Highlights: Trump classified docs indictment text is unsealed

If Trump is convicted for these serious federal charges, it would demonstrate that he put this country, our military and our allies at very real risk. But that would not bar him from serving as the next president of the United States. Nothing in the Constitution explicitly prohibits a convicted felon, even one convicted of putting our country at national security risk, from serving as our nation’s leader. The Constitution lays out the exclusive list of qualifications to be president, and Trump fits all of those — he was born in this country, is over 35 years old, and has lived here for more than 14 years. 

The best reading of the Constitution indicates that Congress cannot, by statute, add any qualifications to this list. Meaning, Congress cannot pass a law that says convicted felons are barred from being president. 

The only potential exception to this rule comes from a little-known portion of the 14th Amendment, which provides that people who have engaged in, or given comfort to those who engaged in an insurrection cannot hold federal office. Even if this applies to the presidency, it certainly is not implicated by the indictment we saw today.

If proved true, the information detailed in the indictment indicates that Trump cannot rely on a defense that he declassified the documents. First, the defense largely is legally irrelevant. The charges do not appear to depend on whether the documents were classified. Second, the indictment indicates that Trump himself admitted that he did not declassify “secret documents.” 

In addition, Trump cannot claim that others are responsible for mishandling or misplacing these documents. The 49-page indictment puts him squarely at the center of the alleged criminal action. According to the indictment, Trump instructed his aides and attorneys to lie about the documents and hide them. Far from being a bit player in this movie, the indictment depicts Trump as the director and star.

A quirk of the federal courts is that prosecutors are required to file charges in the jurisdiction where the crime is alleged to have been committed. As my colleague Lisa Rubin explained last night, that’s why the charges in this case were filed in Florida, rather than Washington. That also helps explain why even though the indictment mentions showing off classified material that he knew he shouldn’t have, Trump isn’t charged with dissemination of national defense information. 

Those incidents took place at Trump’s Bedminster residence in New Jersey — if the feds wanted to charge him over those actions specifically, they would have needed to empanel an additional grand jury. And while I wouldn’t put it past them, seeing as how we didn’t know a Florida grand jury had been seated until recently, it appears that they didn’t think it was worth taking that step for just those charges.

Much like in April for his arraignment in New York City, law enforcement is coordinating to secure Trump’s route to and from a federal courthouse in Miami. 

Miami police also put out a statement Friday, saying that the department will “work cohesively with our local, state, and federal partners to provide any assistance needed in the form of personnel, resources, detours, and/or road closures.” Chief of Police Manuel Morales said the department is “committed to protecting everyone’s first amendment right,” presumably a reference to the protests that are sure to spring up come Tuesday.

I wrote last year about how badly Christina Bobb wanted to join Trump’s team — and how much she must have regretted it by the time she left his service. That’s because it was Bobb who signed her name to a document professing to the FBI and Department of Justice that all classified documents had been handed over in compliance with a grand jury subpoena. Bobb, you may note, was not named as a co-conspirator in the indictment against the former president and Trump aide Walt Nauta.

Though the document doesn’t name Bobb, it’s clear that she’s the person referred to as “Trump Attorney 3,” based on previous reporting on her role in this mess. And while she did sign her name to a certification as “Trump Attorney 1” requested, she had “performed no search of TRUMP’s boxes, had not reviewed the May 11 Subpoena, and had not reviewed the contents of the Redweld folder.”

Bobb also made sure that the note included a caveat, that the statements inside were true “[b]ased upon the information that [had] been provided to” her. That information, we now know, was blatantly false. And in cooperating with the investigation, she got the chance to make sure the DOJ knew her side of the story and avoid taking the fall for Trump and Nauta.

Andrew Weissman to Nicolle Wallace of "Deadline: White House," moments ago:

In a state case there would have to be this extradition and it could be complicated and it could take time. Federally, if he didn’t show up and if this was for instance charged in D.C. because it’s a federal case and he’s in Florida, the judge in D.C. just issues an arrest warrant and it gets to be executed in Florida.

In other words, if he just said, “I’m ignoring this,” because it’s a national case, the feds don’t actually have to worry about state by state. They can just send the marshals, put the cuffs on him and take him.

I get that a lot of Trump’s shtick involves preaching to the choir. His rants — whether on TruthSocial or at a rally — are meant to shape the opinion of his supporters, not stand up in the face of logic or legal scrutiny. That’s the only explanation I have for why he keeps posting through it even as he’s under federal indictment.

For example, this afternoon Trump posted the following on TruthSocial: “Nobody said I wasn’t allowed to look at the personal records that I brought with me from the White House. There’s nothing wrong with that….” 

First of all, many people said that, including the National Archives and Records Administration, which spent over a year asking for the government documents he’d sequestered, and the FBI subpoena that told him to turn over all classified documents in his possession.

Second, uh, there are several things wrong with that, as one might assume based on the multiple charges to that effect. And third, admitting that you were looking at the classified documents that you had been repeatedly told you shouldn’t have and were found in your possession after saying you’d handed them all back does not seem like a very effective way to prove your innocence.

On Friday, Trump again pointed to the “Clinton Socks Case” to argue that, under the Presidential Records Act, any documents at Mar-a-Lago were presumptively personal records. Earlier this year, MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin explained why that defense is bunk:

As has often been the case before, Trump’s argument rested on a misleading comparison of his conduct to that of another former president; here, Bill Clinton was his foil. And his attempt to analogize his situation to Clinton’s is also where the argument falls apart because Trump isn’t just distorting historical facts; he’s mischaracterizing the ruling and reasoning of a federal district court. 

The documents seized at Mar-a-Lago last August infamously include those found in Trump’s desk drawer, far from the storage room where any and all presidential records were supposedly kept by lock and key. By contrast, the case Trump sees as a natural analog, Judicial Watch, Inc. v. National Archives and Records Administration, is quite literally about Clinton’s sock drawer, where, for years, he kept audio recordings of conversations he had with historian Taylor Branch during his presidency.

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Rachel Maddow to Nicolle Wallace of "Deadline: White House," moments ago:

Reading the indictment, I was struck by the simplicity of it, structurally. This is not a case where we need to wait for somebody to flip. There’s no Allen Weisselberg character out here, who we need to find out how much they’re going to tell prosecutors; there’s no opaque question of intent that we need to wait to see if prosecutors have some access to; there’s no contingent second crime that elevates these things to a more serious thing. All things that we’ve seen in other serious cases involving Trump and his business.

In this case, this is straight forward, what they’re laying out. It’s an accusation, it is not a conviction. But what they’re accusing him of is that he was not allowed to have this stuff and he knew it and he had the stuff anyway.

Smith’s remarks were short and sweet. He wrapped the case in the flag, framing it as a matter of national security. Though the special counsel emphasized that the defendants are presumed innocent, the tenor of his prosecution is clearly: Donald Trump vs. America.

And given all the drama surrounding the appointment of special counsels over the years, it was notable to hear Smith refer to prosecutors in “my” (his) office, thus reaffirming his independence from Attorney General Merrick Garland, who appointed him. Smith is owning the case. 

Another thing that stood out in the special counsel’s short remarks was his making clear that the government is interested in a speedy trial (consistent with defendants’ rights). Not that Trump didn’t already want to delay, but especially after reading Smith’s damning indictment and seeing his confident presentation this afternoon, Trump might be interested in whatever the opposite of a speedy trial is.