President Joe Biden’s administration is receiving backlash online over its Pride Month display at the White House on Sunday as many Twitter users are saying it violates the U.S. Flag Code.

Biden celebrated the LGBT community in a post Saturday, revealing a set of flags hanging from the White House that faced the South Lawn. The display includes a rainbow-colored Pride flag flanked by two American flags.

Twitter users argue the display violates a section of the U.S. Flag Code that mandates the American flag be in the center of any display featuring multiple national flags or pennants.

‘To advance revolutionary transgender agenda targeting children, Biden violates basic tenet of US Flag Code and disrespects every American service member buried under its colors,’ wrote Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

Fitton went on to cite U.S. Flag Code §7. (e), which reads, ‘The flag of the United States of America should be at the center and at the highest point of the group when a number of flags of States or localities or pennants of societies are grouped and displayed from staffs.’

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.

The display was featured prominently during Biden’s Pride Month celebration at the White House on Saturday.

The event, which hosted performers and speakers representing LGBT causes, acclaimed the Pride community as ‘the bravest and most inspiring people’ and an example for the U.S. and the entire world.

‘Outside the gates of this house are those who want to drag our country backwards, and so many battles yet to be braved. But today, we’re not here to be strong. We’re not here to be courageous. Even though for so many of you, just coming to this event is an act of bravery,’ said first lady Jill Biden.

Biden also praised the LGBT community as ‘some of the bravest and most inspiring’ people he has ever known.

‘You know, we all move forward when we move together with your joy, with your pride lighting the way,’ the president continued. ‘So today, let us proudly remember who we are – the United States of America.’

Fox News’ Timothy H.J. Nerozzi contributed to this report.

President Biden said that he saw more courage at the White House LGBT+ pride event than ‘any time in the recent past’ ten days after addressing cadets at the Air Force Academy.

‘You’re some of the bravest and most inspiring people I’ve ever known. And I’ve known a lot of good folks,’ Biden said at the pride event Saturday. ‘I see more courage in this lawn than I’ve seen in any time in the recent past.’

Biden’s remarks came less than two weeks after he spoke at the Air Force Academy graduation, which was highlighted by his dramatic fall on stage. The president’s speech to the cadets similarly focused on the importance of diversity. 

‘Your class is one of the most diverse classes in the history of this academy or any academy to graduate,’ Biden said. ‘That’s why we’re strong. That’s why we’re who we are. That’s why we’ll never give up.’

The White House displayed a pride flag Saturday along with two American flags. Biden, in his speech to LGBT+ activists, emphasized his support for ‘LGBTQ children’ and ‘transgender children.’

‘You know, we all move forward when we move together with your joy, with your pride lighting the way,’ the president said. ‘So today, let us proudly remember who we are — the United States of America.’

The White House announced federal plans Thursday to support the LGBT+ community, which included initiatives to support LGBT+ youth and a Department of Education initiative to counter Republican efforts to remove certain books from public schools.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

Former President Donald Trump on Saturday vowed to ban ‘child sexual mutilation’ and lambasted the notion of biological men competing against female athletes as ‘demeaning’ to women.

Speaking at the North Carolina Republican Party’s convention in Greensboro, Trump got especially animated when discussing transgender issues.

‘I will keep men out of women’s sports,’ Trump said to loud applause, making a weightlifting motion with his arms.

The former president went on to say longstanding athletic records are being ‘obliterated,’ specifically mentioning weightlifting. He told a story of a woman who he described as a ‘great champion’ being able to lift ‘something like 218 pounds’ but no more.

‘Then a guy comes along. Bingo!’ Trump said, lifting an imaginary weight with his hands. ‘But you know what, honestly, it’s really demeaning to women.’

Trump then turned to swimming.

‘Some women are being badly injured by the windburn that’s caused by the man going so much faster,’ said Trump. ‘The wind is blowing. It’s just terrible. It’s so unfair.’

The former president called those allowing biological men who identify as women to compete in female sports as ‘sick’ and ‘deranged.’ Trump then vowed to prohibit ‘child sexual mutilation’ in all 50 states as president, drawing loud applause from the audience.

Trump’s comments come as conservative states have advanced legislation to ban sex reassignment procedures such as puberty blockers and hormone therapy for minors under 18 years of age. 

Many states, including North Carolina, have also introduced bills to prohibit biological males who identify as female from playing on girls’ sports teams in middle school, high school, and college.

President Biden criticized measures aimed at protecting kids from life-altering sex change surgeries this week, describing the efforts as ‘extreme officials… pushing hateful bills targeting transgender children, terrifying families and criminalizing doctors.’

Former President Donald Trump on Saturday said that ‘in a sick way’ he enjoys the legal charges and investigations brought against him because they ‘expose’ the motivations of his political opponents.

Speaking at the North Carolina Republican Party’s convention in Greensboro, Trump addressed the newly unsealed federal indictment accusing him of mishandling classified documents, as well as the various investigations targeting him since he was elected president in 2016. 

‘They launched witch hunt after witch hunt, and they just try to stop our movement,’ said Trump. ‘They want to do anything they can to thwart the will of the American people. It’s called election interference. That’s what they’re doing now. And we’ve never seen it on a scale like this. The other side is downright crooked.’

Trump, who said Trump said he has ‘5,000 prosecutors’ going after him, was indicted Friday on 37 federal counts, including willful retention of national defense information, conspiracy to obstruct justice and false statements.

Trump also referenced the impeachment proceedings launched against him as well as the findings of Special Counsel John Durham, who last month released a final report on his investigation into the original probe concerning whether Trump and his campaign colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 presidential election. Durham found that there was never any information to justify opening the FBI’s investigation and that the bureau and the Department of Justice ‘failed to uphold their mission of strict fidelity to the law.’

‘We beat it all off, didn’t we?’ Trump said. ‘They put our country through hell, and they knew it was a lie the entire time.’

The former president then suggested that any Republican who becomes president will be the subject of similar investigations and on the receiving end of unending political attacks, arguing that anyone but him will crumble under such pressure. 

‘That person will not be able to withstand the fire,’ he said. ‘And they actually admit it. They come to me: ‘How do you stand this?’ And I usually look at them and say, ‘In a sick way I sort of enjoy it, because it exposes them.’ It exposes them for what they are. And it’s also lifted the poll numbers to even higher legs.’

Trump touted poll numbers showing him comfortably ahead as the front-runner in the 2024 Republican presidential primary.

Trump also directed his ire at President Joe Biden, calling him ‘corrupt.’

Earlier in the day, Trump delivered his first public remarks since being indicted, accusing Democrats of a ‘political hit job’ against him and alleging a double standard in the Biden administration of justice.

Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, says that China’s reported deal with Cuba to build a spy station targeting the U.S. shows that Beijing is preparing for conflict, and that Democrats and Republicans should work together to respond.

Gonzales, who served for 20 years in the Navy as a cryptologist, told Fox News Digital in an interview that the most valuable part of any conflict is information and that China is seeking to play catch-up with the U.S.

‘The most valuable part of a conflict is information. The person that controls the information, the person that intercepts the information. If you can control the information of the conflict, you’re controlling that conflict. China understands that. The United States certainly understands that,’ he said.

The Wall Street Journal first reported Thursday that China and Cuba have reached a secret agreement for China to establish an electronic eavesdropping facility on the island, allowing Chinese intelligence services to ‘scoop up electronic communications throughout the southeastern U.S., where many military bases are located, and monitor U.S. ship traffic.’ 

The report, citing officials familiar with the matter, said that China had agreed to pay the communist ally several billion dollars to allow it to build the eavesdropping station, and that the two countries had reached an agreement in principle. The report says that U.S. officials described the intelligence on the plans as ‘convincing.’

White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters Thursday that the report on the China-Cuba base is ‘not accurate.’ The National Security Council separately told Fox News that the WSJ report and a Politico report on the subject are inaccurate, but it did not elaborate.

But the reported deal between Cuba and China comes just months after the Chinese flew a spy balloon over the continental U.S. in February, an aggressive stunt that experts believed made it likely for the regime to obtain sensitive data before it was shot down by the U.S. military.

‘This starts to reflect where China is going,’ Gonzales said. ‘When adversaries say something against you, you should believe them. And when China says the greatest threat is the United States, we should believe that.’

Gonzales also noted moves by Beijing in the South China Sea, where China began building and militarizing islands years ago, as well as efforts to set up bases in South America and the Caribbean.

‘They’re doing all that because they’re preparing for something. And that something is a conflict between the United States and China — and we absolutely need to be ready,’ he warned.

Gonzales is calling for a united response from the U.S. in terms of pushing back on the base-building and by protecting Taiwan, which Beijing sees as a breakaway province that is Chinese territory.

‘We have to prevent this building from ever becoming real. And part of that is making sure that the United States is firm with China and let them know that we will not accept this type of intrusion in our backyard. That’s one – we have to be firm with that,’ he said. 

‘The other is, I think we need to be forceful and provide Taiwan with all the military resources they need. There’s a backlog currently right now, there is a backlog of agreed-upon U.S. military sales to Taiwan that have not been delivered. Let’s deliver those,’ he said.

Gonzales is the co-chair of the For Country Caucus — a bipartisan congressional group for military veterans to work in a nonpartisan way to make the government more productive. He says the group will soon be pushing for more equipment to be sent to Taiwan, in the hope of preventing, rather than creating, a new conflict.

‘I spent 20 years in the military, five years in Iraq and Afghanistan, I’ve fought in two wars. I don’t want to find another war. I don’t want my sons and daughters to fight in another war. So how do we prevent that? We prevent that by making sure that our adversaries know that we’re going to support our allies in any form or fashion. And we are also going to be firm in who we are,’ he said.

Fox News’ Danielle Wallace, Jennifer Griffin and Patrick Ward contributed to this report.

EXCLUSIVE: The president of the Navajo Nation told Fox News Digital that he has ordered the tribe’s attorney general to weigh legal action following the Biden administration’s oil-leasing ban impacting Navajo citizens.

Buu Nygren, the president of the Navajo Nation, a federally recognized tribe in the U.S. southwest, said that the Navajo Justice Department was considering pursuing litigation after Interior Secretary Deb Haaland’s recent order, and he plans to protest her upcoming visit to the reservation on Sunday. Last week, Haaland banned oil, gas and mineral leasing within 10 miles of the Chaco Culture National Historical Park in northwestern New Mexico for 20 years, an action strongly opposed by nearby Navajo communities.

‘To totally disregard those local communities — it’s unfair,’ Nygren told Fox News Digital in an interview Saturday. ‘There’s no need to celebrate putting people into poverty, to celebrate undermining the Navajo Nation’s sovereignty, undermining everything that comes into working with tribes, in this case, Navajo Nation.’

‘I tasked the attorney general to look into all our options, because I want to be doing justice for the local community,’ he continued. ‘As president, I’ve already told my attorney general to look into all the options. So, we’re going to be moving forward with that as well.’

Nygren and other Navajo leaders, in addition to locals, have argued that the Department of the Interior’s (DOI) action banning leasing will harm low-income Navajo citizens who depend on revenue from leasing their allotments within ten miles of Chaco Canyon mainly to fossil fuel companies. 

The allotments date back to the 1900s, when the federal government awarded them to Navajo citizens as a consolation when the tribe’s territory was downsized.

‘Since I’ve entered the legislative body for my Navajo people, I’ve listened to a lot of constituents out in that area and, you know, it’s just emotional distress, psychologically as well, that they’ve talked about this — it really disturbs me to know how much more of a hardship that these folks are going to be experiencing out there,’ Brenda Jesus, who chairs the Navajo Nation Council’s Resources & Development Committee, told Fox News Digital earlier this week.

Jesus led a delegation of Navajo tribal leaders who met with lawmakers on Capitol Hill this week, making their case against the DOI’s ban. Rep. Harriet Hageman, R-Wyo., who chairs a House panel on Indian affairs, said the action represented a ‘taking’ of tribal lands and vowed congressional action following her meeting with the delegation.

Overall, there are currently 53 Indian allotments located in the 10-mile buffer zone around Chaco Canyon, generating $6.2 million per year in royalties for an estimated 5,462 allottees, according to Navajo Nation data. In addition, there are 418 unleased allotments in the zone that are associated with 16,615 allottees. 

According to the Western Energy Alliance, an industry group that represents oil and gas producers in the area, Navajo members will lose an estimated $194 million as a result of Haaland’s actions.

‘You can’t pound your chest on going after people in poverty,’ Nygren told Fox News Digital. ‘I don’t know who would want to celebrate that. Personally, I think that’s, I don’t know, you got to not have a heart if you’re going to put people that are already impoverished in third-world-country conditions and barely have enough to pay for gas, food, laundry, the daily necessities — to put them into an even tougher situation.’

‘To me, I don’t know how anybody could sleep with that thought,’ he said. ‘Come to Navajo. It’s tough. Everybody’s struggling, everybody’s trying to make a dollar, literally.’

Haaland is expected to visit Chaco Canyon on Sunday to celebrate the action. Nygren said that Navajo citizens are planning to peacefully protest the event and that he has even faced calls to block the interior secretary’s access to Navajo roads.

‘You shouldn’t celebrate beating up people in poverty,’ Nygren said.

Nygren also noted that the Biden administration failed to offer any economic proposal to account for the income losses the Chaco land withdrawal would create for Navajo allottees. 

In addition, Nygren criticized Haaland for not properly consulting the Navajo Nation and the communities near Chaco Canyon that would be most impacted by the action. The tribe previously endorsed a five-mile buffer zone to protect the site while ensuring future drilling on oil-rich allotments, but has said that Haaland never considered the compromise.

‘For her to go all over the country and the world to talk about tribal sovereignty and tribal communities and this and that. But then when it comes down to it, to put tribal sovereignty into question. Actions speak louder than words, in my opinion,’ he said. 

While DOI stated Friday that the action won’t impact existing leases or production on them, opponents of the ten-mile buffer zone said it would indirectly make Indian-owned allotments worthless. Because drilling on the Navajo allotments requires horizontal crossings that pass through federal land impacted by the ban, the action effectively ends all drilling in the area, they argued.

Former President Donald Trump on Saturday afternoon will make his first public appearance since his federal indictment over his handling of classified documents when he addresses the state Republican conventions in Georgia and North Carolina as part of his 2024 presidential bid.

The 2024 front-runner was indicted Friday on 37 federal counts, including willful retention of national defense information, conspiracy to obstruct justice and false statements.

The indictment accuses Trump of failing to comply with demands to return classified documents — including plans for a retaliatory attack on an unnamed foreign power — he had gathered in Mar-a-Lago. Other documents include defense and weapon capabilities of the U.S. and details of the U.S. nuclear program.

‘The unauthorized disclosure of these classified documents could put at risk the national security of the United States, foreign relations, the safety of the United States military, and human sources and the continued viability of sensitive intelligence collection methods,’ the indictment says.

It also accuses him of storing the documents in a bathroom and other places at the residence, and of even bragging and showing off the documents to visitors. In one instance he is said to have told individuals of a document ‘as president I could have declassified it,’ and, ‘Now I can’t, you know, but this is still a secret.’

He is also said to have directed an aide to move boxes of documents demanded by a grand jury subpoena while claiming to have fully cooperated. The FBI opened a criminal investigation into the matter in March 2022.

Trump has dismissed the indictment as ‘election interference’ and a witch hunt.

‘This is the most corrupt administration in history — there has never been an administration so corrupt, and they’re just starting to find it right now,’ Trump told Fox News Digital this week. ‘They are trying to deflect all of their dishonesty by bringing this ridiculous boxes hoax case.’

He added: ‘They’re not going to get away with it.’

Trump is likely to express similar sentiments on Saturday, when he will speak before overwhelmingly supportive crowds who will largely share his belief that the charges are politically motivated.

The indictment adds additional legal turmoil to Trump’s bid for re-election, coming after he was indicted in New York in an alleged hush money scheme earlier this year. He will make his first federal court appearance on Tuesday.

Other Republicans on the campaign trail, including those who have been extremely critical of the former president, have largely declined to attack him over the indictment so far, and have shared the sentiment that the prosecution is politically motivated.

‘The weaponization of federal law enforcement represents a mortal threat to a free society. We have for years witnessed an uneven application of the law depending upon political affiliation,’ Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said as news of the indictment emerged.

Fox News’ Brooke Singman, Jake Gibson and Bill Mears contributed to this report.

Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said it’s ‘hypocritical’ to blame Canada for the wildfire smoke coating parts of the East Coast and prompting air-quality concerns, arguing that the same problem is afflicting U.S. forests.

Fox News Digital reached out to Kennedy’s campaign seeking a statement from the candidate on the current air-quality levels in parts of the U.S. and whether he believes Canada should pay some kind of penalty for the smoke coming across America’s northern border.

‘It would be hypocritical to blame Canada for a problem that afflicts U.S. forests as well,’ Kennedy said in exclusive comments to Fox News Digital. ‘Besides, attributing wildfires to a single cause would be foolish. Decades of fire suppression, the loss of apex predators and keystone species, ecological disruption due to pesticides, changing climate, soil loss leading to intensified flood-drought cycles and depletion of aquifers all may contribute to the problem.’

Smoke from ongoing wildfires in Canada has traveled as far as South Carolina, casting a thick haze that caused air quality in New York City and Washington, D.C., to drop to record lows. A number of professional sports teams have even postponed games over air-quality concerns. 

Many environmental activists and liberal politicians, such as President Biden and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., have blamed climate change for the problem. 

‘Between NYC in wildfire smoke and this in PR, it bears repeating how unprepared we are for the climate crisis,’ Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. ‘We must adapt our food systems, energy grids, infrastructure, healthcare, etc ASAP to prepare for what’s to come and catch up to what is already here.’

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., echoed that sentiment on social media.

‘These Canadian wildfires are truly unprecedented, and climate change continues to make these disasters worse,’ Schumer wrote on Twitter. ‘We passed the Inflation Reduction Act to fight climate change, and we must do more to speed our transition to cleaner energy and reduce carbon in the atmosphere.’

However, many Republicans counter that these fires are the product of poor forest management, arguing that forests need to be managed through actions such as logging, controlled burns and forest thinning in order to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires.

‘To be candid, if you look at these issues throughout the United States and Canada, over time, it’s possible that climate is changing,’ former Interior Secretary David Bernhardt told Fox News. ‘At the same time, you can say that forest management practices in many places have contributed greatly to having a much higher fuel load, and fuel loads are a large driver of catastrophic wildfire.’

‘If you don’t use methodologies to clear some of that excess product out, that just is sitting there, literally, as a tinderbox box for a match,’ he added. ‘In this case, what we’re seeing from Canada . . . is fires that are largely caused by lightning, strikes with an element of a very, very high fuel load.’

Earlier this week, Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont., lambasted politicians who are ‘complaining’ about the Canadian wildfire smoke on Capitol Hill but ‘won’t allow’ forest management in Western states.

‘I have zero empathy for D.C. politicians complaining about the smoke,’ Zinke tweeted. ‘If you won’t allow us to responsibly manage forests, you should have to deal with the consequences just like we do in the West.’ 

The congressman also posted a video of him standing in front of the Washington Monument that was masked by smoke.

‘Whether you’re a climate change activist or denier, it doesn’t relieve you of the responsibility to manage our forests,’ said Zinke. ‘And if you don’t manage our forests, this is what happens. So welcome to Montana, Washington, D.C.’

As for Kennedy, the latest national polling indicates that he’s grabbing double-digit support as he challenges President Biden in the Democratic primary.

The Biden administration on Saturday confirmed that China is working to increase its spying efforts in Cuba, calling it an ‘ongoing issue’ that predates the current president, after officials initially said reports that Beijing had secured a deal to build a new spy base on the island 90 miles from the U.S. were inaccurate.

‘This is an ongoing issue, and not a new development, and the arrangement as characterized in the reporting does not comport with our understanding,’ an administration official told Fox News on Saturday.

The Wall Street Journal first reported Thursday that China and Cuba have reached a secret agreement for China to establish an electronic eavesdropping facility on the island, allowing Chinese intelligence services to ‘scoop up electronic communications throughout the southeastern U.S., where many military bases are located, and monitor U.S. ship traffic.’ 

The report, citing officials familiar with the matter, said that China had agreed to pay Cuba several billion dollars to allow it to build the eavesdropping station. The report says U.S. officials described the intelligence on the plans as ‘convincing.’ 

However, White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters Thursday that the report on the China-Cuba base is ‘not accurate.’ The National Security Council separately told Fox News that the WSJ report and a Politico report on the subject are inaccurate, but it did not elaborate.

On Saturday the administration official said that the administration had been briefed on a ‘number of sensitive PRC efforts around the world to expand its overseas logistics, basing, and collection infrastructure globally to allow the PLA to project and sustain military power at greater distance’ in January 2021.

The official said China had considered a number of sites spanning the Atlantic Ocean, Latin America, the Middle East, Central Asia, Africa, and the Indo-Pacific. 

‘This effort included the presence of PRC intelligence collection facilities in Cuba,’ the official said. ‘In fact, the PRC conducted an upgrade of its intelligence collection facilities in Cuba in 2019. This is well-documented in the intelligence record.’

The statement also appeared to criticize the Trump administration for its handling of China’s efforts in Cuba. 

‘This is an issue that this Administration inherited. It was our assessment that, despite awareness of the basing efforts and some attempts to address this challenge in the past Administration, we were not making enough progress and needed a more direct approach,’ the official said.

The official said that President Biden had directed his team to address the challenge, and that the administration has been working on that approach ‘quietly’ and ‘carefully’ with a strategy that ‘begins with diplomacy’ and has been seeing results.

‘We’ve engaged governments that are considering hosting PRC bases at high levels and exchanged information with them,’ they said.

‘Our experts assess that our diplomatic efforts have slowed the PRC down,’ the official added. ‘We think the PRC isn’t quite where they had hoped to be. There are still challenges, and we continue to be concerned about the PRC’s longstanding activities with Cuba. The PRC will keep trying to enhance its presence in Cuba, and we will keep working to disrupt it.’

The official added that the administration remains confident that it is able to meet security commitments at home and in the region.

The report of the base in Cuba had sparked concern from both sides of the aisle and in both chambers of Congress

‘The United States must respond to China’s ongoing and brazen attacks on our nation’s security. We must be clear that it would be unacceptable for China to establish an intelligence facility within 100 miles of Florida and the United States, in an area also populated with key military installations and extensive maritime traffic,’ Senate Intelligence Committee members Mark Warner, D-Va., and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said in a joint statement. ‘We urge the Biden administration to take steps to prevent this serious threat to our national security and sovereignty.’ 

In an interview with Fox News Digital on Friday, Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, said the move from Beijing was a sign it was preparing for conflict with the U.S.

‘The most valuable part of a conflict is information. The person that controls the information, the person that intercepts the information. If you can control the information of the conflict, you’re controlling that conflict. China understands that. The United States certainly understands that,’ he said.

Fox News’ Danielle Wallace, Jennifer Griffin and Patrick Ward contributed to this report.

Former President Donald Trump on Saturday tore into the federal indictment accusing him of mishandling classified documents, accusing Democrats of a ‘political hit job’ against him as he alleged a double standard in the administration of justice.

‘They took one charge, and they made it 36 different times. And we have a thug who is in charge. This is a political hit job, Republicans are treated far differently at the Justice Department than Democrats,’ he said in the speech at the Georgia Republican state convention.

The 2024 front-runner was indicted Friday on 37 federal counts, including willful retention of national defense information, conspiracy to obstruct justice and false statements.

The remarks mark his first public remarks since the indictment. He will make another speech later Saturday to the North Carolina GOP state convention.

The indictment accuses Trump of failing to comply with demands to return classified documents — including plans for a retaliatory attack on an unnamed foreign power — he had gathered in Mar-a-Lago. Other documents include defense and weapon capabilities of the U.S. and details of the U.S. nuclear program.

‘The unauthorized disclosure of these classified documents could put at risk the national security of the United States, foreign relations, the safety of the United States military, and human sources and the continued viability of sensitive intelligence collection methods,’ the indictment says.

It also accuses him of storing the documents in a bathroom and other places at the residence, and of even bragging and showing off the documents to visitors. In one instance, he is said to have told individuals of a document, ‘as president, I could have declassified it,’ and, ‘Now I can’t, you know, but this is still a secret.’

He is also said to have directed an aide to move boxes of documents demanded by a grand jury subpoena while claiming to have fully cooperated. The FBI opened a criminal investigation into the matter in March 2022.

Trump, allies and even other 2024 presidential candidates have dismissed the charges as politically motivated, and contrast it with what they believe is lighter treatment of more serious offenses by Democrats.

‘The ridiculous and baseless indictment of me by the Biden administration’s weaponized Department of Justice will go down as among the most horrific abuses of power in the history of our country,’ Trump said. ‘This vicious persecution is a travesty of justice.’

He also took aim at President Biden directly, accusing him of ‘trying to jail his leading political opponent and opponent that’s beating him by a lot in the polls, just like they do in Stalinist Russia or communist China.’

Biden asserted he had no involvement with the Justice Department’s probe into the Trump documents as he took questions at the White House Thursday, before Trump’s indictment. 

‘I have never once, not one single time, suggested to the Justice Department what they should do or not do relative to bringing a charge or not bringing a charge,’ Biden said. ‘I’m honest.’

The indictment adds additional legal turmoil to Trump’s bid for re-election, coming after he was indicted in New York in an alleged hush money scheme earlier this year. He will make his first federal court appearance on Tuesday.

Other Republicans on the campaign trail, including those who have been extremely critical of the former president, have largely declined to attack him over the indictment so far, and have shared the sentiment that the prosecution is politically motivated.

‘The weaponization of federal law enforcement represents a mortal threat to a free society. We have for years witnessed an uneven application of the law depending upon political affiliation,’ Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said as news of the indictment emerged.

Trump on Saturday sought to cast the upcoming presidential contest as a choice not just between Democrats and Republicans, but between the ‘deep state’ and democracy.

‘Either we have a deep state or we have a democracy. We’re going to have one or the other. And we’re right at the tipping point,’ he said.

‘And either they win or we win. It’s very simple. They win or we win,’ he said.

Fox News’ Brooke Singman contributed to this report.