2020 Election
'Full steam ahead' for DOJ after 'worst legal week that Trump has ever seen': former prosecutor
December 4, 2022 9:50AM ET
Donald Trump (Photo by Jim Watson for AFP)
Appearing on MSNBC early Sunday morning, former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance said that in the past week Donald Trump suffered defeat after defeat in the courts and now the Department of Justice has all it needs to go after the former president on multiple fronts leading to indictments.
Speaking with MSNBC host Katie Phang, Vance called the past seven days "the worst legal week that Trump has ever seen."
"Let's shift to other investigations," host Phang prompted. "Now NBC News spotted former White House lawyers Pat Cipollone and Pat Philbin at the federal courthouse in Washington, D.C., on Friday. Politico is reporting that they appeared in front of at least one grand jury; this is while there are several ongoing probes into Donald Trump. How concerned should Donald Trump and his team be, seeing those two attorneys again at that courthouse, right, now giving repeat performances before a grand jury?"
"Last week, in my judgment, was the worst legal week that Trump has ever seen," Vance replied. "The fact that these two are testifying in front of the grand jury is a big part of that."
"We do not know if they were testifying exclusively about January 6th," she elaborated. "There are reports that their subpoenas came from one of the DOJ lawyers who was reportedly working on that aspect of what is now the special counsel's investigation. They could also have testified about Mar-a-Lago and the documents case as well."
"This is a really intriguing part of what is going on here," she continued. "It is unprecedented for there to be a criminal investigation into a former president after he's out of office."
"I want to ask you: House select committee is meeting on Friday trying to decide if they will make referrals to the DOJ," host Phang asked. "Seems to me that the DOJ obviously doesn't have to wait for those referrals to happen. You've got special counsel Jack Smith now who's been appointed. Do you think the DOJ is actually going to wait for the possibility of referrals from the 1/6 committee at this point?"
"No. It is clear the DOJ is now full steam ahead," Vance replied. "There was that first year that Merrick Garland was attorney general and we did not see signs of active investigations. But the committee has done its job, has really jolted the seriousness of these issues into our awareness. We all knew that they were serious. The point here is the serious legal possibility of criminal exposure. DOJ is full steam ahead."
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