Former President Donald Trump's attorneys met with special counsel Jack Smith as the Mar-a-Lago classified documents probe appears to be drawing to a close.
In a panel on CNN that discussed recent evidence in the case, including a maintenance worker who flooded security servers at Trump's country club while draining the pool, New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, appearing alongside former federal prosecutor Elie Honig, broke down how prosecutors are still not tipping their hand on upcoming charges.
"Elie, you're a former federal prosecutor," said anchor Kaitlan Collins. "When you look at something like this and you hear they've seized the phone of a maintenance worker here, what questions would you have?"
"The big question here is, was this on purpose or was this an accident?" said Honig. "I completely understand why prosecutors were drawn to this, right? Especially when you consider the timing. There's already been a subpoena at this point. You've already had the search warrant. And DOJ is trying to collect the surveillance and now the room where the surveillance is stored was damaged. You're looking for communications. You're looking for a text. You're looking for an email. Somebody gives an order. Why? Sometimes people think they've deleted their phones, deleted their texts, if you swipe and hit delete. That doesn't delete them. You can raise those up in the FBI lab. I guarantee they're doing forensics on those phones and looking for that kind of communication."
"Pretty extraordinary to see Trump's attorneys going into the Department of Justice, Justice Department, sitting down with Jack Smith," said Collins, turning to Haberman. "What is your response to how Trump responded to this? He posted on Truth Social, asking why he should be charged when other presidents have not been charged."
"We know — although the indications seem that it's likely or not — we know that the DOJ just said they're not charging anyone in connection with Mike Pence, for instance, for documents he had," said Haberman. "I think that's a comparison point. I have been hearing before this meeting took place, that Trump expected he is going to be charged. It's not that they have said this to him. It's just that he believes it. Now, these meetings — and you would know this better than me. DOJ officials, typically prosecutors at any level keep their cards close to the vest. I don't think this was different in this meeting. But I also don't think they came away thinking, oh, we've solved this. For somebody like Donald Trump who treats everything like a deal and exchange and transaction, I don't think this is the meeting he wanted."
Watch the segment below or at this link.
Maggie Haberman on Trump lawyers' meeting with Jack Smithwww.youtube.com
