In a column for the conservative National Review, longtime political observer Andrew McCarthy made the case that Donald Trump can no longer call the investigation by special counsel Jack Smith a "witch hunt" since key evidence contained in the 37-count indictment was provided courtesy of his own lawyers.
As McCarthy points out, the charges against the former president should give his defenders pause and that analogies to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's national security issues are grossly misplaced.
More to the point, McCarthy suggested that the "witch hunt" Trump has been ranting about is non-operative since the damning information about his treatment of sensitive government documents came from his own lawyers who were employed to defend him.
He wrote, "Now, since we’re hearing a lot, and we’re going to hear a lot more, about selective prosecution, about the sense that the 'boxes hoax' is the 'biggest witch hunt of all time,' understand this: The evidence of this soliloquy — wherein it was Trump-splained that a 'great job' by a lawyer entails making incriminating evidence disappear and taking the fall for it so the client escapes jeopardy — does not come from Donald Trump’s enemies."
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Noting that Trump attorney Evan Corcoran stuck by the former president after he learned he "had been had" with regard to the hiding of the documents the FBI was forced to recover, McCarthy wrote, "Corcoran was not trying to hurt Trump, even though Trump had thought nothing of putting the lawyer’s livelihood at risk. Corcoran provided the lurid testimony reflected in the indictment — including Trump’s suggestions that he falsely tell the FBI and grand jury that he did not have documents marked classified, and that he 'pluck' out of a package of documents responsive to the subpoena 'anything really bad in there' — because the law required him to, not because he wanted to."
"As for Trump, say what you want about Democrats being out to destroy him. I know all about that — wrote a book about it, in fact. But if Trump ends up being destroyed in this case, it will be based on the accounts of people who had his best interests at heart," he wrote before adding, "If you tell me I need to look the other way on that because Hillary Clinton got a pass, I respectfully suggest that you’ve lost your way."
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