Around mid-day yesterday, Trump posted a statement on his social media platform where he wrote about how well his lawyers’ meeting went with the DOJ, and noted that “I did nothing wrong.”
Man, that did not age well! (I should add that it's my understanding of federal law that "I did nothing wrong" has the legal equivalence of acquittal. Unless I mis-read Google when doing a search about it...) Trump also wrote in that social media statement, wanting to make clear to everyone that he wasn't acting randomly on his own, but that his lawyers had advised him. The one, little, pesky thing he left out is that what his top, actually-expert lawyers – which included, y'know, the Attorney General of the United States, chief law official in the country – advised him was, “Oh, dear God, NO, there was NOT any election fraud. Do NOT do what you are talking about doing!!! Are you nuts?? Stop! Stop!” So, as the day dragged to a close and those on Indictment Watch yesterday were disappointed that there was no Trump D.C. indictment while were putting away their bowl of popcorn – all of a sudden we got this Mar-a-Lago twist! New charges against Trump in Florida, and a new co-conspirator defendant. As the expression goes -- Did not see that coming! All this causes new, big problems for Trump here. For starters, there are now two people involved with moving and hiding and destroying evidence, which makes the action harder to deny. Additionally, it’s one thing for Walt Nauta to not flip – he’s a Navy guy who was trained to follow his commander, and worked with Trump in the White House as his valet. Someone you can see agreeing to go down with the ship. Carlos de Oliveira, though, is a maintenance worker at a country club. Though he initially has turned down a cooperation offer, it’s hard to imagine -- other than believing Trump will win the general election and keep his word about “Many people say I will pardon you” -- that in the end he’ll be willing to go to prison for Trump – for moving boxes. And if so, if he does become a cooperating witness, it’s not unreasonable to at least consider that Nauta sees the hellacious writing on the prison wall, and does, too. We’ll see… And further, prosecutors have a great deal of new material that lays out everyone’s actions. Including the classified material that Trump saved at a reporter, and texts that are as specific as “The boss wanted the server deleted.” By the way, consider that one text alone, and how damning it is on so many levels. Not just this crime, but also how long Trump and his acolytes have been crying about Hilary Clinton and her server. Where is her server??!!, they have been shouting – ignoring that the server exists where it always did, and the FBI had a cloned copy of it. But now, here is Trump telling his staff to destroy his server. This is going to add a whole new perspective whenever anyone in TrumpWorld keeps wringing their hands about “servers.” There’s an added problem for Trump with this new material. As legal analyst Barbara McQuade noted, it’s not just that it provides evidence of moving and documents, and trying to delete surveillance video – but it undercuts Trump’s most-often repeated defense, that he had every right to the documents. After all, if you believe you have a right to the material, why would you go to such lengths to hide it and delete surveillance video of you doing so?! Moreover, today’s revelations also eliminates what has long been seen as the one defense had that could at least be plausibly argued – advice of counsel. For those to be valid, however, NYU law school professor – and former special counsel at the Department of Defense – says it requires a defendant making a full disclosure to his attorney – except Trump already told his lawyers that he had returned all classified material back to the government. On MSNBC, attorney Nik Ackerman – who helped prosecute Watergate – said that Special Counsel Jack Smith isn’t just putting together a case “beyond reasonable doubt,” but beyond any doubt. By the way, in fairness to newly-named co-conspirator Carlos De Oliveira, when he drained the pool at Mar-a-Lago, that flooded the room with surveillance video, it is my belief that he thought he was just following Trump's order to drain the swamp. Hey, that's probably as good as any defense he's going to get...
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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