Trump sat with Bret Baier last night and all but admitted to a felony. He also insisted again that he only hired the best people in the White House, like Christopher Wray and Anthony Fauci.
But it is the document issue that is the problem.
FORMER PRESIDENT TRUMP: The only way NARA could ever get this stuff, this back, would be Please, please, please, could we have it back? Because they have
BRET BAIER: They did ask for it.
TRUMP: No. And I gave them some
BAIER: And then they said they went to
DOJ to subpoena you to get it.
CROSSTALK
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Which they've never done before.
BAIER: Right.
TRUMP: And it all -
BAIER: Why not just hand them over then?
TRUMP: Because I had boxes. I want to go through the boxes and get all my personal things out. I don't want to hand that over to NARA yet. And I was very busy as you've sort of seen.
BAIER: Yeah, but according to the indictment, you then tell this aide to move to other locations after telling your lawyers to say you'd fully complied with the subpoena when you hadn't.
TRUMP: Before I send boxes over, I have to take all of my things out. These boxes were interspersed with all sorts of things.
It’s the last bit that matters.
Forget the presidential records act. Forget the espionage act. When a grand jury subpoeaned documents that had “classification markings,” Trump had only one of two choices: hand over the documents or challenge the subpoena. He did not do the latter, so he had to do the former.
But here, he tells Bret Baier that he had to sort things before handing over the documents. But that’s to explain to Baier why he told the aide to move the documents to other locations, etc. after the subpoena.
Good grief.
I get he needed to sort through the boxes and he “was very busy,” but that’s not a defense to a grand jury subpoena.
This was a really, really bad idea for him to do this. It’s no wonder he is struggling to find and retain good counsel. This was just not a good idea on his part to participate in an interview like that.
Also, again, he claimed he only hired he best people in the White House. He is doing himself no favors here.
Busy? He wasn't busy. Unless applying 'Udder Butter' to his recently kicked ass counts as "busy". This jerk only sees incoming data, no matter how damning, as an opportunity to brag. His supporters are amateur versions of the same
I get that he didn’t follow proper protocol. But also I don’t care because he’s a former president who had full access to docs like this for years and was not a threat as a spy or something, and because the double standard here is so obvious. If they had indicted Hillary and out her in prison for what she did I would say, “okay fair is fair.” But they didn’t because she is a “D” not an “R.” What Trump is alleged to have done is ticky-tack, deserving of a slap on the wrist at best. And that’s assuming he has no defense at all.
I also get that that ship has sailed and it’s not a defense for the courtroom. All I can say to that is that Democrats going scorched-earth is dragging the entire country into a dark place because Republicans will (at least they better) do the exact same thing to them going forward. “Release the hounds!” The base is getting angry. If Trump is convicted, and if he actually serves any time, the base will rightly demand blood.
Democrats are playing a very, very dangerous game here, that may yet ruin our country.