Criminal defendants are routinely advised to avoid commenting on pending charges against them. But Donald Trump, the former president and current White House hopeful, is no ordinary defendant.
In his first televised interview since his arraignment last week on federal charges, the former president acknowledged that he delayed turning over boxes of documents despite being asked to do so, drew factually incorrect parallels between his case and classified document probes concerning other politicians, and claimed he didn’t actually have a Pentagon attack plan that the indictment says he boasted about to others.
The interview with Fox News aired just hours after a federal magistrate judge granted a Justice Department request for a protective order in the case that would prevent the public disclosure of evidence provided to the Trump team through the information-sharing process known as discovery, though nothing said in the interview would seem to have run afoul of that directive.
The indictment filed by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith charges Trump with illegally retaining classified documents at Mar-a-Lago and obstructing government efforts to recover them, including by asking an aide to relocate boxes before a visit by investigators and suggesting that his lawyer hide or destroy documents demanded by a grand jury subpoena.
One of Trump’s GOP rivals, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, said the procrastination excuse, in his mind, served as proof of obstruction of justice, given that Trump is alleged to have caused his lawyers to certify to the Justice Department, incorrectly, that the requested classified materials had been returned.
“There was no document. That was a massive amount of papers and everything else, talking about Iran and other things,” Trump told Fox News host Bret Baier. “And it may have been held up or may not, but that was not a document. I didn’t have a document, per se. There was nothing to declassify. These were newspaper stories, magazine stories and articles.”
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Trump's penchant for talking could pose problems as Mar-a-Lago criminal case moves aheadCriminal defendants are routinely advised to avoid commenting on pending charges against them. trump kprc2 click2hou
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Trump's penchant for talking could pose problems as Mar-a-Lago criminal case moves aheadCriminal defendants are routinely advised to avoid commenting on pending charges against them. But Donald Trump, the former president and current White House hopeful, is no ordinary defendant. In his first televised interview since his arraignment last week on federal charges, the former president acknowledged that he personally went through boxes of documents taken from the White House to Mar-a-Lago, drew factually incorrect parallels between his case and classified document probes concerning other politicians and claimed that he didn’t actually have a Pentagon attack plan that the indictment says he boasted about to others. Those comments — like any remarks made by a defendant about an ongoing case — could complicate his lawyers’ work.
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Trump's penchant for talking could pose problems as Mar-a-Lago criminal case moves aheadFormer President Trump acknowledged to Fox News that he delayed turning over documents. The interview could give prosecutors admissible insight into his state of mind.
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Donald Trump’s Best (a.k.a. Worst) Excuses for Hoarding Classified Documents at Mar-a-LagoFrom claiming he was simply too busy to comply with a government subpoena to the whole I-can-declassify-documents just “by thinking about it” defense.
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Trump’s penchant for loose talk could pose problems for his attorneys in Mar-a-Lago criminal caseIn his first televised interview since his arraignment last week on federal charges, the former president acknowledged that he personally went through boxes of documents taken from the White House to Mar-a-Lago.
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Former FBI analyst sentenced to nearly 4 years over classified docsKendra Kingsbury's case shares some similarities with the one involving former President Donald Trump and the classified documents found at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
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