That Was Not Smart
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.
I heard this and he didn’t do himself any favors. I also don’t get polls that say he is so far ahead. No one ever polls anyone I know, for one. But also, do people not hear these things and think we can do better than the drama that follows him everywhere in everything he touches?
Fact: The Democrats have been trying to put the former President in jail since he became President, deserved or not.
Fact: the former President just handed them what they want on a Silver Platter.
Only way out of this now is to negotiate terms that will also get him to agree not to run for President. That's what they really want. Jail time would just be icing on the cake.
What has the country come to? We have an old man (80 years old) in the White House that I cannot tell if he even knows if he is lying now or not. In the past, I knew he was lying. We have a guy who is getting up there himself (just turned 77), who could have gone down as one of the most effective and greatest Presidents in our life time. But instead, history will be much less kinder to him (and his enemies, unless of course, one side or the other gets the chance to rewrite history).
Somebody in the Republican Field has to break through and become a viable, intelligent and hopefully ethical alternative to what we are being offered today.