Schiff says that the charge of a secret document shows Trump’s “malicious intent” to break the law.
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said that the “stunning” details of the Justice Department’s charge of former President Donald Trump show that Trump had “malicious intent” when he took secret papers to Mar-a-Lago after leaving the White House.
“Most of the time, the hardest thing to prove is what the defendant meant to do.” Schiff told Nicole Wallace, who hosts a show on MSNBC, on Friday. “But here, Donald Trump has made it very clear in his recorded talks, in the way he tells his staff to move the boxes, and in the way he lies to his own lawyers. It looks so real.”
Schiff, a former federal lawyer in charge of Trump’s first trial for impeachment, said that it wasn’t hard for special counsel Jack Smith to decide to charge Trump. “The evidence in this indictment is so strong that I don’t think special counsel could have done anything else,” he said.
Trump was charged with 37 federal counts connected to the secret papers the FBI found at Mar-a-Lago last August. These charges included reckless retention of national defense information, a plot to obstruct justice, and making false statements.
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Special Counsel Jack Smith released the accusation against the former president on Friday. He stressed the “gravity” of the crimes Trump is being charged with due to his probe.
Smith said Friday, when the accusation was made public, “I invite everyone to read it in its entirety to understand the scope and severity of the crimes charged.”
“The people of the United States intelligence community and armed forces spend their lives protecting our country. The laws that protect national defense information are important to the safety and security of the United States, and they must be enforced,” Smith said. “Our country is in danger when these laws are broken.”
Trump said on Truth Social on Thursday night that he had been charged. He told Fox News Digital that he would say he is not guilty.
The accusation says that Trump brought secret papers from the White House to Mar-a-Lago in cardboard boxes. The indictment says that these boxes contained “information about the defense and weapons capabilities of both the U.S. and other countries, as well as information about U.S. nuclear programs, potential weaknesses of the U.S. and its allies to military attack, and plans for possible retaliation in the event of a foreign attack.”
The special counsel says that two times in 2021, Trump showed secret papers to people who did not have a security clearance. In the charge, there is a reference to an audio recording of Trump showing sensitive documents to a group of people in July 2021 at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey. In the tape, Trump says the papers are still “a secret.”
The indictment says that Trump “attempted to obstruct the FBI and grand jury investigations and hide his continued retention of classified documents” by suggesting that his lawyer “falsely represent to the FBI and grand jury that he did not have the documents requested by the grand jury subpoena.” Trump is also accused of telling his lawyer to “hide or destroy documents called for by the grand jury subpoena” and exposing his assistant, Waltine Nauta, to move boxes of documents while saying he was helping investigators.
Schiff said he was “stunned” to learn that the papers contained secret information about military plans and other information that, if leaked, could threaten U.S. national security.
“But I think this is how the special counsel and a speaking indictment work, so that all Americans know this isn’t just a paperwork issue,” he said. “These are national secrets that pose real threats to the country’s national security.”
Hiff said that Trump is not above the law because he was charged.
“He should be punished like anyone else who breaks the law. “He has been today,” Schiff said.
