Donald Trump made an assertion of an “unprecedented weaponization of ‘Justice'” on Thursday August 3, shortly before his scheduled appearance in a Washington courtroom to address charges related to the conspiracy of overturning the 2020 presidential election. This case is likely to have significant implications for the 2024 White House race, as he is currently considered the presumptive Republican nominee. 

Donald Trump alleged an “unprecedented weaponization of ‘Justice'” on Thursday, hours before he was to appear in a Washington courtroom to answer charges of conspiracy to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Trump also accused Biden of ordering the Justice Department to charge him with “as many crimes as can be concocted,” forcing him to spend time and money defending himself rather than campaign as the presumptive Republican nominee in the 2024 White House race.

Donald Trump is expected to appear in court on Thursday to answer charges of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election, a case that will cast a dark and volatile cloud over the 2024 White House race for which he remains the presumptive Republican nominee.

The 77-year-old Trump is expected to enter a plea of not guilty at a hearing at 4:00 pm (2000 GMT) before magistrate judge Moxila Upadhyaya.

The accusations that Trump and six unnamed co-conspirators plotted to upend the 2020 election is the former president’s third criminal indictment since March, and the most serious of the cases threatening to derail his comeback bid.

Special counsel Jack Smith unveiled a 45-page indictment of Trump on Tuesday charging him with conspiracy to defraud the United States and attempting to disenfranchise American voters with his false claims that he won the November 2020 election.

Smith, a former war crimes prosecutor at the Hague, linked Trump’s actions following his loss to Democrat Joe Biden directly to the attack on the Capitol, which he called an “unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy.”

Trump is already scheduled to go on trial in Florida in May of next year on charges that he took top secret government documents to his Mar-A-Lago estate in Florida and refused to return them.

The twice-impeached former president also faces criminal charges in New York for allegedly paying election-eve hush money to a porn star.

Trump has pleaded not guilty in the documents and hush money cases and accused prosecutors of seeking to thwart his presidential bid with “fake” indictments.

He slammed the alleged “unprecedented weaponization” of the Justice Department in a post on his Truth Social platform Thursday, accusing Biden of seeking to charge him with “as many crimes as can be concocted.”

The new conspiracy charges raise the prospect of Trump being further embroiled in legal proceedings at the height of what is expected to be a bitter presidential campaign.

The plot allegedly included attempts to pressure Mike Pence into throwing out Electoral College votes at the January 6 joint session of Congress called to certify Biden’s win, which the vice president eventually refused to do.

Although Trump’s arraignment will be before a magistrate judge, the actual case is to be heard by US District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan.

Chutkan, 61, has a legal history with Trump, she ruled against him in a November 2021 case.

Khalil Wakim, with AFP