Audio of Trump is the smoking gun in the case, legal analysts say

The recorded conversation in the indictment of Trump admitting that he did not declassify documents serves as proof of unlawful conduct, two legal analysts said Sunday.

Preet Bharara, former U.S. attorney, argued on ABC News’ “This Week” that “the most damning piece of evidence” in the case is the transcription of audio tape included in the indictment. “This audio tape simultaneously makes out many of the elements … of the crimes and simultaneously rebuts and debunks his defenses.

“He couldn’t declassify telepathically, he couldn’t declassify automatically. There was no standing order. And this tape makes that very, very clear,” said Bhara.

Asha Rangappa, former FBI special agent, similarly argued that the audio of Trump makes the case is distinguishable from the investigations into Joe Biden and Mike Pence’s handling of classified documents.

“These are all his own words that he’s using,” she said. “There’s audio tape of him knowing that this is classified information, there are text messages. The receipts are here, that this is conduct that I don’t think Mike Pence or Joe Biden engaged in in any way at all.”

Biden plans to keep quiet on Trump documents charges

WASHINGTON — Don’t expect President Joe Biden to comment about the 37-count indictment against Donald Trump that accuses the former president of risking some of the country’s most sensitive security secrets after leaving the White House in 2021.

Administration officials plan to maintain their silence on the Trump indictment, a reflection of Biden’s view that no president should interfere with the Justice Department, administration sources said.

Given that Trump is Biden’s chief rival in the 2024 presidential race, the campaign should proceed carefully in any mention of the charges, some political experts say.

Many fellow Republicans that are challenging Trump in 2024 have rebuked the Justice Department, not Trump, over the documents, and accused Biden of “weaponizing” the department, even though Trump’s indictment was handed up by a grand jury.

So far, Biden’s campaign has not mentioned the indictment. 

Trump’s travel plans this week

Trump’s movements will be closely tracked in the coming days.

The former president plans to leave his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, on Monday morning and head to Newark Liberty International Airport, where he will board a flight to Miami International Airport, according to a source familiar with his travel agenda. He will spend Monday night at the Trump National Doral Miami golf resort.

He is slated to be arraigned in a Miami federal court on Tuesday afternoon in front of a judge he appointed to the bench.

He will then return to the Miami airport, fly to Newark and head back to Bedminster, where he is expected to attend a fundraiser at his golf club in honor of his 77th birthday on Wednesday, the source said.

Trump supporters have called for protests at Miami federal court, online sleuths warn

Trump supporters have called for protests at the federal courthouse in Miami, where the former president is scheduled to surrender on Tuesday, according to a security update by Advance Democracy, a nonpartisan, nonprofit investigative group that monitors social media for extremist content.

There is no evidence of “plans for violence or large scale disruptive activity,” the group said.

Multiple users on Trump’s social media platform, Truth Social, are continuing to call for Trump supporters to protest at the courthouse, including conservative activist and talk show host Charlie Kirk.

Advance Democrat said “these posts frequently highlight the Florida Southern District Courthouse as a target for protest,” but “ADI did not identify any threats of violence among these users.”

In late 2020, the group flagged numerous threats and planning for violence on social media before the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021.

‘This indictment must now play out through the legal process,’ Schumer says

In brief remarks following the unsealing of the indictment, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer again urged the public to remain calm and allow Trump’s case to play “peacefully through the court.”

“No one is above the law,” the New York Democrat said. “This indictment must now play out through the legal process without any outside political or ideological interference.”

Former AG Barr says Trump indictment is ‘very, very damning’

Bill Barr, who served as attorney general during the last two years of Trump’s term in the White House, appeared on “Fox News Sunday” and described the federal indictment against the former president as “very, very damning.”

“If even half of it is true, then he’s toast,” Barr said, explaining that he was frankly “shocked by the degree of sensitivity of these documents and how many there were.”

Barr pushed back against Trump’s claims that he was being wrongly persecuted: “The idea of presenting Trump as a victim here — a victim of a witch hunt — is ridiculous.”

Later Sunday, Trump fired back at Barr in a post to his social media platform, Truth Social, calling his former attorney general a “disgruntled former employee who was “weak & totally ineffective.”

Graham: ‘I haven’t heard audio’ of Trump admitting the documents were secret

Sen. Lindsey Graham on Sunday defended Trump when repeatedly pressed about a recorded conversation in the indictment of the former president admitting he didn’t declassify the documents.

“I don’t know what happened, I haven’t heard the audio,” Graham, one of Trump’s loudest GOP allies, said in an interview on ABC News’ “This Week.”

“Donald Trump, you may hate his guts, but he is not a spy. He did not commit commit espionage,” the South Carolina Republican said.

Pressed again on the recorded conversation, Graham insisted that he’s “not saying it’s OK.” “What’s happening in Manhattan to Donald Trump has never happened to anybody in the history of New York,” he said. “I think the espionage charges are completely wrong, and I think they paint an impression that doesn’t exist.”

U.S. Marshals Service says agency will ‘ensure the integrity of the federal judicial process’

Ahead of Trump’s arraignment in Miami on Tuesday, the U.S. Marshals Service said the agency would take steps to protect the federal judicial process.

“The U.S. Marshals are responsible for the protection of the federal judicial process, and we take that responsibility very seriously,” the federal law enforcement agency said in a statement. “Ensuring that judges can rule independently and free from harm or intimidation is paramount to the rule of law, and a fundamental mission of the USMS.

“While we do not discuss our specific security measures, we continuously review the measures in place and take appropriate steps to ensure the integrity of the federal judicial process.”

Ramaswamy, after reading indictment, doubles down on vow to pardon Trump

Longshot Republican 2024 candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who is polling at around 1.8% in the early race for the GOP nomination, stood by his promise to pardon Trump if he is elected.

Before Trump’s indictment last week, Ramaswamy pledged to issue a pardon if the former president was convicted. He said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that after reading the indictment he’s “even more convinced that a pardon is the right answer.”

Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who is also in the race for the GOP presidential nomination, criticized Ramaswamy’s remarks.

“Well, that’s wrong,” Hutchinson said on CNN. “It is simply wrong for a candidate to use the pardon power of the United States of the President in order to curry votes.”

Trump lawyer offers preview of defense case: ‘He would never admit guilt’

Trump lawyer Alina Habba offered a preview of the defense’s case in an appearance on “Fox News Sunday.”

She said she could “never imagine” a scenario in which Trump would plead some of the charges away in order to focus on his presidential campaign. 

“I would never advise that, especially when he’s not done anything wrong,” she said. ‘You take a plea deal to make something go away. That’s an admission of guilt. He would never admit guilt.”

In response to a widely circulated photo included in the indictment that shows documents on the floor in Mar-a-Lago, Habba said: “There is context to everything.

“That context will be brought out on defense,” she said. “We have not had an opportunity to give our side.”

Rep. Dan Goldman: Indictment shows Trump did not declassify these documents

Reps. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., weighed in on Trump’s claim that he had declassified documents before he took them to Mar-a-Lago in interviews on CNN’s “State of the Union” this morning.

Asked if he’s seen evidence to support the former president’s claim, Jordan, a staunch Trump ally and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, argued that Trump as president could declassify any of the documents, and he did: “I go on the president’s word and he said he did.”

Goldman, who served as lead Democratic counsel during Trump’s first impeachment, disagreed, pointing to a recorded conversation in the indictment that indicates Trump privately knew the documents were still secret.

“There is no question, based on his private recorded conversations, that he did not declassify these documents,” Goldman said. “Mr. Jordan and Donald Trump and his defense team can try to spin this any way they want. But the evidence based on his own recording his own voice says to the contrary.”

The indictment, which was unsealed Friday, quotes Trump saying “as president I could have declassified it,” and “now I can’t, you know, but this is still a secret.”

Trump delivers fiery post-indictment speech: ‘They’re coming after you’

COLUMBUS, Ga. — Donald Trump’s legal defense did not start in a courtroom. It began on the banks of the Chattahoochee River.

After his historic federal indictment, the former president stepped onstage Saturday in front of more than 2,000 people packed into a convention center here to once again declare his innocence and deliver a grievance-laced takedown of what he said was a biased federal law enforcement apparatus.

“In the end, they’re not coming after me. They’re coming after you — and I’m just standing in their way,” Trump said.

“The ridiculous and baseless indictment of me by the Biden administration’s weaponized Department of Injustice will go down as among the most horrific abuses of power in the history of our country,” he said. “Many people have said that; Democrats have even said it. This vicious persecution is a travesty of justice.”

Read the full story here.