Trump Rages To Kristen Welker About Charge He Tried To Destroy Evidence — Swears He’ll Testify

Ex-President Donald Trump raged to NBC News anchor and new Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker over the charge he tried to destroy evidence in the Espionage Act case, and swore he would testify under oath about the matter.

Special Counsel Jack Smith filed three additional charges against Trump in July to go with the other 88 felony counts he faces: one additional count of unlawful retention of National Defense Information and two new obstruction counts based on allegations that Trump and co-defendants Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira attempted to delete surveillance video footage at The Mar-a-Lago Club in the summer of 2022.

In a preview of her Trump interview for Meet the Press that aired on Friday morning’s edition of NBC’s Today Show, Trump attacked Smith and denied deleting the surveillance footage — which, co-ancho Savannah Guthrie pointed out following the clip, is not what he’s accused of:

KRISTEN WELKER: I want to ask you about the case related to Mar-a-Lago. A new charge suggests you asked a staffer to delete security camera footage so it wouldn’t get into the hands of investigators.

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP: That’s false.

KRISTEN WELKER: Did you do that? It’s false?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP: False. But let me tell you what else.

KRISTEN WELKER: Would you testify to that under oath?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP: Let me tell – sure, I’m going to – I’ll testify –

KRISTEN WELKER: You’d testify to that under oath?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP: Look, It’s a fake charge by this deranged lunatic prosecutor who lost in the Supreme Court nine to nothing, and he tried to destroy lots of lives. He’s a lunatic. So it’s a fake charge. But more importantly, the tapes weren’t deleted. In other words, there was nothing done to them. And, they were my tapes. I could have fought them. I didn’t even have to give them the tapes, I don’t think. I think I would have won in court. When they asked for the tapes, I said, “Sure.” They’re my tapes. I could have fought them. I didn’t even have to give them. Just so you understand, though, we didn’t delete anything. Nothing was deleted.

KRISTEN WELKER: So that’s false. The people who testified –

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP: Number one, the statement is false. Much more importantly, when the tapes came, and everybody says this, they weren’t deleted. We give them 100%.

KRISTEN WELKER: Okay, let’s –

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP: And just so you know, I offered them. I said if you want to look at tapes, you can look at them.

Watch above via NBC’s Today Show.

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