Newly seized phones can put Trump 'at center of a conspiracy: former US attorney

Reacting to an NBC report late Monday that the Department of Justice issued a wave of subpoenas last week and seized the phones of two of Donald Trump's closest associates, former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade claimed that the law is closing in on the former president.

Appearing on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," the legal analyst speculated that data retrieved from the phones could be used to come after Trump as the possible center of a criminal conspiracy.

"Barbara, I would take it's not great news for you whenever the Department of Justice seizes cell phones from your aides," McQuade was asked by host Joe Scarborough. "What does that tell you about, first of all, where they're going, where this investigation, and how aggressive they are, how possibly close they are to charging the president?"

"Yeah, you know, Joe, you see that the circles are closing in on the highest levels of government here, close aides to the former president," she replied. "As I read these subpoenas, it seems we are seeing the fake elector scheme meets seditious conspiracy. So what they're really looking for is a commonality to connect these two threads together."

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"If you can make the connection, you can put Donald Trump right at the center of a conspiracy," she elaborated. "Talked about seizing telephones. It says to me they have looked at phone records they have been able to get from the phone company but there may be encrypted phone messages they can only get from the phones themselves. These tend to be the ones that are done in secret, the ones that might be the most sensitive."

"So getting the phones, it's where we are our most candid, our text messages, our list of people we have made phone calls to," she continued. "Those can be useful in tying the threads together and text messages can be a gold mine. As we saw in the January 6th hearings, people speak candidly, admissions come in. I think it can be a veritable gold mine."

Watch the video below or at this link.

MSNBC 09 13 2022 06 03 22youtu.be