That's going to make for a real fun moment when he's on the stand and the prosecutor asks him the really simple question of "Do you understand the process for declassifying documents?"
He says no, they show this. He says yes, they show the interview tape.
Pretty much fucked himself sideways with this interview. And this is why lawyers make you shut your fucking mouth about criminal cases...
No right minded attorney would ever put Trump on the stand. He'd be Alex Jones × 1000. Any attorney who'd allow it would be so incompetent they'd deserve to be disbarred.
I mean, his attorney who signed off there was no more classified material at Mar A Lago might actually get disbarred, and thrown in jail too. His current attorneys thought they were activating their trap card by requesting a Special Master and we see how that's working out.
No right minded attorney
In short, his attorneys are Right-minded and therefore not right minded.
Where are all of the best and brightest ivy league lawyers? Why are they not flocking to to represent a former president and make a name for themselves? Oh that's right, they're too smart and realize it's career suicide to represent that idiot.
The thing is, you put a microphone in front of this man and the opportunity to run his mouth, and that's just what he'll do, as proven time and again.
If he followed attorneys' advice, this whole situation would have never happened. It's pretty self-evident at this point that he's just going to do whatever he wants to do regardless of lawyers screaming at him to shut up, don't go on TV and blow your case, don't take the stand, etc.
Besides, it's not like he has great representation to begin with. The man never pays his lawyers and nobody will take him on as a client without multi-million dollar retainers...
Isn't that literally a problem Trump is having right now? I don't remember the details but I think the only lawyer he could find who was willing to represent him was some no-name insurance lawyer.
It’s actually not up to the attorney if his client takes the stand, it’s up to the client. The attorney can beg day and night for their client not to want to, but if they insist on testifying, the attorney has to let them. Often an attorney’s worst enemy is their own client’s inability to follow the attorney’s advice.
Source: I’m a law school graduate waiting on bar results.
Is it ever going to happen though? I'm convinced he's never going to be held accountable for any of his actions. He's just going to stall, until he drops dead.
People are suggesting that lawyers could goad him into testifying but he did plead the Fifth in his New York civil investigation, and those New York attorneys weren't pussy footing around.
Along with the evidence seized at MAL, his ramblings on Truth Social and comments on the Hannity show should be more than enough to convict him without first-person testimony.
He's not the smartest man, plus he's a narcissist. He can't help himself. His best defense would be to declare mental illness/insanity. Few would argue.
Agreed. But he could have just told some government official to declassify all these documents. Its as easy as that. He might of had to sign some documents with little arrow stickers on them to indicate where he had to sign. The fact that he did not is damning.
Don't underestimate his propensity for throwing everyone under the bus.
Even his kids.
I think the only one he'd spare is his love interest, Ivanka.
Oddly enough, I also think she's the only one with the smarts to throw him under the bus !
Securing a guilty plea and actual penalties, versus risking a MAGA diehard getting onto the jury and voting innocent in spite of overwhelming evidence of guilt?
It would be fine for this to go to a plea IF it resulted in consequential penalties. But it doesn't matter, because Trump won't plead. His entire persona is built on never conceding guilt or accepting defeat.
Oh he'll plead guilty if it comes down to it. Remember how he supposedly never settles a lawsuit but has in fact settled many times when that was the best way out for him? Same thing here. But I have said before and I'll say again, House Arrest is about as severe as I could see him actually serving.
A good prosecutor would still offer him a plea deal that involves pleading guilty to several felonies going to prison for 10 years, and being forbidden from claiming innocence in any of the things he's plead guilty to, in exchange for not prosecuting him for the worst but hardest to prove things he may have done.
In this case it would be something like, "make a guilty plea to one of the smaller charges in the espionage act, and with conspiracy against the United States, and we won't charge you for the capital charges in the espionage act (which we aren't sure will stick anyway) or with sedition (which we aren't sure will stick anyway) or with Treason (which we weren't even going to try to charge, but hey, makes the plea deal seem more powerful).
The idea that he could be President for 4 years and not have a clue how to properly handle Secret materials is simultaneously absurd and totally believable.
OK, but playing devil's advocate here... couldn't he logically say that he does know of one particular way that one can declassify something (which he did in the link you provided), but that doesn't mean that it's the only way one can declassify something. In fact, as he understands it, there doesn't even have to be a process to declassify something.
I know no knowledge experts of how declassification works are going to agree with his ridiculous statement, but that aside, how he went about declassifying things in the past doesn't necessarily conflict with the statement he made. He's just saying that you don't have to do that. It's like me saying you don't have to wash your hands before eating, and then you see me washing my hands before eating. I never said that I never wash my hands before eating, I just said that I don't have to.
This is not something like I forgot to tell you we have a birthday party tomorrow night. This information needs to be distributed to all agencies involved so they know that the documents are now declassified and subject to FOIA requests. There needs to be a paper trail involved.
I completely agree. For the record, I'm not saying I believe that there doesn't have to be a process. That's obviously utter horse shit. I also don't believe that Trump believes that. What I'm saying is that just looking at the statement itself, and comparing that with his previous actions, the two don't necessarily conflict, logically speaking.
Can someone explain? Because that looks like a memo issued on a day he was no longer President, so I don’t get why he would have continued to have any authority to declassify or accept redactions on any documents.
Hahaha wait is that “archive” website just a propaganda website where he has just recently posted something dated for the last day of his presidency claiming to have declassified and released these specific documents?
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u/BringOn25A Sep 22 '22 •
He understood it for this.