Highlights: Trump classified docs indictment text is unsealed

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.

Barbara McQuade speaking on "Chris Jansing Reports" minutes ago:

I imagine he’ll be processed mostly like most defendants — but probably not exactly like every defendant. When someone is allowed to turn themselves in, as they often are in a nonviolent case where there’s not a fear of danger to the community or risk of flight, a person is actually put into custody. They are booked, they are fingerprinted. Sometimes a DNA swab is taken and then they are brought into the courtroom.

I would imagine, as we saw in the New York case, that a secret service agent will accompany Donald Trump throughout that entire process. It may also be the case that they’re able to get a waiver for a mugshot in light of the fact that everybody knows what Trump looks like and that it would be difficult for him to evade detection simply because people don’t have access to that photo. I think he may get some special treatment only because he is a lifelong protectee of the secret service. But after he is processed, he will then go to court for his arraignment.

The indictment works to build out Trump’s frame of mind about the DOJ’s investigation based on, among other things, statements “memorialized by Trump Attorney 1.” The indictment never names this attorney, but that context clue leads me to believe that Smith is referring to Evan Corcoran.

You may recall that Corcoran was forced to turn over notes he’d taken to the Justice Department and testify before the grand jury after a judge ruled that there was evidence a crime had been committed.

Trump reportedly was annoyed that Corcoran was taking notes in the first place and based on what he appears to have written down, it’s not hard to see why. From the indictment:

On May 23, 2022, TRUMP met with Trump Attorney 1 and Trump Attorney 2 at The Mar-a-Lago Club to discuss the response to the May 11 Subpoena. Trump Attorney 1 and Trump Attorney 2 told TRUMP that they needed to search for documents that would be responsive to the subpoena and provide a certification that there had been compliance with the subpoena. TRUMP, in sum and substance, made the following statements, among others, as memorialized by Trump Attorney 1:

• I don’t want anybody looking, I don’t want anybody looking through my boxes, I really don’t, I don’t want you looking through my boxes.
• Well what if we, what happens if we just don’t respond at all or don’t play ball with them?
• Wouldn’t it be better if we just told them we don’t have anything here?
• Well look isn’t it better if there are no documents?

While meeting with Trump Attorney l and Trump Attorney 2 on May 23, TRUMP, in sum and substance, told the following story, as memorialized by Trump Attorney 1:

[Attorney], he was great, he did a great job. You know what? He said, he said that it — that it was him. That he was the one who deleted all of her emails, the 30,000 emails, because they basically dealt with her scheduling and her going to the gym and her having beauty appointments. And he was great. And he, so she didn’t get in any trouble because he said that he was the one who deleted them.

TRUMP related the story more than once that day.

In case it isn’t clear, that’s Trump appearing to suggest to his lawyers that maybe they just don’t respond to the subpoena and/or lie about what they have on the premises, and praising a Hillary Clinton lawyer for taking the heat for deleting a set of emails. You have to imagine that Smith’s team was elated to get the chance to get their hands on such damning evidence.

Frank Figliuzzi speaking on “Chris Jansing Reports“ minutes ago:

Historically, foreign intelligence services have always attempted to penetrate a second home or summer residence or winter residence of a president and this would be no exception. 

Mar-a-Lago was a huge target, a huge bullseye for foreign intel services. And there have been some public reports of course of Chinese nationals trying to penetrate, getting in, people associated with Russia and other Eastern Bloc countries.

But I’m here to tell you that it was a giant and porous target and I’m also here to tell you that the Secret Service was not responsible for some of the areas cited in this indictment in terms of protecting. The Secret Service doesn’t protect boxes and nor do they cover the domain, the area in which the protectee is not living and working in. They just protect him.

So the likelihood that a foreign service had access or attempted to get access to these places and these papers is quite high.

In a rare public appearance, special counsel Jack Smith delivered a statement moments ago on the federal indictment against Donald Trump.

"I invite everyone to read it in full to understand the scope and the gravity of the crimes charged," he said, adding: "We have one set of laws in this country and they apply to everyone."

He continued: "Applying those laws, collecting facts — that's what determines the outcome of an investigation. Nothing more nothing less."

In wrapping up his speech, which lasted roughly two minutes, he reminded the public that Trump and his co-defendant, Walt Nauta, "must be presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law."

There’s been a lot of focus on the audio recording of Trump showing off classified material to two members of his staff and two people working on former chief of staff Mark Meadows’ book. But the indictment lists a second instance where Trump allegedly whipped out a classified document he shouldn’t have had:

Much like in the first instance, Trump allegedly acknowledged that the material was classified and that he shouldn’t have it. That’s not great for his defense: that he could either magically declassify any material that he had at will or that he only possessed material that had been previously declassified. 

According to the federal indictment, the Mar-a-Lago club includes Trump’s “residence, more than 25 guest rooms, two ballrooms, a spa, a gift store, exercise facilities, office space, and an outdoor pool and patio.” And yet in all that space, it seems Trump and his associates were unable to find anywhere to store boxes allegedly containing classified documents. So they got creative.

“From January through March 15, 2021,” states the indictment, “some of TRUMP’s boxes were stored in The Mar-a-Lago Club’s White and Gold Ballroom, in which events and gatherings took place. TRUMP’s boxes were for a time stacked on the ballroom’s stage, as depicted in the photograph below (redacted to obscure an individual’s identity).”

Somehow things got more ridiculous from there. Realizing that a public ballroom might not be the best storage space, Trump aide Walt Nauta and others allegedly moved the boxes to the club’s business center.

But the next month, when room needed to be made in the business center for a staff office, “some of TRUMP’s boxes were moved from the business center to a bathroom and shower in The Mar-a-Lago Club’s Lake Room, as depicted in the photograph below," according to the indictment.

Finally, in June 2021, more than 80 boxes were moved to a storage room which, while not a shower, was accessible “from multiple outside entrances," federal prosecutors allege. In that same storage room just over a year later, the FBI executed a search warrant and found 75 documents with classification markings.

If you look at the maximum penalties under the statutes charged in the indictment and add them all up, they amount to decades if not hundreds of years in prison. But those aren’t the sentences that Trump or Nauta would realistically face if they’re tried and convicted.

Rather, any sentence will be informed by a number of factors under what are known as the sentencing guidelines and guided by the discretion of the trial judge and any sentences given to other people in similar situations.

So it’s a mistake to look at the maximum penalties available under each statute and assume that a defendant is realistically facing such an astronomical number. While both Trump (who’s in his mid-70s) and Nauta face prison time if convicted, any sentence will likely be much lower than the maximum penalties under the relevant statutes.

After the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago last year, the Justice Department released a photo showing several classified documents that were found in Trump’s office. The former president complained that the picture made it look like that’s where the FBI found them. “Wrong!” he wrote on TruthSocial. “They took them out of cartons and spread them around on the carpet, making it look like a big ‘find’ for them. They dropped them, not me — Very deceiving…” 

In another post, Trump griped about how the agents “threw documents haphazardly all over the floor (perhaps pretending it was me that did it!), and then started taking pictures of them for the public to see.”

Well, the indictment unsealed today noted how poorly stored those boxes were despite the classified material inside, including one instance in Dec. 2021 where several had tipped over and spilled their contents:

NAUTA texted Trump Employee 2, “I opened the door and found this...” NAUTA also attached two photographs he took of the spill. Trump Employee 2 replied, “Oh no oh no,” and “I’m sorry potus had my phone.” One of the photographs NAUTA texted to Trump Employee 2 is depicted below with the visible classified information redacted. 

That’s not to say that the FBI actually found documents lying on the floor in Trump’s office after all. But … it’s not like he was keeping them filed away safely.

Frank Figliuzzi speaking on “Chris Jansing Reports“ moments ago:

Whenever information comes from some of these agencies, particularly the National Security Agency or the National Reconnaissance Office, they are almost automatically top secret and compartmented information. 

To hear that some of this was sitting on a stage in a ballroom at Mar-a-Lago is really cringing for me. Just to give you a sense of the sensitivity of these agencies, in common conversation at FBI headquarters or if you’re out at lunch, we typically use a code name for these agencies so that we know what we’re talking about and where something came from but that people sitting next to us would not know what we’re talking about. Yet, this is the kind of classified information he kept openly at Mar-a-Lago.

Once upon a time, Donald Trump was deeply concerned about proper care of classified information — a fact his former opponent Hillary Clinton enjoys reminding him of. Now, seven years after Trump turned “Hillary’s emails” into a crusade, the Justice Department is reminding him of his own words. The indictment includes seven citations of Trump professing strict fealty to and deep admiration for regulations around classified information.

Aug. 18, 2016: “In my administration, I’m going to enforce all laws concerning the protection of classified information. No one will be above the law.”

Sept. 6, 2016: “We also need to fight this battle by collecting intelligence and then protecting, protecting our classified secrets. ... We can’t have someone in the Oval Office who doesn’t understand the meaning of the word confidential or classified.”

Sept. 7, 2016: “[O]ne of the first things we must do is to enforce all classification rules and to enforce all laws relating to the handling of classified information.”

Sept. 19, 2016: “We also need the best protection of classified information.”

Nov. 3, 2016: “Service members here in North Carolina have risked their lives to acquire classified intelligence to protect our country.”

Feb. 16, 2017: “The first thing I thought of when I heard about it is, how does the press get this information that’s classified? How do they do it? You know why? Because it’s an illegal process, and the press should be ashamed of themselves. But more importantly, the people that gave out the information to the press should be ashamed of themselves. Really ashamed.”

July 26, 2018: “As the head of the executive branch and Commander in Chief, I have a unique, Constitutional responsibility to protect the Nation’s classified information, including by controlling access to it…Any access granted to our Nation’s secrets should be in furtherance of national, not personal, interests.”

Joyce Vance speaking on "Chris Jansing Reports" moments ago:

Something stunning is the scope and breadth of this indictment. There are not seven counts in this indictment as were reported last night, but 38 charges that are brought against the president and his, I supposed now former, valet.

Most striking as you begin to read through the individual counts is the fact, the repetition, over and over, that Donald Trump lied in order to hide his crimes. It really is, at the end of the day, the coverup that got the former president in trouble.

The indictment made sure to note that there were ways that Trump could have legally been in possession of the documents recovered. Executive Order 13526, which sets up many of the rules for who can access classified material, “provided that a former president could obtain a waiver of the ‘need-to-know’ requirement." They would need to receive a sign-off from the agency that produced the information stating doing so wouldn’t harm national security and that the ex-president would keep those materials secure.

“TRUMP did not obtain any such waiver after his presidency,” the indictment reads.

The 38-count indictment charges both Trump and Nauta, but they aren’t both charged with every count in the indictment. Here’s a quick breakdown: 

• Trump is charged in Counts 1-31, willful retention of national defense information 
• Trump and Nauta are charged in Count 32, conspiracy to obstruct justice
• Trump and Nauta are charged in Count 33, withholding a document or record
• Trump and Nauta are charged in Count 34, corruptly concealing a document or record
• Trump and Nauta are charged in Count 35, concealing a document in a federal investigation
• Trump and Nauta are charged in Count 36, scheme to conceal
• Trump is charged in Count 37, false statements and representations
• Nauta is charged in Count 38, false statements and representations

The indictment against Trump is an allegation that needs to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt at trial, if there is one. But while there’s still much to learn about the case, what we do know looks much different from situations Trump has complained about where charges haven’t been brought, such as in the matters of Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton.

As I noted previously, one of the many differences between Trump’s case, on the one hand, and Biden and Hillary Clinton, on the other, can be boiled down to one issue: possible obstruction. One way that Trump brought this all on himself was by not cooperating.

While we still need to see the specific charges, beware any false equivalence from the Trump camp between his case and ones where charges weren’t warranted.

The majority of counts that Trump has been charged with related to his “willful retention of national security information.”

While the indictment doesn’t go into detail about what was inside the pieces of classified material that the Justice Department recovered when it searched Mar-a-Lago last August, it does give a brief overview about what was inside and the level of classification of each document. That ranges from SECRET to TOP SECRET, with several also bearing additional markings further restricting who may view them:  

TOP SECRET: “Document dated May 3, 2018, concerning White House intelligence briefing related to various foreign countries.”

TOP SECRET: “Document dated May 9, 2018, concerning White House intelligence briefing related to various foreign countries.”

TOP SECRET: “Undated document concerning military capabilities of a foreign country and the United States, with handwritten annotation in black marker.”

TOP SECRET: “Document dated May 6, 2019,  concerning White House intelligence briefing related to foreign countries, including military activities and planning of foreign countries.”

TOP SECRET: “Document dated June 2020 concerning nuclear capabilities of foreign country.”

TOP SECRET: “Document dated June 4, 2020, concerning White House intelligence briefing related to various foreign countries.”

SECRET: “Document dated October 21, 2018, concerning communications with a leader of a foreign country.”

SECRET: “Document dated October 4, 2019, concerning military capabilities of a foreign country.”

TOP SECRET: “Undated document concerning military attacks by a foreign country.”

TOP SECRET: “Document dated November 2017 concerning military capabilities of a foreign country.”

[NO MARKING]: “Undated document concerning military contingency planning of the United States.”

SECRET: “Pages of undated document concerning projected regional military capabilities of a foreign country and the United States.”

TOP SECRET: “Undated document concerning military capabilities of a foreign country and the United States.”

SECRET: “Document dated January 2020 concerning military options of a foreign country and the potential effects on United States interests.”

SECRET: “Document dated February 2020 concerning policies in a foreign country.”

SECRET: “Document dated December 2019 concerning foreign country support of terrorist acts against United States interests.”

TOP SECRET: “Document dated January 2020 concerning military capabilities of a foreign country.”

SECRET: “Document dated March 2020 concerning military operations against United States forces and others.”

SECRET: “Undated document concerning nuclear weaponry of the United States.”

TOP SECRET: “Undated document concerning timeline and details of attack in a foreign country.”

SECRET: “Undated document concerning military capabilities of foreign countries.”

TOP SECRET: “Document dated August 2019 concerning regional military activity of a foreign country.”

TOP SECRET: “Document dated August 30, 2019, concerning White House intelligence brieifng related to various foreign countries, with handwritten annotation in black marker.”

TOP SECRET: “Undated document concerning military activity of a foreign country.”

TOP SECRET: “Document dated October 24, 2019, concerning military activity of foreign countries and the United States.”

TOP SECRET: “Document dated November 7, 2019, concerning military activity of foreign countries and the United States.”

TOP SECRET: “Document dated November 2019 concerning military activity of  foreign countries.”

TOP SECRET: “Document dated October 18, 2019, concerning White House intelligence briefing related to various foreign countries.”

TOP SECRET: “Document dated October 18, 2019, concerning military capabilities of a foreign country.”

TOP SECRET: “Document dated October 15, 2019, concerning military activity in a foreign country.”

TOP SECRET: “Document dated February 2017 concerning military activity of a foreign country.”

The indictment notes that all of these documents were retained in violation of 18 U.S. Code § 793(e). Whew. 

As NBC and MSNBC reporters comb through Jack Smith's unsealed indictment today, one key detail jumped out to NBC News national security correspondent Ken Dilanian.

"The allegation that he (Trump) showed classified material to people not cleared to see it — and he’s charged with that crime — that’s a huge, huge deal," he said on MSNBC. That’s a big deal, Dilanian continued, because it rebuts the argument that Trump simply had these documents sitting harmlessly in storage somewhere. "When you show classified documents to people who weren’t cleared to see them, that is a breach. People have gone to prison for a long time for doing that. It happens all the time. It’s more than just taking them home and squirreling them away. So they’ve got two instances here where they say that he did that.”

The damning indictment against Donald Trump and co-defendant Waltine Nauta contains 38 counts, including retention of national defense information under the Espionage Act, conspiracy to obstruct justice, withholding a government document or record, corruptly concealing a document or record, concealing a document in a federal investigation, scheme to conceal, and false statements and representations.

When news broke Thursday that special counsel Jack Smith decided to indict former President Donald Trump over his classified documents scandal, one of the most intriguing questions was: Would Smith indict only Trump or would he charge a conspiracy that includes the people around Trump who assisted, facilitated or were directly complicit in Trump’s alleged crimes? In other words, would Smith try to take down the entire “Mar-a-Lago mafia” next?

As of Friday, the answer to the last question appears to be yes. Not only has the former president been charged with conspiracy to obstruct, but also the Justice Department has indicted his aide Walt Nauta. According to The Washington Post, one of the jobs of Trump’s “personal aide and general gofer … has been to move and carry cardboard boxes in which Trump likes to keep mementos and papers.” Nauta has been a subject of Smith’s interest since reportedly making contradictory statements about whether he moved boxes of classified documents around at Mar-a-Lago. Might Nauta turn out to be one of the capos of the Mar-a-Lago mafia?

Read more here:

Federal prosecutors estimate the length of a potential trial in the Trump classified documents case would take 21 to 60 days, according to the indictment.

By comparison, the E. Jean Carroll v. Trump trial lasted about two weeks. (And resulted in Trump being found liable of sexual abuse and defamation.)

The big news last night was that Trump was hit with seven charges in Smith’s classified documents investigation. Now that the indictment in that case has been unsealed, we can see that Trump has been hit with more than 30 counts against him, sharing seven of those with his aide, Walt Nauta.

That’s because while Trump is indicted on seven charges — or specific alleged crimes — he has been accused of violating the law several times in each instance. In fact, 31 of the counts against him relate to his “willful retention of national security information.” Each of those counts would then be put before a jury for their judgment of guilty or not guilty.

Special counsel Jack Smith is set to make a statement today at 3 p.m. ET, the Justice Department announced. He is not expected to take questions from reporters. It will be livestreamed here.

The Justice Department unsealed the indictment against Trump in the classified documents probe. Click below to read the document.

Former Vice President Mike Pence accused Attorney General Merrick Garland of “hiding behind the special counsel” earlier today, demanding that the Justice Department unseal the indictment against Trump. “You need to stand up and explain to us why this was necessary before the sun sets today,” Pence added.

It’s a smart play from Pence. If the Justice Department doesn’t unseal the indictment ahead of Trump’s arraignment on Tuesday, it makes it seem as though they’re hiding something. If they do, he can say “Well, thank goodness Garland listened when I demanded that he act,” even if it’s what the attorney general intended all along.

It is undoubtedly exciting to imagine Trump being held accountable for his misconduct. But placing any faith in these charges to definitively knock Trump out of politics is a bad idea. In fact, placing faith in any past or future indictment or investigation to do so is a potentially dangerous idea.

Banking on convictions to eliminate the threat posed by Trump is shortsighted. There are virtually no convictions that can bar Trump from winning office or acting as president, and he has a variety of tools available to either avoid being sentenced before taking office or pardoning himself upon taking office.

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After a surprise geographical shift to Florida in Donald Trump’s documents case, one of the latest dramatic developments is an old character from the saga making a fresh appearance: Aileen Cannon.

If Cannon sounds familiar, it’s because she’s the Trump-appointed judge who effectively tried to help the former president gum up the works in the Justice Department’s initial investigation. NBC News confirmed Friday that she has been assigned to initially oversee the DOJ’s case against Trump.

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