Trump’s latest attack includes special counsel’s family after bombshell tape revealed

Hours after the release of an audio tape in which Donald Trump discusses a classified document that he kept after leaving office, the former president intensified his attacks on the special counsel who oversees the probe that led to Trump’s historic indictment.

In an all-caps social media post Tuesday morning, Trump decried the criminal charges that have been filed against him in federal court and asked “somebody” to “explain” his position to special counsel Jack Smith, “his family, and his friends.”

A spokesman for the Department of Justice declined to comment on Trump’s latest broadside against Smith, who was tapped last year to lead multiple criminal investigations involving the former president.

Trump was indicted on charges stemming from his alleged mishandling of classified documents and efforts to keep them from the government after leaving office. He pleaded not guilty earlier this month to 37 counts, including willful retention of national defense information and conspiracy to obstruct justice.

Trump’s post claimed that “as president of the United States, I come under the Presidential Records Act,” instead of the Espionage Act, which is the law cited in 31 of the counts against Trump. Fact-checkers have disputed Trump’s characterizations of both laws.

That statement on Truth Social was not the first time Trump has referenced Smith’s personal circle. On the morning of his arraignment in federal court in Florida, the ex-president wrote that Smith is a “Trump Hater, as are all his friends and family.” That post also asserted without evidence that materials found in the boxes of records at the center of the classified documents case were “probably ‘planted.’”

Trump’s latest post followed the Monday night release by CNN of an audio recording of a July 2021 meeting in Bedminster, New Jersey,…