Trump may have a trick up his sleeve to get a better jury in classified documents case: expert
Special counsel Jack Smith has brought witnesses to testify before a second grand jury in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents probe — this time in South Florida — and that could give Trump some ammo for his defense.
This is another sign that the investigation is building evidence toward a major charging decision — but, according to legal affairs analyst Paula Reid on CNN's "The Lead" Tuesday, it also hints at a potential card former President Donald Trump has in his deck to improve his odds of beating charges.
"Most of our reporting has been about the grand jury meeting in D.C. over these documents," said anchor Jake Tapper. "What do we know about the other, separate grand jury in Florida?"
"At least one witness will go before the grand jury, and up until now the investigation is in Washington, D.C.," said Reid. "But even at the beginning of the investigation, there were questions about whether D.C. was the proper — what is called venue, a proper place to bring the case, if they were going to charge the former president or anyone else, because most of the alleged conduct happened down in Florida. You could argue that these records were supposed to be with the Archives, with the government here in D.C., that some were taken from the White House. But at this point it is unclear why they are starting to hear from witnesses down in Florida. So that means they could charge other people."
However, she continued, "if the former president is charged here in D.C., his legal team will challenge the venue, and then the special counsel will have to convince a court that the fact that again documents belong to the Archives, that that is enough to bring the case here. And you can bring obstruction charges anywhere an investigation is happening. But so it is more about the documents about possible defense information. But to try the former president down in Florida, that is not a friendly jury pool. So the DOJ is in a tough spot."
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"Not a friendly jury pool for the prosecutors?" Tapper clarified.
"Yeah, it will be a challenge potentially to successfully convict the former president if they choose to charge him," said Reid. "But if they bring charges up here, still a big if, we know there will be a challenge on venue. And once again, we are in unchartered waters here."
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