'Smoking gun': former US attorney labels Don Trump Jr's election texts 'powerful evidence' of fraud

Appearing on MSNBC's "The Sunday Show" with host Jonathan Capehart, former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance made the case that Don Trump Jr's texts about overturning the 2020 election results -- coming just a few days after the public went to the polls -- could end up being the "smoking gun" investigators are looking for.

Reacting to the CNN report that the oldest son of former president Donald Trump was pitching suggestions to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows on how to remain in power, Vance called the texts "powerful evidence" that could be used in a criminal indictment.

"Is this proverbial smoking gun, especially after the Ginni Thomas texts?" host Capehart asked.

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"It feels like it could be a smoking gun," Vance conceded. "This is two days after the election, the election result hasn't been called yet, but Donald Trump Jr. is already acting on the assumption his father is going to lose the election and, of course, the entire predication that his father has for maintaining that everything he did after the election, up to and including the march on the Capitol, was legitimate was this notion that he had not legitimately lost the election."

"So to the extent that this becomes a powerful piece of evidence that they were aware that they had lost, that they were aware it wasn't fraud and they were going to have to come up with these alternate schemes, including fake slates of electors to get across the finish line, this really could be very powerful," she added.

Watch below:

MSNBC 04 10 2022 10 27 05youtu.be