Recent reports about former President Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago suggest “premeditation to obstruct justice,” according to legal analyst Glenn Kirschner.
A Thursday report from The Washington Post shed new light on Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents, for which he is under investigation by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and special counsel Jack Smith. The report found that employees of the former president supposedly moved documents at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida resort and residence, last June—the day before FBI agents and a prosecutor came to serve a subpoena to retrieve them. Trump and associates also supposedly held what the Post dubbed “a dress rehearsal” for moving the documents in the face of mounting pressure to return them.
These behaviors have reportedly come under intense scrutiny from DOJ investigators, who see them as “suspicious” and potential indicators of intent to obstruct an investigation. Legal experts weighing in on the report have suggested that the former president could now be facing multiple charges of obstruction.
In a video posted to his official YouTube channel on Saturday night, Kirschner, a veteran federal prosecutor who now provides legal analysis on the many cases facing the former president, said that the Post‘s report showed premeditation and the intent to commit crimes on the part of Trump and his allies.
“What Donald Trump and his criminal associates did at Mar-a-Lago is no different from what those bank robbers in those movies we’ve all seen did,” Kirschner said. “A trial run, a dress rehearsal, because they wanted to succeed in the crime they were intending, they were planning, they were premeditating. And that it is why the government, through the prosecutor, is asking you to vote guilty, simply to hold Donald Trump accountable for the crime he committed. For the crime the evidence proves he has committed.”
Despite mounting evidence, Trump has maintained his innocence in the documents case, as he has in all of the legal battles he is facing. He has further claimed that he had the right to possess the documents at Mar-a-Lago because he had declassified them before leaving the White House.
In a statement provided to Newsweek on Sunday, a spokesman for Trump dismissed the legitimacy of the Post report and the overall document case investigation.
“This is nothing more than a targeted, politically motivated witch hunt against President Trump that is concocted to meddle in an election and prevent the American people from returning him to the White House,” the statement read. “Just like all the other fake hoaxes thrown at President Trump, this corrupt effort will also fail. The weaponized Department of Justice and the Special Counsel have shown no regard for common decency or key rules that govern the legal system. They have harassed anyone and everyone who works, has worked, or supports President Trump.”
