Key Trump defense in Mar-a-Lago doc case 'off the table' after new revelations: former prosecutor
Appearing on MSNBC on Saturday morning, former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade explained how a report from the Washington Post that DOJ investigators now have evidence that Mar-a-Lago employees working for Donald Trump knowingly hid documents from the FBI will ultimately cripple his attorney's defense options if the former president is indicted as expected.
With reports that the former president's legal team is preparing him for another day in court on possible obstruction and espionage charges, McQuade said that -- if the Post report is accurate -- things just took a turn for the worse for Trump.
"Well, that reporting would really catch the eye of a prosecutor because it suggests potential for obstruction of justice," McQuade told "The Saturday Show" host Jonathan Capehart.
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"When prosecutors are considering pressing charges for the mishandling of classified documents, they're typically looking for some aggravating factor beyond an innocent mistake," she elaborated. "And so here, if they really were moving boxes the day before they knew the Justice Department was coming to visit to look at them, that could suggest that they were trying to conceal or interfere with the case."
"That could be significant for a couple of reasons," she continued. "One is the charging decision, but the other is that it would really take off the table any suggestion that this was just an honest mistake, it would take off the table any question about whether it mattered about whether they were classified or not classified documents or whether Donald Trump believed that he could declassify them simply in his mind because the obstruction of justice is simply a different crime."
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