Trump says he had 'every right' to interfere in the 2020 election

Former President Donald Trump said on Sunday that he had “every right” to interfere with the 2020 election, even as two criminal cases involving those allegations hang over him. On Monday, Kamala Harris’ campaign charged that the comments were evidence that Trump believed he was “above the law.”

In the Fox News interview that aired Sunday, Trump went on a long screed about the Department of Justice and its treatment of him, charging he had been targeted. Trump marveled that criminal charges facing him did nothing but boost his poll numbers, he surmised, because his supporters didn’t buy the charges in the first place. 

“Whoever heard you get indicted for interfering with a presidential election where you have every right to do it, you get indicted, and your poll numbers go up?” Trump said. “When people get indicted, your poll numbers go down. But it was such, such nonsense.”  

Last week, Trump was indicted again in his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss. Trump is accused of trying to carry out a multi-pronged effort, that included trying to disenfranchise voters in certain states, of interfering with the election results by repeatedly claiming it was stolen, even though he knew those claims were false. Authorities say Trump’s false claims served as a catalyst to the violence attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The former president faces similar charges of election interference in Fulton County, Georgia.

On Monday, Harris campaign spokesperson Sarafina Chitika blasted Trump’s comments to Fox News and asserted it was another example of the “chaos, fear, and division” Americans experienced under Trump. 

“Everything Donald Trump has promised on the campaign trail — from ‘terminating’ the Constitution, to imprisoning his political opponents and promising to rule as a dictator on ‘day one’ — makes it clear that he believes he is above the law. Now, Trump is claiming he had ‘every right’ to interfere in the 2020 election. He did not,” Chitika said in a statement. 

Trump's comments come after a July Supreme Court ruling granted expanded immunity powers to president against prosecution if their conduct is related to official acts. Last week's new indictment of Trump was crafted in a way that took the new ruling into account.