In a preview of Donald Trump’s exclusive interview with Fox News host Bret Baier released on Monday, the former president, who is facing espionage charges after mishandling of classified documents and refusing to return them, said he didn’t return the boxes of hundreds of documents he took to his Mar-a-Lago estate because he was “very busy.”
When asked by Baier why he didn’t hand over the documents to the Department of Justice after being subpoenaed, Trump, who continually spoke over the Fox News interviewer in the clip, explained that he had personal items mixed in with the state secrets.
“I wanted to go through the boxes and get all my personal things out. I don’t want to hand that over,” he said. “And I was very busy, as you’ve sort of seen.”
Trump also appeared to deny being asked to return the classified material and denied getting a subpoena from the DOJ.
Baier, who called into the network after the clip aired, characterized Trump as “defiant.” He said of Trump, “He really denies flatly some of the things that are specifically laid out in the indictments.”
He promised that the interview, which is over an hour in length, “runs the gamut.” It is the first sit-down interview the former president has done since being arraigned in a Miami courthouse last Tuesday.
“Every question that you think you would want to ask the former president, we got to some iteration of it,” Baier assured.
Watch the video preview above. Part one of the interview airs Monday night on Fox News.
