Former President Donald Trump is now vulnerable to a third charge of obstruction of justice in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case, argued former FBI general counsel and senior prosecutor to special counsel Robert Mueller, Andrew Weissmann on Monday's edition of MSNBC's "Deadline: White House."
This comes amid new reporting that Molly Michael, a longtime assistant to Trump, alleges she was given a "to-do list" written on the back of classified material.
"On the intelligence side, [former CIA Director] John Brennan thinks this represents a grave threat to U.S. national security and thinks this one is so clear in the facts and the criminality it's pretty open-and-shut," said anchor Nicolle Wallace. "This seems like this is another reason this is the case."
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"Absolutely," said Weissman, a key investigator in the Robert Mueller probe of Trump's ties to Russia. "We didn't need this piece of proof, but this is an aide to Donald Trump who is saying she knows firsthand that Donald Trump knew that he had classified information that he should not have had at Mar-a-Lago. That she told him that his claims to the government that he had returned everything would be, 'easily disproven,' and when Donald Trump learned she was going to be spoken with by the investigators, she said that Donald Trump told her 'You don't know anything about the boxes.'"
In other words, Weissman continued, "You have not only a firsthand witness to the illegal retention of the national defense information, but you have yet another instance of alleged obstruction of justice, which is lying to investigators."
"I would point out this would make the third instance of obstruction, because two are already charged in the indictment," added Weissman. "And this is somebody who, again, could be just yet another — I will say not even a piece of the puzzle, because the puzzle has been complete for so long. This is just an overwhelming rock-crusher of a case if this reporting is accurate from Ms. Michael, who many people think is Employee 2 in the indictment. It certainly has the ring of truth, but, obviously, we will wait and see what she has to say at trial, and she will be subject to cross-examination, like every witness in the case."
Watch the video below or at the link here: