Trump news latest: Furious Trump denounces Garland’s special counsel appointment as ‘disgrace’ and ‘unfair’

Donald Trump has slammed the appoint of a special counsel to head the investigations into his handling of classified information and the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021.

“I have been going through this for six years — for six years I have been going through this, and I am not going to go through it anymore,” Mr Trump told Fox News Digital on Friday after the counsel was revealed. “And I hope the Republicans have the courage to fight this.”

Gustaf Kilander reports on the former president’s reaction.

Former President Donald Trump hit out at the Justice Department’s decision to appoint a special counsel to oversee the investigations into his role in inciting the Capitol riot and over the presence of classified material at his Florida home.

Speaking to Fox News Digitial in an exclusive interview shortly after Attorney General Merrick Garland’s announcement, Mr Trump said: “I have been going through this for six years — for six years I have been going through this, and I am not going to go through it anymore. And I hope the Republicans have the courage to fight this.”

He continued: “I have been proven innocent for six years on everything — from fake impeachments to Mueller, who found no collusion, and now I have to do it more?”

“It is not acceptable. It is so unfair. It is so political,” Mr Trump said.

“I am not going to partake in it. I’m not going to partake in this.”

He added: “It is not even believable that they’re allowed to do this. This is the worst politicisation of justice in our country.”

Attorney General Merrick Garland said the appointment would allow prosecutors in the cases against former President Donald Trump to continue their work “indisputably guided” only by the facts and the law.

“The Department of Justice has long recognised that in certain extraordinary cases, it is in the public’s interest to appoint a special prosecutor to independently manage an investigation and prosecution,” Mr Garland said from the Justice Department’s podium.

“Based on recent developments, including the former president’s announcement that he is a candidate for president in the next election and the sitting president’s stated intention to be a candidate as well, I have concluded that it is in the public interest to appoint a special counsel.”

Attorney General Merrick Garland has appointed Jack Smith, a former head of the Department of Justice public integrity section who previously served in prosecutorial roles at the International Criminal Court and the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, as a special prosecutor to consider whether former president Donald Trump should face criminal charges stemming from a series of ongoing probes into his conduct.

Mr Garland announced his plans at a news conference at Justice Department headquarters on Friday.

The Independent’s Andrew Feinberg has the latest.

With Donald Trump’s return to the campaign trail this week came the resurgence of another familiar theme as well: racist language designed to denigrate Asian-Americans.

Mr Trump formally entered the 2024 race on Tuesday, ending months of will-he-won’t-he speculation and giving us the first real preview of a rematch between himself and President Joe Biden.

But before entering the race officially the ex-president spent weeks, if not months, teasing his eventual campaign launch and doing what he does best: attacking his rivals on the political stage. And it is in that arena where Mr Trump has leaned into the hateful, racist rhetoric which he previously displayed throughout 2020.