Trump’s big mouth is finally getting him in (legal) trouble

Donald Trump's charmed stretch defying legal gravity in spite of his penchant for self-incrimination finally came to an end last month, when he sunk himself in the E. Jean Carroll rape case deposition.

He claimed he had never seen Carroll before in his life and even if he had, she most certainly wasn't his type. Those twin defenses were hilariously blown apart when he was shown a picture of himself interacting with Carroll—and mistook her for his ex-wife Marla Maples.

Ultimately, the jury found Trump had sexually abused and defamed Carroll and awarded her $5 million.

Although the case was civil, not criminal, it marked the beginning of the end of Trump's luck evading the law. During his tenure at the White House, Trump successfully used his chief bulldog at the Justice Department, Attorney General William Barr, to run interference on pesky inquiries ranging from the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election to the impeachment probe of Trump's efforts to extort Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, not to mention Carroll’s rape case.

But without his White House shield, Trump's publicly incessant blathering, blustering, and bullying is poised to cost him dearly.

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In special counsel Jack Smith's federal probe of Trump's classified document scandal, the emergence of a 2021 recording revealing that Trump clearly knew he had classified information and was contemplating sharing it has provided prosecutors with a rare legal gem: proof of Trump's state of mind.

"The import of the new Trump audio is not that it eviscerates his defense that he declassified everything,” tweeted Justice Department veteran Andrew Weissmann, who served as a prosecutor during the Mueller special counsel investigation. “That was never a legal defense (nor factually plausible). The import is that he is caught lying to the public to gain support when he’s indicted."

Weissmann added that such a recording would be an "admission” that Trump "intentionally and knowingly" possessed a classified document, which is a crime if the document actually exists and Trump wasn't simply bragging to people about a document that didn’t exist.

Given the damning nature of that recording, Weissmann predicted an indictment is "days, not months" away. But either way, he firmly believes it's a matter of when, not if.

As if that weren't enough, now there appears to be a mad hunt for the document in question, which no one seems able to locate. Its apparent disappearance raises the specter that Trump might have followed through on his stated desire (in the recording) to share the classified information. Good thing Trump’s blathering gave the game away!

This week also brought news that the Georgia election fraud probe—built around Trump's recorded demand that the Republican secretary of state "find" the votes to beat Joe Biden—is reportedly expanding into examining Trump's activities in other states and the District of Columbia.

The Washington Post calls the news a "fresh sign" that Fulton County prosecutors and District Attorney Fani Willis could be building an expansive racketeering case against Trump.

[Georgia’s] RICO statute is among the most expansive in the nation, allowing prosecutors to build racketeering cases around violations of both state and federal laws — and even activities in other states. If Willis does allege a multistate racketeering scheme with Trump at its center, the case could test the bounds of the controversial law and make history in the process.

Trump is already facing more than 30 criminal counts of falsifying business records in the hush-money-scheme case brought by Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg.

And Smith's probe of Trump's role in inciting the Jan. 6 insurrection is ongoing. Fortunately, there's no shortage of taped material there either, including Trump's post-insurrection assertion that he didn't want to admit the election was over.

“I don’t want to say the election’s over. I just want to say Congress has certified the results without saying the election’s over, okay?” Trump insisted on Jan. 7, 2021, while filming outtakes for a video intended to help calm a roiled nation.

Trump remains the undeniable frontrunner for the Republican nomination. The initial Bragg indictment arguably gave him a small bump with Republican voters, but a gusher of criminal scandals awaits him in the coming months—or days, depending on who you ask.

We have Rural Organizing’s Aftyn Behn. Markos and Aftyn talk about what has been happening in rural communities across the country and progressives’ efforts to engage those voters. Behn also gives the podcast a breakdown of which issues will make the difference in the coming elections.

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Trump Uses Profanity to Describe Russia Probe

On Thursday, President Trump gave his first post-impeachment trial remarks and did not hesitate to go after his political enemies, where things got a little salty at moments.

“We’ve all been through a lot together. It’s been a very unfair situation,” Trump said in an address from the White House’s East Room.

Trump on Impeachment

“We’ve been going through this now for three years. It was evil, it was corrupt, it was dirty cops, it was leakers. It was a disgrace. Had I not fired James Comey, who was a disaster, by the way, it’s possible I wouldn’t even be standing here right now,” he continued before pivoting briefly to his accomplishments.

RELATED: Adam Schiff Claims ‘I Don’t Know Who the Whistleblower Is’

“We’ve done more than any president, any administration, you look at all of the things we’ve done,” he added.

Trump went on to say that he believes the stock market would have crashed if had he not become president.

“That’s all our credit. One of the reasons it’s going up … and one of the reasons the stock market has gone up so much in the last few days is people think we’re doing so well, they liked the State of the Union speech,” Trump said.

The president then told everyone he wasn’t giving a speech, per se.

‘We first went through Russia, Russia, Russia. It was all bull****’

“This is really not a news conference, it’s not a speech, it’s not anything, it’s just we’re sort of — it’s a celebration because we have something that just worked out. It worked out. We went through hell unfairly. Did nothing wrong. Did nothing wrong,” Trump said, holding up a copy of the Washington Post and its headline that read, “Trump acquitted.”

“We first went through Russia, Russia, Russia. It was all bull****,” Trump continued.

“Little did we know we were running against some very, very bad and evil people with fake dossiers, with all of these horrible, dirty cops that took these dossiers and did bad things,” he said. “They knew all about it.”

RELATED: New Video Shows Pelosi Practicing Ripping Up Trump’s State Of The Union Speech

Taking Aim at Schiff and Pelosi

Trump did not hesitate to take direct aim at Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi.

“They made up facts. A corrupt politician named Adam Schiff made up my statement to the Ukrainian president,” he said about Schiff’s parody of Trump’s phone call to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky.

“Adam Schiff is a vicious, horrible person. Nancy Pelosi is a horrible person, and she wanted to impeach a long time ago when she said, ‘I pray for the president.’ She doesn’t pray. She may pray but she prays for the opposite. But I doubt she prays at all,” Trump concluded. “These are vicious people.”

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