Dick Morris, author and adviser to former presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, told Newsmax on Friday that Trump is "feisty" and "upbeat" after the Department of Justice announced his indictment for mishandling classified documents after leaving the White House.
"Feisty, upbeat," Morris said on "American Agenda." "He believes [the DOJ] way overstepped in this thing."
Special counsel Jack Smith said in a video statement Friday that the DOJ is indicting Trump.
"Today, an indictment was unsealed charging Donald J. Trump with felony violations of our national security laws as well as participating in a conspiracy to obstruct justice," Smith said in the brief statement. "This indictment was voted by a grand jury of citizens in the Southern District of Florida."
It's the second time since March that Trump has been indicted for felonies, including a case in New York that accuses him of falsifying documents regarding a payment to porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016.
In his conversation with Trump, Morris said he told the former president that the indictment, which Morris called politically motivated, will help Trump in his bid for the GOP 2024 presidential nomination.
"I think it's going to help you," Morris said he told Trump. "I think it makes it so obvious that the deep state is after you."
Morris said Trump's dispute with the National Archives over documents he brought to his Mar-a-Lago Florida estate after leaving the White House in January 2021 is much less of an offense than documents found in the possession of President Joe Biden, going back to his days as a senator, when he had no legal authority to possess them.
"Will [people] believe that taking a document that has a classification marker on it and not giving it to a foreign power, not selling it to a news media, not broadcasting it publicly, but storing it in your basement as opposed to the archive bureau is wrong? I don't think people will think that [is the case]," Morris said. "I think what they will think is that this is obviously political."
Morris said the case amounts to little more than "returning an overdue library book," and that Trump believes this will end up hurting Democrats and the deep state in the end.
"I think he feels that his opponents in the government made themselves vulnerable, and I think he can't get over the fact that Biden did what he did, times 10, and is not facing indictment," Morris said. "I think that he absolutely sees this as proof of the bias of the 'department of injustices.'"
About NEWSMAX TV:
NEWSMAX is the fastest-growing cable news channel in America!
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.