Trump opens mouth, inserts foot? The Bret Baier interview
Most lawyers would have told Trump not to talk about the classified papers case outside of the trial. But last night in an interview with Bret Baier he certainly did talk about it. He must have thought this would help him with the public, and perhaps some of it did. For example, from William Jacobson:
…[O]n the supposed Iran document, we now know Trump’s defense: There was no such document, he was just posturing regarding reporting about Iran…
“That was a massive amount of papers and everything else talking about Iran and other things. And it may have been held up or made up, 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.”…
Digesting the extraordinary interview with Trump, the most significant legal element is the stating of his defense to the audiotape. Trump will argue that there was never a document with the Iranian attack plan and that he was referring to material referencing the plan…
The feds can play the tape at trial. But the only way Trump gets into evidence his side of the story as told in the interview is to testify, which it’s extremely unlikely he will do. He can’t show the Bret Baier interview, but the feds can if they think it helps them.
Whether this interview helps or hurts Trump legally remains to be seen, when we find out what else the feds have about the incident to prove what the document was.
Why did Trump talk to Baier? Some will say it was sheer recklessness, or arrogance, or stupidity, or some combination of the three. Perhaps. However, I also think that Trump strongly suspects he will not win in court, but is hoping he will win in the court of public opinion. In that sense, he figures the interview could and will help him, at least in the primary.
There also was this:
Trump’s assertion that he was “very busy” — too busy to return the documents that had been subpoenaed — tends to support key allegations of the indictment.
From Jonathan Turley:
…They may also have a specific document in mind, but they have not indicated that they have proof of its removal. That could be part of the case to come. However, we now know Trump's account of the audiotape.
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) June 19, 2023
Trump probably feels he can’t wait till the trial for his defense to come out. He may think the trial is basically rigged against him and he may indeed be correct. So although he’s probably going against the advice of lawyers in talking this way, he may think it will be his only opportunity and/or his best opportunity to exonerate himself and explain himself.
I agree with this assessment from Lee Smith:
Debating the indictment’s details—the DOJ’s legal theory, which documents do and do not belong to Trump under the Presidential Records Act, etc.—is a ritualized expression of faith that the law is still impartial and the justice system is in the hands of serious men and women, devoted law enforcement officials who even when it looked most hopeless over the last seven years never once veered from their mission and now finally got their man. But it’s just playacting, for the stark fact is this: The never-ending campaign to get Trump is evidence the country has gone mad.
“Here’s what I was hoping,” journalist Joe Klein wrote on his Substack. “That Trump would be charged with espionage. Full stop.” Of course he did, as did the majority of the media hastening America into open conflict. The Espionage Act was written for times like these. Enacted in 1917 to criminalize antiwar activism, the statute is a political weapon designed to bypass the Constitution and prosecute the ruling party’s domestic opponents. The fact that Trump has been charged with crimes under the Espionage Act is evidence that the world’s oldest democracy has fallen into the hands of a corrupt and pathological ruling faction that has turned federal law enforcement into a people’s commissariat serving a cohort of performative elites who still harbor the fantasy that a former American president is a Russian spy.
Maybe some really do harbor that fantasy, but I think most know it’s not true but they don’t care. Their drive is to power, and this is the path they see to it.
he didn’t pack the documents, it would be instructive to know who in the gsa did, did jack smith, or jay bratt or anyone else do so, how would they have known in the first place, its not like there is a tracking system as with library books,
Tucker’s episode 4 pretty well nails it, I think. Only a dictator, and, of course, Biden isn’t one, would try to jail a political opponent for doing the same thing he himself had done.
Trump is an accelerant to systemic decay. Interviews like this are part of the reason. He makes it so easy for people to see only what they want to see.
Trump acted look a buffoon in this interview. He couldn’t return the boxes because he had to go through them for personal items? And he didn’t have time to do that in the year that the DOJ was trying to get the sensitive documents back because . . . he’s very busy? Really? Does he really expect anyone who isn’t already in his corner to buy that? I’ve heard pre-teens come up with better excuses.
I think that’s what a lot of people see.
But then you have the abuses of the left, Russiagate, the intelligence agency 50, and so on. And you have the optics of a sitting Democrat president having his justice department indict a former president and leader contender for the Republican nomination for behavior not very different than that of a recent leading contender for the Democratic nomination, who was not prosecuted by the last Democrat president, and so on.
It’s like one of those old 3d optical illusions that were popular in the 1990’s – the ones that either showed a mess of multi-colored flecks or a 3D picture, depending on perception. Half the country sees the colored flecks and the other half sees a 3D picture, and neither can understand why the other half doesn’t see what they see.
Watch Robert Barnes at
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2023/06/19/robert-barnes-summary-the-administrative-state-motive-to-weaponize-secrets-and-create-precedent/
He points out that the entire prosecution is unconstitutional because it places the President at the mercy of the bureaucracy, who answer to him and not vice versa. Article 2 of the Constitution makes him the chief executive of the Federal Government. If he took the documents home, they are automatically declassified.
Jack Smith sounds like a very shady character who has had previous verdicts reversed with extreme prejudice by the courts for shady practices. This is a feature for the Democrats.
I suppose Trump assumed that the same rules that apply to other ex-Presidents also applied to him. It’s also unclear at any given moment which documents are being talked about. Is the conversation about top secret documents, or about confidential documents he had declassified, about documents kept in a safe, or about documents in the ballroom or bathroom, about documents NARA had specifically asked for, or about the random contents of other boxes? But yes, there was no reason for this interview. By now it’s clear that Trump never really preps for anything and it would have been best for him to let his lawyers speak for him.
[Trump] makes it so easy for people to see only what they want to see.
Bauxite:
To some extent, yes, but it’s not a wash between the two sides, as you paint it.
Just about all Democrats oppose Trump unequivocally with a blind, white-hot fury. But most Republicans, even the Ever-Trumpers, from what I can tell are aware of Trump’s failings.
They, we, will vote for Trump anyway, if he’s the candidate, but that doesn’t mean we are blind about Trump.
Given what Barnes has said, it seems curious that Trump did not simply always claim, from the very beginning of the requests, that this stuff belongs to him, and he is under no obligation to return it. That if the justice department wanted to do something about it, they should go straight to the supreme court and settle it. Why wasn’t he always arguing that it was unconstitutional for the justice department to try to get any of the stuff back?
remember that when Garfinkels Gestapo raided Mara Lago, they expelled Trumps lawyers during the search.
I’m sure the same gestapo that fabricated Flynn’s 302s would never plant evidence now would they.
Smith has Rasputin eyes and seems like someone who would have been SS Kommader running a Death Camp
Oh, FFS, Trump isn’t ever going to win this case in the court itself. No amount or quality of legal maneuvering will avail him in a trial and Trump knows this. He can only win this in the court of public opinion- it is the only place where he will get a fair hearing. If Trump remained silent and employed the very best lawyers and defense, and was, in fact, completely and utterly innocent, and could prove so in the court case, he would still be found guilty. The verdict was decided before the indictment was handed down.
This is Trump. He’s not classy. He’s not smooth. He’s a hyper-competitive New York developer who has succeeded by outworking and out lasting his adversaries. He did not understand the vicious cunning and deception he would find in D.C. He still believes he will outwork and out last the DOJ. He knows that his polls are pretty good and the more he gets his message out the better his polls will be. He still believes that he can win the election if it’s fair and square.
That’s who he is and he’s never going to be a smooth political operator who can turn phrases that soothe people’s souls.
I wish he had learned more from his four years of being under constant attack from the Deep State. His trying to turn public opinion in his favor in public venues after being indicted is probably a mistake. We’ll see. But his avid supporters see him as fighting and standing up to the “man.” That’s what he does and if he’s nominated, I will support and vote for him.
The Concerned Conservative™ speaks of those who pursue The Great Orange Whale “seeing only what they want to see,” stabbing at him with steel lances or firing explosive-tipped harpoons; those leftist foes and minions of the alphabet agencies. He settles for strong words and his Nerf sword. But the CC™ is just as dogged as the deadly foes.
“… Trump isn’t ever going to win this case…”
Not sure that that’s the issue. (Note that the case might be unwinnable for the Feds. Maybe; maybe not: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/justice/alan-dershowitz-trump-indictment-weak-dangerous-case
https://www.foxnews.com/media/alan-dershowitz-slams-trump-indictment-shares-one-damning-piece-evidence-doj-case )
But that is NOT the issue.
What IS the issue, it seems to me, is that “Biden” has Trump hooked (even IF on false grounds) and “he” will keep Trump on that hook for as long as “he” possibly can. (Forever?)
While hooked, Trump can squirm all he wants to (and he will)…but he will not get off that hook—at least, not in the foreseeable future—until (if ever) “Biden” decides that Trump has been sufficiently damaged.
And it matters not a whit that that particular hook (and all 37 of its barbs) is totally fake, contrived, groundless…scandalous.
The key issue is keeping Trump hog-tied—and using the resulting circus as a distraction to coverup the grotesque serial crimes and serial malfeasance of the “Biden” administration.
…keeping in mind that—
A party that can create an elaborate hoax such as Russiagate out of thin air is capable of anything.
A party that can steal an election in 2020 and 2022 is capable of anything.
A party that can persecute its political opponents at will by planning and staging elaborate frame-ups such as January 6 is capable of anything.
A party that is willing and able to lie about EVERYTHING is capable of anything.
A party that is able to enlist the offices and support of the most corrupt media that the nation has ever known is capable of anything.
A party that is able to “persuade” (and/or strongarm) infotech corporations into censuring news that reports truths that the party does not want you to know about is capable of anything.
A party that in spite of all of the above INSISTS that it aspires to unify the country—that it aspires for national UNITY is capable of anything.
A party that in spite of the above INSISTS that it is doing all this for the good of the American people is capable of anything.
Etc.
File under: IN SPITE.
jack smith is a savage pirate, we had ken starr and droopy durham,
these pirates want to put parents in jail, because they object to perversion, and training children to hate their parents, what would they do to the head rebel,
I wish he had learned more from his four years of being under constant attack from the Deep State. His trying to turn public opinion in his favor in public venues after being indicted is probably a mistake.
The question is, what else can he even try?
He’s effectively been denied top-tier legal representation even though he can afford to pay for it. He’s going to be tried in grossly unfriendly venues. He’s unwelcome in every media venue except a few that his opponents won’t watch and will mischaracterize. What’s left?
I tend to agree that Trump knows he can’t win in court, even in Florida, and is going on with his campaign. How this turns out, I don’t know. The Hunter Biden plea deal shows us how fair the justice system is now. The J6 political prisoners must hope Trump wins or they will be in the Garfinkle Gulag the rest of their lives.
I continue to be horrified by “defenders” who are as stupid and clueless as this clown. https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/06/09/the-anti-trump-brigade-is-a-menace-to-democracy/
Everyone can be convicted of crimes if the government targets you. Why is it so hard for these idiots to understand that? The fools who say that Trump should be convicted if he broke the law would be singing a completely different tune if Big Brother decided they should go in the dock. Because everyone can and will be convicted when they put the target on your back.
How can someone decry the unfairness of the jihad against Trump and then act as if the system is still somehow operating in good faith? It must be a schizoid affliction borne of a milder case of TDS.
yes, we pretend a great many things are true, despite the known liars like jack smith that echo them, this is the first time I see mr slater’s thoughts, they don’t really impress,
I am also baffled by people who criticize Trump for not being smoother or more skilled. Why is it that Trump haters always demand he pass some standard that never applies to anyone else?
Have you looked around at all the other politicians in this country? Every single politician who has spent any time at all in the public eye over the last 30 years comes off badly. WTF!? Joe Biden is the freaking president! Anyone watch Nancy Pelosi’s ice cream freezer? Cuomo kill thousands? Fetterman speak? George W Bush mangle his words? A Hillary “charm” offensive? Obama utter more than a paragraph without a jaw-dropping lie? Or Bill?
Just imagine these bozos if they got put through seven years of unrelenting torture chamber with the temperature turned up past boiling. Every one of them would melt worse than the wicked witch of the west. The brittle ones like Obama would crack into pieces before melting.
There has never been another person on this planet who has been put through the kind of pressurized wringer that Trump has. Not even close.
Give the man a break.
well doesn’t chris christie excite you, how about asa hutchinson, there isn’t enough treacle, in the world,
stan said “How can someone decry the unfairness of the jihad against Trump and then act as if the system is still somehow operating in good faith? It must be a schizoid affliction borne of a milder case of TDS.”
I’m not sure how we’re acting “as if the system is still somehow operating in good faith.” I certainly am tired of Trump continuing to act as though the system is still operating in good faith. Trump has one act – full speed, no apologies, and in your face. That act is very effective at exposing hypocrisy and corruption. (I would say it is also very effective at provoking higher levels of hypocrisy and corruption.)
Ok, but now that we know that the system isn’t operating in good faith, maybe it isn’t such a good idea to pick a knock-down, drag-out brawl with law enforcement? Maybe it’s best to find some time in your busy schedule to separate personal papers from classified information so you can give the classified documents back?
I saw it written elsewhere that Trump is like the speeder driving a red convertible who flips off the cop as he goes by. There is a lot of truth to that. And its a terrible strategy against a corrupt system.
Jamie: “The question is, what else can he even try?”
Let his legal team do thew talking about the charges. Get friendly experts, like Dershowitz, Turley, and others to appear on TV and news interviews giving expert opinion about the flaws in the indictments. Continue to campaign as if he wasn’t under indictment Emphasize the ravages of inflation, the open border, our weakened and demoralized military, foreign policy failures, the need for increased domestic oil/gas exploration and production, etc. Act as if he’s not worried about the indictment and concentrate on how he would fix the horrendous policies of the Biden administration. That’s what I would do.
Maybe I’m wrong. We’ll see.
jack smith is a known liar, so is jay bratt and the whole panoply of national security bureaucrats who seem intent on serving iran and china and every country except our own interests, they have turned the border into a bleeding ulcer, letting untold malefactors including hundred of terrorists, and thousands of criminals and perhaps foreign spies we have no idea,
they have put a choke hold on our energy supply, they have turned many hospitals into butchershops, and i could go on further,
Maybe it’s best to find some time in your busy schedule to separate personal papers from classified information so you can give the classified documents back?
Maybe we should educate ourselves about the facts of the matter. Did NARA assist in setting up a temporary records storage site, like they did for Obama and both Bushes ? Classified records lie in non-secured storage in Obama’s rented site in Chicago. Who actually packed up Trump’s records? Why are they at Mar a Lago? Did he decide this ? May be we will find out the facts. If you know them, why not share with us ?
stan:
You write: “I am also baffled by people who criticize Trump for not being smoother or more skilled. Why is it that Trump haters always demand he pass some standard that never applies to anyone else?”
Critics of Trump are not the same as “Trump haters.” Don’t confuse the two. There most definitely are Trump haters – no doubt about that – but most people who wish Trump were smoother and more skilled are hardly Trump haters.
And it’s not as though that is “some standard that never applies to anyone else.” Trump is in fact less smooth than most politicians, and not skilled at certain elements of dealing with legal matters such as the one he faces now.
You mention a bunch of other politicians: Biden, Pelosi, Cuomo, Fetterman, George W Bush, Hillary Clinton, Obama, and Bill Clinton. Bill was one of the smoothest and most skilled politicians around, if that’s the standard. Obama likewise. The fact that they lied, or were bad presidents, or whatever myriad criticisms we could easily mount, doesn’t change that fact. No one is praising Fetterman here or using him as a standard. George W. was also roundly criticized for not being smooth – although in a very different style than Trump. Pelosi is actually pretty smooth and skilled at appealing to the demographic she’s aiming for – liberal and leftist Democrats. Cuomo isn’t much in favor these days. Hillary lost to Trump, probably mainly because of her lack of charm.
But there are tons of other politicians smoother and more skilled than Trump. Trump has other pluses, of course, and courage is one of them.
there is no tracking system for documents, so how do they know where any of them went,
Now Trump is claiming the doc he was waving around was not an official production but a bunch of news articles and such.
Obviously not classified, even if they should have been to begin with. Once they’re leaked, they’re not classified. Because how would someone know, reading the NYT for example, that something reported there was classified and then leaked?
Issue came up in the Valerie Place case.
So it’s a matter of fact in this case. Trump would lie–if he is lying–because it’s in his interest that the documents in question be not official product. The DoJ would lie and claim the docs were official because it’s in their interest that they be official product.
Clearly, it’s in the DoJ’s interest to convict Trump, not to figure out what happened. And nobody runs a perjury trap on the DoJ.
All of that said, I’d like to see the stuff. What, exactly, came out in the news or whatever publication that was about invading Iran? Was it a plan for, just in case, or a plan to, with a tentative start date?
Bauxite, you would criticize him regardless of what he does. You have lost the presumption of good faith.
Neo,
agree to disagree on both BO and Bill. Both are incredibly prickly. Had they faced even 1% of the heat Trump has gotten, we’d have seen more than 100 times more meltdowns and screwups.
stan:
You’re misunderstanding my point. Whether they could or couldn’t withstand what Trump has withstood is not the issue, because they never had to withstand it. Bill did, however, withstand an impeachment and trial – although again, that is not the issue. The issue is their presentation generally as politicians, which was smooth and skilled.
In comparison, from the start – from the moment he declared his candidacy, and before – Trump was not smooth and in some ways was not skilled. But he was skilled enough to win, and his lack of smoothness was considered a plus by some. I don’t think it’s a plus at this point, and his lack of skill at handling legal matters may be his downfall.
Neo. Agreed. He should keep his trap shut and allow his attorneys to craft something which doesn’t have to be redone before lunch. Every day.
That said, he might make–purposely or not–a show of running his mouth but only fessing up to that which is either irrelevant or possibly exculpatory.
Had they faced even 1% of the heat Trump has gotten, we’d have seen more than 100 times more meltdowns and screwups.
I tend to agree with stan. What was done to Trump is without precedent in US history. Lincoln faced equal contempt but Lincoln was a saint compared to most politicians. Harding faced contempt from the usual leftists and they have poisoned his and Coolidge’s legacy. Had either of them been president in 1929, I doubt we would have had the Great Depression.
Trump is not smooth and he is honest, rare in politicians.
stan – If Trump showed a minimal level of competance at anything other than inflaming his own narrow base, I would not criticize him.
I grant that he had some significant accomplishments as president, most notably related to the Supreme Court and reducing regulations. It certainly did take courage to stick with Kavanaugh and Barrett. I’m not sure that any prior Republican would have.
But, those actions could have been because he has the courage of his convictions or just dumb bravado that happened to work out because the interests of the country and of Trump’s ego happened to be aligned a few times.
Since then, I just see the dumb bravado playing off the Democrats’ ideological corruption and leading the country further and further down the road to perdition.
So yeah, if Trump showed any sign that he was up to the challenges of the day, I would not criticize him.
stan – Your premise is also very easily reversible. You and the other Trump supporters take all of Trump’s ridiculous antics and either spin them as some sort of four dimensional chess or try to excuse them as an understandable reaction to what the man has been through.
The former excuse is absurd. I have some sympathy for the latter, but if the man really is that shell-shocked, he doesn’t have any business running for president.
But, given your (often frivilous) defenses of every ridiculous action of Trump, why should you receive the benefit of the doubt either?
I see how wreckers and pirates like brennan or comey or hillary are never held to account by any legislative, legal or even corporate body, nor are any of their retainers, their crimes
to call out the offense is the real crime,https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2023-06-21/snctm-sex-club-founder-banned-after-naming-hunter-biden-as-member
Neo, agree to disagree about smooth and skilled. Lying, even when they didn’t have to, is not smooth or skilled. Clinton was so ridiculously bad as president that everyone in DC regarded him as a laughingstock by the summer of 1994. He lied to everyone about everything. His lies were so bad that senators and congressmen were laughing about it.
Obama without a teleprompter was an idiot. Stupid is neither smooth, nor skilled. And his lies were more outrageous than Clinton’s.
Trump’s ability to attract and delight a crowd is the best in our history. You don’t care for his style. But you have to acknowledge his ability to speak off the cuff for hours with effectiveness. In that regard, he is orders of magnitude better than Obama or Clinton.
How quickly we forget.
obama is evil, he may present to be an idiot in all his insanity, which is manifest all through the land, he has a digital archive, out in Mordor west, he enabled violations of the pra among all his cabinet officials, who were rarely admonished,
he incited violence in the spring and summer of 2020, as he did in 2014 and 2016
Trump can attract and delight a crowd? I’ll grant you that, but it’s not a very big crowd. He mocks his opponents and calls them juvenile names. He blusters his way through every question, never admits when he is wrong on the facts, and never backs down. OK, I can see some superficial appeal to that attitude. It’s kind of like “WWE meets presidential politics.” It’s a great show, if that’s your thing (it’s not mine), but is it a good enough show to justify losing a fourth election in a row to the radical left?
(Also, it’s one thing to put on that sort of show on television, or even on the campaign trail. It’s another thing entirely to pull it with a federal prosecutor. That move doesn’t work out too well, as I fear Trump and the country are in the process of finding out.)
Trump cannot help himself as he is incredibly verbally reckless and thinks he is smarter than everyone else. He actually prefers to ‘interviewed ‘ by the likes of Sean Hannity.
Bauxite everything you wrote is true. Trump views himself as some sort of tough ‘street fighter’ and he and his fan club can never put themsleves in the shoes of those who do not worship him.