Joe Biden

George Washington University Law professor Jonathan Turley, who has repeatedly defended former President Donald Trump publicly over the years through a wide assortment of scandals and two impeachments, warned the former president and his supporters against blowing off the charges leveled against him by special counsel Jack Smith.

In a new column published by The Messenger, Turley argued that while Trump has escaped countless scandals in the past, "this could be different."

Donald Trump will have new attorneys representing him when he appears in court next week in Miami to be arraigned on federal charges.

Attorneys Jim Trusty and John Rowley resigned from his team, they said in a statement Friday. Todd Blanche, who had resigned from an elite law firm to represent him on New York fraud charges, will appear in court with Trump along with attorney Chris Kise and a third lawyer who has not yet been added to the case, the ex-president announced on Truth Social.

"CNN This Morning" co-host Phil Mattingly pulled a prominent Republican Party campaign consultant up short on Friday morning after he tried to make a discussion about Donald Trump's 7-count indictment by a Florida grand jury on Thursday night about President Joe Biden's son Hunter.

Appearing with fellow GOP adviser David Urban, Jennings immediately claimed the Trump federal indictment -- that reportedly includes conspiracy, obstruction and Espionage Act violations -- is bad news for the younger Biden before bringing up former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

"If I were Hunter Biden I would be very nervous," Jennings laughed. "The Republican answer to these overnight has been how is it that Donald Trump's the only person that gets -- first of all you have Hunter Biden running around doing stuff, you got Joe Biden documents in the garage, Hillary Clinton bleaching servers. You know, the one guy who is under federal investigation -- I was postulating outside. What if they did indict him today? Would take that off the table?"

"To be clear, all of those things either have been had been investigated or still part are being investigated," Mattingly interjected.

IN OTHER NEWS: GOP Senate leaders privately think 'it's not worth defending the former president': CNN reporter

"That what I'm saying, it's happening right now," Jennings soldiered on. "But the Republican mindset is if you're a Republican or if you're Donald Trump you get held to one standard then if you are the other people. That is the mindset."

MSNBC's Claire McCaskill isn't buying the excuse that Donald Trump kept classified documents as keepsakes from his presidency and instead suggested he was planning on selling them.

The former president has been indicted on charges related to the Espionage Act, and both McCaskill and "Morning Joe" host Joe Scarborough hinted darkly that Trump was involved in trading top-secret national security information for personal gain.

Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-NY), who also served as an attorney in the first impeachment of former President Donald Trump, said that a new bombshell recording of Trump knocks down the former president's defense strategy in the Mar-a-Lago documents scandal.

Appearing on CNN shortly after the network revealed the recording, Goldman marveled about Trump bragging to guests at Mar-a-Lago that he had "secret" military information that he had not declassified.

By closely allying herself with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-California), Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) has become much more of an insider than she was a year ago. But Greene is no less a conspiracy theorist than she was in 2021 or 2022, and that includes bribery claims she has been making against President Joe Biden.

The far-right MAGA congresswoman is claiming, without proof, that the FBI is covering up bribery she alleges Biden committed. During a Thursday night, June 8 appearance on Fox News, Greene told host Laura Ingraham that she read a Biden-related document inside a sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF).

Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin on Thursday warned his Republican colleagues against attempting to delegitimize the special counsel investigation that led to a federal indictment against President Donald Trump after many GOP lawmakers did just that, rallying around the former president and echoing his condemnation of the probe as a "witch hunt."

"Instead of trying to divide the country and undercut our legal system, congressional Republicans should respect the outcome of the special counsel's comprehensive investigation and the decisions of the citizens serving on the grand jury," said Raskin (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee.

CNN legal analyst Elie Honig said that former President Donald Trump should be particularly worried about being charged with conspiracy in special counsel Jack Smith's investigation into his handling of top-secret government documents.

Although all of the seven felony counts leveled against the former president are serious, Honig said that the conspiracy charge could be the linchpin to prove the other charges because it shows that there are other witnesses who can corroborate prosecutors' case.

Appearing on MSNBC's "Way Too Early" with host Jonathan Lemire, a visibly pleased Palm Beach State Attorney Dave Aronberg praised special counsel Jack Smith for moving the 7-count federal indictment of Donald Trump to Florida instead of Washington D.C., calling it a "gangster move."

Speaking with the host, the prosecutor claimed no one saw the indictments coming out of a Florida grand jury and praised the DOJ for keeping it under wraps until the last minute.

As Aronberg explained, by filing the indictments in Florida, Smith avoided having to deal with Trump's lawyers delaying the case by arguing for a change of venue by saying they couldn't get a fair trial in the nation's capital where the former president is highly unpopular.

"You know, Washington, D.C. they voted 92% for Joe Biden to 5% for Donald Trump in 2020," he told the host. "In Palm Beach County they voted 43% for Donald Trump and Miami-Dade County they voted 46% for Donald Trump, so you can see why the jury pool is better for prosecutors in D.C."

RELATED: 'Clock is ticking': Legal experts lay out road map for Jack Smith to convict Trump

"Prosecutors have to bring charges against defendants in the jurisdiction where the crime took place," he continued. "It looks like the obstruction clearly took place at Mar-a-Lago in the Southern District of Florida as well as the espionage. And filing in South Florida eliminates Trump's inevitable venue challenges in court -- that could have undone the case, it would have delayed the case."

'It's because Jack Smith wanted the public to buy into this," he elaborated. "And I'm sure he bristles at accusations this is a political witch hunt and to show it is not political he wanted to go into a red state, Donald Trump's home state and get an indictment. It's a bit of a gangster move and will be harder to get a conviction, but not impossible."

Appearing on MSNBC just hours after it was reported that Donald Trump is on the receiving end of seven federal indictments related to special counsel Jack Smith's investigations, former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade explained that the espionage charge that is reportedly included will cripple a key Trump lawyer defense strategy.

Speaking with MSNBC's Jonathan Lemire on "Way Too Early," McQuade stated that, based on what she has heard about the still-sealed indictments, the inclusion of a charge tied to the Espionage Act takes Trump claim that the documents in question were declassified by him off the table.

"We know his explanations and justifications for having classified documents have changed quite a bit including the idea he just declassified them just by thinking about them," Lemire prompted. "It also seems his defense is trotting out a strategy of prosecutorial misconduct noting this is a charge brought by the Department of Justice that was underneath the president of the United States, Joe Biden, who is Donald Trump's top rival for the White House next year. Walk us through the assessment of potential defenses, and do you think it could work?"