'That's a serious crime': ex-prosecutor says people 'hardly ever forget' showing confidential docs
A legal expert believes Donald Trump may have walked into additional jeopardy at Wednesday night’s town hall, at which the former president described his handling classified documents at Mar-a-Lago as lawful.
Trump said in response to a question from host Kaitlan Collins over whether he showed the documents to anyone, “Not that I can think of, let me just tell you, I had the absolute right to do whatever I want with them. I have the right.” Former Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Rebecca Roiphe during an appearance on MSNBC’s Alex Wagner tonight called the statement "significant."
“Well, that's pretty significant,” Roiphe said.
“It's not an admission, but it's also not a denial, and I think that's really important, because that's a serious crime and it is something that you would remember. I mean, people hardly ever forget whether or not they showed, you know, a highly classified document to a bunch of other people.
“It would provide important evidence to Jack Smith if you were trying to bring that case," she added.
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Roiphe described Trump’s comment as an unforced error.
“This is why defense attorneys do not want their clients to go out and talk, because the thing is, you don’t fully know what the prosecution knows yet. You don’t know what’s in the government’s hands, so you’re playing a game where you don’t have all the information and you’re locking yourself in, and you don’t want to do that and this is one of those situations."
“Obviously, he's been reading the same reports that you have. He’s concerned that they may have some information that he doesn’t have so he can’t directly say, you know, ‘it didn’t happen’ if it happened. That is difficult and that’s bad…that’s why you don’t want your client out there in this his town hall giving all these statements.”
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