‘It Doesn’t Look Very Good for Donald Trump’: Walls Closing In On Classified Documents Case
Former president could soon face his second indictment in a matter of months
Donald Trump seems soon headed for his second criminal indictment in just a matter of months, in the case involving his handling of government documents at his Florida home after his presidency had ended.
Worse: New evidence is surfacing implicating the former president in obstruction in that case, in which FBI agents last summer had to conduct a search of Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate to retrieve boxes of classified and sensitive documents which he was keeping there unlawfully.
Trump's attorneys are seeking a meeting with Attorney General Merrick Garland, the latest indication that special counsel Jack Smith is nearing the indictment phase of his probe of Trump’s handling of the classified documents.
Attorneys John Rowley and James Trusty wrote to Garland on Tuesday seeking a meeting at the attorney general’s “earliest convenience.” Trump posted the letter to Truth Social late on Tuesday evening.
Meanwhile, two of Trump's employees moved boxes of papers at Mar-a-Lago a day before the Justice Department visited the former president’s residence to collect classified documents , The Washington Post reported Thursday.
If Smith, who Garland appointed to oversee federal investigations into Trump's activities, charges Trump it would be the second criminal indictment of the former president in just a matter of months as Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg charged Trump in April with 34 felony counts in a hush-money scheme involving porn actress Stormy Daniels.
And these mounting criminal charges come amidst Trump's current run for president in next year's elections.
“Well, this certainly seems like more damning evidence. And if these reports are true, it’s unsurprising given Donald Trump’s lifelong disregard of the rules, disrespect of law, and arrogant sense of entitlement in terms of he can do anything he wants,” said John Brennan, former CIA director, of the Post report of employees moving documents to cover Trump's ownership of them. “But now he is dealing with a very, very serious issue which is classified documents and obstruction of justice.
“And at least according to this report, there were efforts made, right on the eve of this investigation on the part of FBI to obscure and to conceal evidence. So it doesn’t look very good for Donald Trump,” Brennan added. “Again, if all this evidence is mounting, and Jack Smith is a special counsel of the highest integrity with a dogged determination to find the truth in this matter. So, it’s clear that they have been quite active in this investigation.”
The Presidential Records Act doesn't give Trump any authority to hold on to documents after leaving office — despite his false claims to the contrary.
“To kind of go through some of his assertions, first of all, the Presidential Records Act doesn’t give him the right to take anything he wants, and clearly states that those records are the property of the people of the United States,” said one-time FBI official Peter Strzok. “The things that he is citing — that idea that he can declassify things en masse with his brain just by thinking about it — is nonsense.
“What concerns me, you’re absolutely right. It is, ‘I have the right. I could do it and implicitly I did do it,’” Strzok added, describing Trump's thinking. “What never comes out of his mouth, what he never says in any of his behavior is, ‘And I appreciate the solemn responsibility that I had as the president of the United States to protect the national security of the United States of America. I understood the gravity behind this highly classified information and what it cost the United States in terms of potential human lives, potentially exquisite technical capabilities which costs billions upon billions of dollars to create.’
“There is never a word out of him to express any sort of appreciation about the gravity and the importance of protecting this information,” Strzok said.
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