America's Talking - Trump Pleads Not Guilty in Documents Case, Claims Documents ‘Planted’

Episode Date: June 16, 2023

Former President Donald Trump pleaded not guilty Tuesday to 37 counts that allege he kept sensitive military documents, shared them with people who didn't have security clearance, and tried to get around the government's efforts to get them back. Trump's arraignment at the Wilkie D. Ferguson Jr. Courthouse was largely procedural except for heightened security, lots of media coverage and hundreds of supporters outside the federal courthouse in Miami. Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/america-in-focus/support Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello and welcome to America in Focus, powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan McAulb, executive editor of the Center Square Newswire Service. Joining me today is the Center Square Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief Casey we are recording this on Friday, June 16th. Casey has been another interesting week on the Donald Trump criminal case. The former president was arraigned on charges. He mishandled classified documents by storing them at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida and also showing them to individuals who didn't have security, Clarence. Trump, of course, is the GOP frontrunner in the race to face President, Democratic President Joe Biden in 2024. Casey, there are so many different directions we could go here. Where do you want to start?

We get to start with some of the facts. What a great place. So some of the details. And then we can jump off from there. I mean, we can talk about what Americans think about this. There's some interesting surveys about Americans' perceptions and then what, you know, what this could look like going forward. But a special account, Jack Smith from the DOJ is lead in this investigation. Trump was arraigned in Miami. Of course, Florida's his home state. Interestingly, the mayor of Miami announced he's running for president this week, even as Trump was there getting arraigned in his hometown. So that's kind of interesting detail. So there's a 49-page indictment with 37 counts. As you said, it's related to these sensitive classified documents. It's not just that he

had them. It's that he wouldn't give them back when asked is a big part of kind of what makes his case different from some others. Trump has, you know, he pled not giving. guilty. According to the feds, basically, the records included 197 documents with classified markings. That included 98 marked secret and 30 marked top secret. So kind of a range of different kinds of documents. Trump now is saying that those documents were actually planted by the feds. Just a few days ago that he said that they were planted. So kind of a late accusation when he's... And that was after he said he had declassified the documents and he was entitled to have them. Yeah. He's basically maintained his innocence and he said nothing wrong and that he as president has

the authority to basically declassify documents almost just by assuming they're classified. Unlike Biden, who was vice president when he had his documents. And so therefore, this is kind of Trump's legal argument is Biden has documents from when he was vice president. Biden did not store these documents any safer than Trump did. I mean, they were in a garage next to his Corvette and his home. So hardly in any kind of safe or anything secure, let alone, you know, a federal facility. But he says, you know, Biden was vice president. Therefore, he did not have the authority to declassify these documents with a word the way Trump did. That's how Trump can say Biden is guilty, but he's not, right? So it's kind of a window into the legal argument. So I think, you know, we're in for a lengthy legal process.

Dan, I'd be interested to hear how you think this will play out and impact him politically. But we're in for a lengthy legal process. Trump's lawyers have a good track record in delaying legal proceedings. And what's really interesting here is if this case goes beyond election day, what's going to happen, right? I mean, if we don't have a guilty or non-guilty verdict before November of 2024, how are American people going to react to that? I mean, I alluded to a poll on how they see this, but we've never had anything like this. We're an unprecedented territory, for sure. There's so many different angles to this that essentially there are going to be question marks probably all the way up until the November 2024 election. So if the Republicans during the

primary process early next year do end up nominating Trump to be the, their candidate. And right now, the polls aren't all that close. They've tightened a little bit between Trump and Ronald DeSantis, but it's still well into the double digits, Trump's lead so far. You could have a presidential nominee on the Republican side who heading into the November 2024 election is facing felony convictions. What that means for voters, what that means for the country, if voters then elect him president and he's convicted after the election, it's just my head spins. Right. One interesting thing that Vivek Ramoswamy this week, he pledged that if he were elected president, he would pardon Trump. Right. So that's like another layer of complexity. And I think I would not be surprised at all if in August when this debate is supposed to happen. If all the candidates are asked, if you are elected, will you pardon President Trump? Because, you know, Ramoswamy is already on the record saying he would do it. There's also the question if Trump could pardon himself, which is an interesting one. But, you know, will they pardon him? And how does their stance on that? Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, who is At least now, Trump's chief rival for the GOP nomination, he's defended Trump against these charges,

says it's essentially been a political witch hunt by the Biden administration. Of course, Trump's opponent in the 2020 election. But Trump has been on the attack against DeSantis, essentially since well before DeSanis announced that he was running for president. So the dynamics here are just, the primary is going to be interesting to say the least. And, you know, we wrote about this week at the center square.com, polling that shows a plurality of voters say the Trump indictment is politically motivated. So Americans are largely split on this, but it's not the case at all that Republicans are saying, oh, Trump messed up and this is a totally clean indictment against him. So 47% say it's politically motivated and 37% say it's not. The rest are not sure. Of course, that is many more Republicans who are saying it's politically motivated. It is interesting, though, that Americans do largely believe. that he probably did do something wrong. They're not really, that they do think he should be charged, but even still they think the charges are politically motivated, which is kind of interesting. Yeah, and as you mentioned earlier, too, the public perception problem that the federal government

has with, as you mentioned, President Biden, after he was vice president, also storing classified documents in his garage next to one of his cars, but also at a personal office that he was at. And it doesn't look like President Biden is going to face the similar charges. Now, as you also mentioned, there are differences because President Biden apparently cooperated with federal investigators and turned over the documents, as did former Vice President Mike Pence, who also had classified documents. Hillary Clinton, when she was Secretary of State under President Obama, had sensitive material on a personal laptop that was not secure.

So even though there's certainly differences in every single one of these cases, Many in the American public, as I think this survey that you just referenced, this poll shows, aren't really distinguishing between the differences. They see, you know, Donald Trump, who of course had a contentious presidency, many, about half of the country strongly dislikes him. Of course, he's got his own base that are Trump or no one supporters. The country's just completely divided on this. And these legal proceedings as they play out, it'll be interesting to see if public perception changes. Yeah, and the one that you didn't mention, Dan, is this growing bribery. investigation into the Biden family. More and more documents are really coming out on this. And right, so if that's true, there's multiple Republicans now saying it's true through their house investigation into this matter. If that's really true, wow. I mean, that's talking about unprecedented. We could have two presidents at threat of being removed for criminal charges, which would honestly be kind of a sad day. Right. Of course, the, the, the President Biden

bribery allocations, the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, not covered much by the mainstream media, further pushes forward speculation that the Department of Justice is politicized and only going after political opponents. So I don't know, Casey, we could go on and on about this story, but we will continue to talk about it, continue to report on it at thecentersquare.com or Casey Harbor. I'm Dan McKalib. Please subscribe and thank you for listening.