X, the site formerly known as Twitter.
Former Vice President Mike Pence, whom Trump had tried to pressure to unilaterally overturn the results of the election and who is now challenging Trump for the Republican nomination, echoed that message.
“The Georgia election was not stolen and I had no right to overturn the election on January 6th,” he said this week.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
