NEWS'Grave Political Moment' for Donald Trump IMMINENT
May 18 2023, Published 10:45 a.m. ET
After a special counsel looked into Donald Trump's handling of classified documents, a new "grave political moment" could be approaching for the former president, according to CNN.
The outlet reported that the National Archives plans to hand 16 documents over to the special counsel to show Trump knew the right procedure when handling the private material. This could be important, as it would reveal whether or not Trump had criminal intent, and therefore, could build a case against him.
If there's evidence Trump knew he couldn't take the documents from the White House, his defense about storing them at Mar-a-Lago after his presidency becomes "difficult," the outlet noted.
“The 16 records in question all reflect communications involving close presidential advisers, some of them directed to you personally, concerning whether, why, and how you should declassify certain classified records," acting Archivist Debra Steidel Wall wrote to Trump in a letter obtained by CNN.
During CNN's town hall event on May 10, Trump made a slew of false claims about the documents, which were found when the FBI raided his home in August 2022.
“By the way, they become automatically declassified when I took them," he falsely claimed.
Former Trump White House lawyer Ty Cobb told Erin Burnett on Wednesday, May 17, that the latest reporting about the National Archives is a sign that "Jack Smith was taking steps that could signal he may soon move against Trump," the outlet stated.
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“I think this is ‘i’ dotting and ‘t’ crossing. I think that this case is ready to go,” Cobb said. “The simple fact is there is a process … and (Trump) totally ignored that and believes that the mere fact he took them declassifies (the documents). That is not the law.”
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However, Trump's attorney, Jim Trusty, thinks the businessman, who was arrested and arraigned in April for allegedly paying Stormy Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet about their affair, is innocent.
“At the end of his presidency, he relied on the constitutional authority as commander-in-chief which is to take documents and take them to Mar-a-Lago while still President as he was at the time and to effectively declassify and personalize them. He talked about declassifying them but he didn’t need to,” Trusty said.
