Trump's only way out is to convince a jury he was lying about having Iran doc: Andrew McCabe
June 27, 2023
Former President Donald Trump is trapped and left with few options on how to defend himself from Espionage Act charges in light of the audio tape of him bragging about improperly holding classified information to patrons at his Bedminster golf club in New Jersey.
In fact, argued former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe on CNN, Trump's only defense might be to tell the jury that he was lying in that tape — a strategy that would mark him for the jury as hard to trust by definition.
"The former president is claiming the papers we hear and him looking for are articles," said anchor Anderson Cooper. "Not only does that not align with the words he is using on the tape about being secret, highly classified, but there are witnesses in the room. How likely is it that Jack Smith talked to others in the room?"
"I guarantee it," said McCabe, then immediately corrected himself. "I can't guarantee it. It's about as close as I can come to guarantee. I'm quite sure they identified and interviewed and possibly even brought to the grand jury any number of those four witnesses."
'I would expect you will see those witnesses at trial as well," continued McCabe, who was targeted for abuse by the former president when he was in office. "If any of those witnesses take the stand, they will be asked things like — they will stop the tape at a particular point and say, okay, at that moment, when he made that comment, what was in his hand? They will describe the document that was in his hand. Did you see what was on the page? Could you see if there were classification markings, was there a cover sheet with a colored border around it? Any of those things that any of us know as indicators of classified material. His defense of it was just a fist full of newspaper articles would fall apart."
"I should say, even if that's his defense, essentially I was actually holding something that was not what I said it was, that puts him in the unenviable position of telling the jury, essentially, you hear me on that tape lying, that's what I sound like when I'm lying," McCabe added. "That is never a good impression that you want to leave with the jury."
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