Trump vows to fight on in 2024 White House race if sentenced

Former US president Donald Trump said he would not end his run for the White House if convicted and sentenced in any of the criminal investigations threatening to derail his tumultuous comeback bid.

The Republican frontrunner was discussing the multiple indictments he faces as he pushes for a second term, a day after prosecutors broadened the charges against him over his handling of classified government documents.

Asked by radio host John Fredericks if being sentenced would stop his campaign, Trump quickly responded: "Not at all. There's nothing in the Constitution to say that it could."

"And even the radical left crazies are saying not at all, that wouldn't stop (me) — and it wouldn't stop me, either," the 77-year-old added. "These people are sick. What they are doing is absolutely horrible."

The twice-impeached former president was first indicted in the classified documents case last month, accused of endangering national security by holding onto top secret nuclear and defense information after leaving the White House.

The Justice Department added charges on Thursday to its more than three dozen counts against Trump, who was found by a jury in a civil trial in May to have raped a writer in Manhattan in the 1990s.

Mounting prosecutions

Trump is also facing dozens of felony charges in a case involving hush money payments to a porn star in New York and is bracing for indictment in separate state and federal investigations into his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

In a major development Thursday in the documents probe, Special Counsel Jack Smith alleged that Trump, who is scheduled to go on trial at the height of the campaign in March and May next year, asked a worker at his beachfront estate in Florida to delete surveillance footage to obstruct investigators.

Trump, who denies all wrongdoing, was also charged with illegally retaining national defense information over a document he is accused of showing to journalists at his New Jersey golf club. He unleashed a torrent of invective loaded with false accusations against the government, President Joe Biden and other top Democrats on his social media platform. He also called for Smith "and his Thug Prosecutors" to be jailed alongside Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Trump's remarks came as he and rival Ron DeSantis prepared to appear on the same platform for the first in the campaign alongside almost the entire Republican presidential field at the Iowa party's annual Lincoln Dinner.

Agence France-Presse