“That’s correct,” Trump said. “And not only that, I think it was other people also were there. But I have the absolute right to declassify, absolute — a president has that absolute right, and a lot of people aren’t even challenging that anymore.”
In a court filing earlier this week, the Justice Department drilled down on the absence of any such assertion from Trump’s legal team in court, while also arguing to the court that, even if he did declassify the materials, it would still be irrelevant to the legal dispute over the search.
Trump’s attorneys have sought to cast doubt that the 100-plus documents with classification markings that the FBI seized last month are in fact classified. But his attorneys have not said outright that Trump declassified the materials.
None of the criminal statutes the Justice Department cited when applying for the warrant it used to search Trump’s home hinged on the documents in question being classified.
Speaking to Hewitt, Trump said he did not believe he would be indicted but said that wouldn’t prohibit him from running again for president regardless. He also hinted at civil unrest if he were indicted — warning of “big problems” — though he did not elaborate.
“I think if it happened, I think you’d have problems in this country the likes of which perhaps we’ve never seen before,” Trump said. “I don’t think the people of the United States would stand for it.”
When asked if he had received a target letter in connection with the DOJ’s probe into the fake electors, Trump said he had not, nor had he been asked to appear before the grand jury.
CNN’s Chandelis Duster contributed to this report.