They'll 'use those words against you': Legal expert warns Trump against Fox town hall after target letter
Legal analyst Danny Cevallos said that getting a target letter from the Justice Department and then taking part in a town hall on Fox probably isn't the best move for Donald Trump legally.
Trump announced that on Sunday night he was sent a target letter telling him he was the focus of special counsel Jack Smith's investigation into the attempt to overthrow the 2020 election and incitements to attack on the U.S. Capitol.
He's scheduled to go on Fox for a town hall event Tuesday – which Cevallos explained is not a good idea.
"Nobody who gets a target letter is likely to go [on TV,]" he said on MSNBC Tuesday.
"...Once you get a target letter, the wagons are circled, you're not sending your client in to talk to anybody. And I would suspect of the tiny, tiny fraction of defendants who have gone in to explain their story to the government, to the prosecutors, that tiny fraction of them have talked their way out of an indictment, I would suspect the vast majority still get indicted."
If the town hall does go ahead, the government is likely to be watching for things Trump says on Fox.
"Of course, the government would love it if a defendant or a prospective defendant came in to tell their side of the story," he continued. "We will wait there with pencils and pads ready to take down notes, because they might get something useful. So, Donald Trump benefits himself not at all if he were to go in and talk to federal prosecutors. Instead, he would prefer an arena where he controls the narrative, like a rally, like going on Fox News, like doing a town hall, where he can control whether he chooses to answer questions or not."
Trump's problem, Cevallos noted, is that Trump generally goes off script and says whatever he wants.
"I hope his attorneys have explained to him, and I'm sure they have, anything you're going to say at a town hall, at a rally, are words that can be written down in transcript form and used against you, and believe me, if the government can, they will use those words against you," he closed.
See the full comments from the legal analysts below or at the link here.
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