by Samantha Cortes, Winnie Hohan, Olivia Weinstock and Ani Gutierrez.
Donald Trump announced that he will run for president again in 2024 even if he is indicted on criminal charges.
The four-day Conservative Political Action Conference held last week had Trump as the keynote speaker, where he boasted to the crowd that he would end up victorious in the next election.
“In 2016, I declared, ‘I am your voice’,” Trump said during his speech. “Today, I add, ‘I am your warrior. I am your justice’.”
Trump’s path to the presidency may be influenced by the ongoing investigations conducted by the Department of Justice. Federal officials are looking into the former president’s potential tampering of the 2020 election results and his removal of nearly 3,000 classified documents from the White House.
During the FBI’s raid of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago house in September, agents found about 200,000 pages of documents. This included 100 classified documents and 48 empty folders marked as classified.
The Department of Justice is also investigating Trump’s connection to the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol attack. The department said that the former president can be hit with civil lawsuits that claim he is responsible for the damages of the attack.
The department recently confirmed that it has arrested at least 1,000 people connected to the Capitol attack. More than half of those charged with federal crimes in the case have pleaded guilty for their involvement.
Trump insisted that he would remain in the race even if charges were brought against him.
“I wouldn’t even think about leaving,” he said to reporters before his speech. “Probably it will enhance my numbers.”
Constitutional experts said that Trump could still be elected into office if he is convicted or indicted of these charges. Convicted felons are still allowed to run for office as long as they are at least a 35-year-old natural born citizen who has been a U.S. resident for 14 years.
“Individuals who’ve been convicted of a felony can be prohibited from participating even as voters in our democracy, but a president convicted of a felony is still allowed,” said James Sampler, a constitutional law professor at Hofstra University.
Trump and two other republicans have announced their run for the upcoming presidential election. Among the potential runners, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis appears to be Trump’s biggest opponent for the party nomination.
Similarly to Trump, DeSantis has built his political platform against immigration, COVID-19 lockdown regulations and abortion. Some state and national polls show that DeSantis has overtaken Trump in popularity.
Trump insiders have fueled the feud between the two politicians, saying that the former president has given his potential opponent the nicknames ‘Ron DisHonest’ and ‘Tiny D.’
Despite his lingering influence in the republican party, Trump is a frontrunner in the election and will begin campaigning for the primaries in the coming months.
“We are going to finish what we started,” Trump said during his speech. “We’re going to complete the mission. We’re going to see this battle through to ultimate victory.”
