A former White House lawyer last week suggested there was “overwhelming evidence” against former President Donald Trump in his mishandling of classified documents after new charges were filed on the case on Thursday.
“I think this original indictment was engineered to last a thousand years and now this superseding indictment will last an antiquity,” Ty Cobb, a lawyer who served under the Trump administration, told CNN’s Erin Burnett. “This is such a tight case, the evidence is so overwhelming.”
In June, special counsel Jack Smith indicted the former president on 37 counts regarding his handling of classified records after leaving the White House.
Last week, Smith levied three additional counts, and prosecutors allege that Trump urged surveillance footage to be deleted at his Mar-a-Lago residence, while he knowingly kept an additional sensitive document.
The property manager of the Florida resort, Carlos De Oliveira, was also charged alongside aide Walt Nauta as a co-conspirator.
Trump Not Listening to His Lawyers
Cobb also told Burnett that Trump’s lawyers at some point advised him “not to destroy, move (the documents) or obstruct this grand jury subpoena in any way or the government’s request in any way.”
Trump apparently disregarded the advice of counsel.
“So this is Trump not just going behind the back of the prosecutors. This is Trump going behind the back of his own lawyers, and dealing with two people who were extremely loyal to him,” Cobb added.
“It’s very difficult to imagine how Trump could say his lawyers met with Jack Smith today to explain to him that he hadn’t done anything wrong on the same day that Jack Smith produces this overwhelming evidence of additional wrongdoing on his part,” Cobb said.
Legal Headaches Won’t Go Away
Donald Trump is now facing charges for attempting to destroy evidence as well as for inducing someone else to destroy evidence. The former president also faces a new count under the Espionage Act, for allegedly keeping a document about U.S. plans to attack Iran, which he had even discussed on tape.
Trump has denied all wrongdoing in the documents case, as well as in other cases including the criminal investigation in New York in which he faces 34 charges relating to hush-money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels to conceal an alleged affair.
Smith is ‘Deranged’ Said Donald Trump
On Thursday night, via his Truth Social platform, the former president fired back, taking direct aim at Smith.
“How can Deranged Jack Smith bring a case on January 6th., as ridiculous as it is anyway, when I have already won such a case, and been fully acquitted, in the U.S. Senate? In other words, I was Impeached on this, and WON!!! ELECTION INTERFERENCE & PROSECUTORIAL MISCONDUCT, all rolled up as one. We are truly a Nation In Decline!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Trump was impeached in 2021 in the House of Representatives for inciting the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol Building. He was subsequently acquitted in the United States Senate.
A Trump spokesperson called the new charges “nothing more than a continued desperate and flailing attempt” by the Biden administration to harass the former president and “those around him.”
District Judge Aileen Cannon, who was assigned to the classified documents case, has scheduled the trial for May 2024.
Author Experience and Expertise
A Senior Editor for 19FortyFive, Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer. He has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers, and websites with over 3,200 published pieces over a twenty-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a Contributing Writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu.
