Law professor explains why there's more info available about Trump's document scandal — and it's his own fault
One of the key pieces of information discussed on MSNBC Sunday evening was that there is a lot more information available about Donald Trump's document scandal than the information found at President Joe Biden's residence.
A former federal prosecutor and current University Alabama School of Law professor, Joyce White Vance, noted that the Biden team was likely concerned about how the information leaked in the first place. After the documents were found and the White House contacted the National Archives and Justice Department, nothing was known for about two months. Republicans have claimed some kind of conspiracy, implying that the Justice Department was at fault for Trump info being revealed to the public.
That's not the case, Vance recalled.
"You will recall that in the Trump classified documents investigation, the only reason that the public learned that something was going on was that despite the fact that the FBI had bent over backward to conceal the fact that they were conducting a search pursuant to a federal judge's search warrant at Mar-a-Lago, where agents had actually tried to dress like Mar-a-Lago guests to blend in," she said. "The public only became aware of this because Trump himself announced it. Trump filed the lawsuit that the 11th Circuit ultimately found was essentially frivolous."
Trump has even admitted that he stole the documents, saying "they are mine!" He's also demanded they be returned to him.
That case that Trump filed is ultimately how so much information was revealed in the Trump case and it is the biggest difference in how the Biden case has been handled and why it was unknown to the public for two months.
"In the course of litigating that case, a lot of details came out," Vance explained. "So, here we are in the Biden setting, where early on in an investigation involving classified documents, what you really want is a moment of space where it does not become public so that people can understand what the facts are and assess any risk. And here, they're having to deal with news of the investigation that somehow leaked to the public. We don't yet know exactly how that happened. So, of course, that puts them on the back foot from the get-go. Now we're moving into the special counsel process, and hopefully, that will be conducted without any more leaks."
She said what will be important is for the special counsel to fully understand how the documents got there, what happened, and if anyone knew the documents were there. Thus far, the DOJ has interviewed several Biden staff without the need for subpoenas. In Trump's case, in the past, Trump staff and aides tend not to speak without a subpoena or drawn-out legal battle.
"That is very refreshing, when you think about the number of subpoena battles that had to be filed within the Trump camp in order to get testimony from those witnesses," said Vance. "I would expect the special counsel's case to resume pretty much like any other criminal investigation. Cooperative witnesses and prosecutors, investigators who are trying to decide whether the criminal conduct occurred or not. It looks pretty simple. If the facts don't change from what we know now, it is very unlikely that there would be any kind of charges."
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