Former President Donald Trump pleaded “not guilty” Thursday to the latest round of federal charges against him from the Department of Justice.
The former president was arraigned in a Washington, D.C., federal courtroom over a four-count indictment Special Counsel Jack Smith handed down on Tuesday. Trump appeared in court Thursday while President Joe Biden remains on a Delaware vacation amid growing scandals surrounding the Biden family business ventures.
“Biden and his family steal Millions and Millions of Dollars, including BRIBES from foreign countries, and I’m headed to D.C. to be ARRESTED for protesting a CROOKED ELECTION. UNFAIR VENUE, UNFAIR JUDGE,” Trump wrote on Truth Social ahead of the proceedings. “We are a Nation in decline. MAGA!!!”
Smith charged Trump with a series of crimes related to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, including conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy against rights, obstruction of an official proceeding, and conspiracy to obstruct a proceeding. Ultimately, the charges are an attack on political speech.
[RELATED: Trump Could Have Spent Jan. 6 Talking About The Weather And Still Would Have Been Indicted]
The timeline of this week’s indictment follows a steady routine of Trump charges being unveiled just after new revelations drop about Biden family business schemes.
Trump is now facing 78 charges across three investigations while he maintains a comfortable lead in the Republican presidential primary.
“I NEED ONE MORE INDICTMENT TO ENSURE MY ELECTION,” Trump joked on Truth Social Thursday morning.
The former president might just get it. Prosecutors in Georgia are wrapping up their own investigation into alleged misconduct related to the 2020 election.
President Biden, meanwhile, is confronted with escalating calls for impeachment as new evidence surfaces about Biden family business deals that could implicate the Democratic incumbent in a criminal bribery scheme.
[READ: Evidence Of Biden Burisma Corruption Is Overwhelming]
On Monday, former Biden family business partner Devon Archer offered new details about the president’s influence-peddling schemes, which featured phone calls Hunter Biden facilitated with his associates. While Joe Biden served as vice president, his son was on the board of Ukrainian energy company Bursima raking in excessive compensation despite no prior experience in the industry. At the time, then-Vice President Biden was the Obama administration’s point man on Ukraine.
Archer told House lawmakers Burisma hired Hunter Biden to build a “brand” of influence and to intimidate the firm’s opponents.
In 2018, Joe Biden bragged about his pressure campaign on the Ukrainian government to fire the nation’s top prosecutor who was investigating the firm.
Archer also testified that Hunter Biden often put the vice president in touch with his corporate colleagues — at least 20 times. The testimony contradicts repeated denials of President Biden’s involvement from 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023.
