Former President Donald Trump continued to dig his own grave during an interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier, when he all but confessed to knowingly and deliberately obstructing and withholding records he was ordered to turn in to the Justice Department.
“They said, ‘could you give us the documents back?’ … And then they said — went to DOJ to subpoena you to get them back,” Baier outlined to Trump during the interview that aired on Monday.
“Why not just hand them over then?” Baier asked.
“Because I had boxes. I want to go through the boxes and get all my personal things out. I don’t want to hand that over to NARA yet. And I was very busy as you’ve sort of seen,” Trump responded.
Baier then followed up, saying that according to the indictment, Trump directed his aide to move the documents to other locations “after telling your lawyers to say you’ve fully complied with the subpoena when you hadn’t.”
“But before I send boxes over, I have to take my things out,” Trump told Baier. “These boxes were interspersed with all sorts of things. Golf shirts, clothing, pants, shoes. There were many things.”
Trump — who often goes on these lengthy, public and, at times, incriminating rants on TV and social media platforms — made similar admissions last week, though Monday’s interview was his fullest response yet to his indictment in the classified records case earlier this month.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who will be overseeing the case, set a preliminary trial date for Aug. 14 in a Tuesday morning order, moving the case another step forward and signaling a speedy trial — at least for now. The date is likely to be delayed as the Justice Department prosecutors and Trump’s defense team argue over the abundance of classified documents that Trump hoarded in his Florida estate.
On Thursday, Judge Cannon also ordered all attorneys working the case to contact the DOJ about obtaining security clearances by June 20.
Keep digging your own grave, bigmouth. Harassing Hunter Biden for a plea deal on misdemeanor charges while he faces prosecution for felonies. He’s a regular genius!
More than a year and a half between January 20 and the FBI search. He was so busy on the golf course there was no time to separate his shirts, shoes etc. from very, very few top secret documents.
A guy has to have priorities.
Having moved recently, I sympathize with Trump on the dreary task of going through boxes. Perhaps I would have been more interested if they were classified Top Secret or 5Eyes documents. So many boxes to go through. So many boxes for Waltine to move repeatedly.
I’m not sure any other case needs to succeed. This dumbass has just confessed. He stole/mishandled classified document, then lied and obstructed. I think Smith has made no preconditions, because he has read Trump correctly. He is compulsive and needs to be “in control”. He surrounds himself with toadies and fires lawyers that say “no”. So, he’s going to hang himself by never ever shutting up. And Trump is way too stupid to know what to say that would help him. Also, keep in mind, that the charging document mentions Trump waving around a classified map (remember, he also Tweeted a picture of an Iranian missile site minutes after a briefing, so there’s a history of him mishandling this exact thing). It also mentions him blabbing to the same person that he had Iranian attack plans, which he also waved around. I think Smith is going to let Trump reach a certain critical mass, then have the FBI search all his “residences” at once to get the rest of the classified documents. At which point, he will bring a second case in New Jersey and/or NY. Both places absolutely hate Trump.
“But before I send boxes over, I have to take my things out,” Trump told Baier. “These boxes were interspersed with all sorts of things. Golf shirts, clothing, pants, shoes. There were many things.”
@zillacop is about to move - so my advice is don’t pack your clothes and shoes in document boxes along with legal papers and registrations. So many make that mistake.