In a post-arraignment speech delivered late Tuesday at the Trump National Golf Club Bedminster, former President Donald Trump sought to defend his alleged mishandling of classified documents. But in doing so, he may have unwittingly handed the prosecution the exact evidence they need to nail him, according to critics.
The former president specifically sought to defend himself by explaining why he’d had so many boxes of classified documents to begin with.
“The answer, in addition to having every right under the Presidential Records Act, is that these boxes were containing all types of personal belongings. Many, many things. Shirts and shoes and everything,” he said.
“As can be seen in the picture,” he added, referencing the infamous picture of the boxes’ contents strewn across the floor, “where someone — not me, I wonder who it might have been — dumped one of the very neatly arranged boxes all over the floor, they were full of newspapers, press clippings, thousands of pictures, thousands and thousands of White House pictures.”
“The White House photographers — some are with us today — they took so many pictures and we saved all of them and they were in those boxes. Clothing, memorabilia, and much, much more,” he continued.
He concluded by admitting that he “had a very busy life” and “hadn’t had a chance” to go through everything yet.
Listen:
Donald Trump explains why he kept boxes of classified material at Mar-a-Lago:
“These boxes were containing all types of personal belongings, many, many things. Shirts and shoes and everything … I hadn’t had a chance to go through all the boxes … I have a very busy life.” pic.twitter.com/6wx7yvR6NJ
— The Recount (@therecount) June 14, 2023
Responding to Trump’s words later that evening, MSNBC legal analyst Andrew Weissmann — formerly a federal prosecutor — said the former president’s speech was in effect a confession to the crime.
“When you are charged with the illegal retention ― the possession, the illegal possession of the documents ― it is not a good idea to say, ‘Hey, you want to know why I took these? Because I could.’ That is not a defense to that charge. That is an admission to the charge,” he said.
Weissmann also pushed back on Trump’s claim that he’d been too busy to go through all the boxes and therefore didn’t know some of them contained classified documents.
“The ‘I did not know what was in the boxes’ is disproved by his own voice on tape where he talks about two of the documents,” he said, referencing the Department of Justice’s claim that it’s in possession of audio footage of Trump bragging about having classified material that he knew he could no longer declassify.
“As president, I could have declassified, but now I can’t,” Trump says on the infamous tape, according to CNN.
“CNN obtained the transcript of a portion of the meeting where Trump is discussing a classified Pentagon document about attacking Iran. In the audio recording, which CNN previously reported was obtained by prosecutors, Trump says that he did not declassify the document he’s referencing, according to the transcript,” the outlet reported Friday.
Listen to Weissmann below:
Elsewhere in his speech Tuesday, the former president slammed the “sham” indictment against him as “election interference” and the “most heinous abuse of power” in American history.
He also reportedly went after special counsel Jack Smith and President Joe Biden.
“Trump, making remarks Tuesday night from his property Trump National Golf Club Bedminster, slammed Smith as a ‘deranged lunatic,’ and slammed President Biden for having ‘his top political opponent arrested and charged.’ He said he had undergone ‘political persecution like something straight out of a fascist or communist nation,'” according to Fox News.
“Trump said President Biden will ‘forever be remembered as not only the most corrupt president in the history of our country, but perhaps more importantly, the president, together with the band of his closest thugs, misfits and Marxists trying to destroy American democracy, channeling real anger and charging the President of the United States under the Espionage Act of 1917.'”
“The Espionage Act has been used to refer to traitors and spies. It has nothing to do with a former president legally keeping his own documents,” he said.
He added that he’s been threatened with prison time for doing nothing more than “possessing presidential papers, which just about every other president has done.”
“The Presidential Records Act does not confer any mandate, duty or even discretional authority on the archivist to classify records under the statute. This responsibility is left solely to the President of the United States—so that’s the decision taken here,” he said.
“In other words, whatever documents the president decides to take with him, he has the right to do so—it’s an absolute right. This is the law,” he concluded.
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V. Saxena is a staff writer with a decade of experience as a professional writer, and a lifetime of experience as an avid news junkie. He holds a degree in computer technology from Purdue University. Saxena also contributes to BizPac Review.
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