We learned last week that Donald Trump is now under federal indictment for his many crimes in association with mishandling of classified documents and his large-scale theft of sensitive material after he left the White House. He violated the Espionage Act in like fifty different ways. Or rather 38 ways, since the indictment was unsealed on Friday, and Trump is looking at a 38-count indictment. Within the newly unsealed indictment, the Department of Justice also included visual aids of how they discovered some of Trump’s many stolen classified files – he had them packed up and he “stored” them in various Mar-a-Lago bathrooms. Did we know that MAL’s bathrooms have chandeliers? And cheap-looking shower curtains? And a sh-tload of documents about America’s nuclear weapons too.
Federal prosecutors laid out an evidence-packed case in an indictment unsealed on Friday that former President Donald J. Trump had put national security secrets at risk by mishandling classified documents he took from the White House and then schemed to block the government from reclaiming the material.
The 49-page, 38-count indictment said the documents held onto by Mr. Trump included some involving sensitive nuclear programs and others that detailed the country’s potential vulnerabilities to military attack. In some cases, prosecutors said, he displayed them to people without security clearances and stored them in a haphazard manner at Mar-a-Lago, even stacking a pile of boxes in a bathroom at his private club and residence in Florida.
The indictment included evidence vividly illustrating what prosecutors said was Mr. Trump’s willingness to hide the material from investigators.
In one of the most problematic pieces of evidence for the former president, the indictment recounted how at one point during the effort by the government to retrieve the documents, Mr. Trump, according to an account by one of his lawyers, made a “plucking motion” that implied, “Why don’t you take them with you to your hotel room, and if there’s anything really bad in there, like, you know, pluck it out.”
Jack Smith, the special counsel who is bringing the case for the Justice Department, cast the investigation during a brief statement in Washington as a defense of national security. He urged Americans read the indictment to understand the “scope and gravity” of the charges, which he said were necessary to preserve “bedrock” democratic principles.
“We have one set of laws in this country, and they apply to everyone,” he said. The investigation had been conducted with utmost integrity, he added, and, in an implicit nod to the election calendar — Mr. Trump remains the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination — promised to seek a speedy trial.
[From The NY Times]
If you’d like to see the NYT’s annotated copy of the indictment, go here. I trust the online lawyers, all of whom have been laugh-crying all weekend about how Trump is absolutely going to prison for this sh-t. The federal case is very, very strong, let’s say it that way. It’s bigly strong. Jack Smith took his time and put together a bulletproof case and Trump will absolutely be prosecuted.
Page Six had a story about Trump’s public and private bluster when he learned about the indictment. He had diners cleared out of Mar-a-Lago, and he’s been screaming at his lawyers (more on that in a moment) and telling everyone around him that it’s a “political witch hunt” and “he’ll fight it all the way to the Supreme Court.” Sources also claim that he “seemed shaken” and “rattled” away from the cameras. As for his lawyers… two of them quit shortly after the indictment was unsealed. James Trusty and John Rowley walked away from Trump. It’s more than likely Trump was lying to them too.
Vox and other outlets are running stories about the Republican freakout over the indictment, but from where I sit, President Biden is playing this correctly. Biden has barely said anything on the record about Trump’s stolen files, and Biden (a longtime politician, who understands the office of the presidency) isn’t the one calling the shots at DOJ.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
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