Trump urges relocation of 2020 election case from D.C. to West Virginia

Former President Donald Trump has expressed his desire to have his federal case, which accuses him of attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election, moved out of Washington, D.C., which he perceives as a biased location.

Trump made these statements on the eve of his arraignment, as law enforcement officers worked to bolster security measures around the nation’s capital.

In a late-night social media post, Trump criticized President Joe Biden as “crooked” and federal prosecutor Jack Smith as “deranged,” while hoping that the criminal case would be relocated to a more impartial venue, such as West Virginia, a politically unbiased neighboring state where Trump won by a significant margin in the 2020 election.

Trump argued that receiving a fair trial in Washington would be “IMPOSSIBLE” due to his previous calls for a “Federal TAKEOVER” of the district to restore its greatness.

This post on Truth Social, Trump’s social media platform, emerged just hours before his scheduled appearance before a federal magistrate judge at the E. Barrett Prettyman courthouse.

The indictment filed against Trump on Tuesday accuses him of multiple conspiracies to subvert the legitimate results of the 2020 election. One of these conspiracies involved his obstruction of Congress at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, in an attempt to delay the certification of Biden’s victory as a violent mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol.

Notably, the federal courthouse where Trump will be arraigned is just a 15-minute walk away from the U.S. Capitol.

Currently, Trump faces significant criminal charges in two federal cases, both brought by special counsel Jack Smith, who was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland in November. In June, Trump was charged in connection with Smith’s other probe, which focused on his retention of classified documents after leaving office in 2021.

In addition to these federal cases, Trump is also facing charges from Manhattan prosecutors related to falsifying business records involving hush money payments. Trump maintains his innocence in both the documents case and the hush money case, denying any extramarital affairs.

Trump’s defense attorney, John Lauro, has suggested that they will seek a change of venue for the trial, aiming for a more diverse location with a balanced political jury pool. Lauro specifically mentioned West Virginia as a state that offers a more evenly divided voter registration compared to the overwhelmingly Democratic composition of Washington, D.C.

While D.C. has consistently voted against Trump in 2020 and 2016, West Virginia provided Trump with a significantly higher margin of victory against Biden, second only to Wyoming.

In his Wednesday night post, Trump criticized D.C. as “a high crime embarrassment to our Nation and, indeed, the World.” He also reiterated his claim that the indictment constitutes election interference against him.