Raskin says Trump ‘met his match’ in special counsel Jack Smith

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said Sunday he thinks former President Trump has “met his match” in special counsel Jack Smith, as Trump has managed to avoid facing repercussions for actions he’s taken in the past, including in the events surrounding Jan. 6.

“I think that he's met his match now in his special counsel, who is holding him to the letter of the criminal law,” Raskin said in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Raskin pointed to Trump’s second impeachment, when all 50 Democrats and seven Republicans voted to convict the former president — falling short of the necessary threshold — as an example of Trump avoiding repercussions.

“It was a 57-43 vote to convict him of inciting a violent insurrection against the Union, which was the most widespread bipartisan vote in American history to convict a president. And of course, Trump is bragging about the fact that only 57 senators voted to convict him of that. He beat the constitutional spread in his way,” Raskin said. 

Raskin noted that many Republicans who voted against convicting Trump still believed that Trump was responsible for his actions, but they voted against conviction because he was a former president. 

Raskin said he was hopeful the former president would now be held accountable.

Smith led investigations that resulted in two federal indictments against the former president, one for his alleged mishandling of classified documents and another related to his efforts to cling to power after he lost the 2020 election. 

Trump is also seeking another term in the White House and is currently the front-runner among GOP presidential primary candidates.

Hawley on new Trump indictment: ‘We cannot allow this to stand’

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) slammed the new charges brought against former President Trump in the case over his handling of classified documents Thursday, arguing that “we cannot allow this to stand.” 

“It’s so brazen right now, what they’re doing,” Hawley said on Fox News. “It is really a subversion of the rule of law. I mean, they’re taking the rule of law, turning it on its head, and we cannot allow this to stand.” 

“The American people are not gonna be safe,” he added. “Our system of government is not gonna be safe if this is gonna be the new standard.”

The Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a superseding indictment Thursday evening, accusing the former president of attempting to delete surveillance footage at his Mar-a-Lago property. It also included an additional Espionage Act charge based on a military document that Trump boasted of having in a 2021 meeting. 

The new indictment added Carlos de Oliveira, the property manager of the Mar-a-Lago resort, as a co-conspirator, accusing him of working with Trump and the former president’s other co-defendant Walt Nauta to try to delete the surveillance footage.

Hawley suggested that the DOJ is now “charging random people” following de Oliveira’s addition to the indictment and claimed that the new charges were brought in order to distract from Hunter Biden’s legal problems.

The plea deal that the president's son had reached with the DOJ over tax and gun charges was put on hold Wednesday, after the federal judge presiding over the case raised concerns about the agreement.

“Is it any coincidence that the DOJ rushes to add these new indictments today, after the Hunter debacle, after their own self-dealing and two-timing is exposed, after they tried to us the true extent of this plea deal,” Hawley said. 

“That gets blown up, and then it’s like, ‘Oh well, we’ve got to go indict Trump on something else,’” he added.

Pelosi: McCarthy is ‘playing politics’ with support of expunging Trump’s impeachments

Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Sunday she believes Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is "playing politics" with his support of expunging former President Trump's two impeachments.

"We had no choice, [Trump] must be impeached," Pelosi told CNN's Dana Bash on "State of the Union." "Kevin is, you know, playing politics. It's not even clear if he constitutionally can expunge."

McCarthy told reporters last month he supports erasing Trump's impeachments because one was "not based on true facts," and the other was "on the basis of no due process."

"Well, [Trump] was impeached because we had no choice," Pelosi said Sunday. "He had undermined our national security, jeopardized our well being of our country."

Pelosi also called the idea of expunging the impeachments "not responsible."

"This is about being afraid," Pelosi said. "As I've said before, Donald Trump is the puppeteer. And what does he do all the time to shine light on the strings? These people look pathetic."

During her time as Speaker, House Democrats impeached Trump twice — once in 2019 for his abuse of power when he threatened to withhold U.S. military aid to Ukraine unless Kyiv investigated his political rivals, and again in 2021 for his role in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

Republicans in the Senate acquitted Trump in both instances.

Senate Democrat on new filing in documents case: Trump lawyers will have ‘bad Christmas’

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said attorneys for former President Trump in the classified and sensitive documents case will have a “bad Christmas” following a recent filing that hints prosecutors have additional evidence beyond what was previously known. 

A court filing from Wednesday states that special counsel Jack Smith has begun providing the evidence he plans to use to Trump, including multiple interviews of the former president, which seems to indicate the government has recordings of Trump discussing the documents he held at Mar-a-Lago beyond what is mentioned in the indictment. 

Whitehouse told MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell in an interview Wednesday that the filing tells him Smith has a strong case and feels comfortable turning over the evidence early in the process. 

“It tells me that there’s gonna be bad Christmas for the Trump lawyers as they open the different files of evidence and find out how awful the evidence is against their client,” he said. 

“And it tells me that they want to get Trump’s attention early, by getting his lawyers the evidence that they need to be able to go to their client and say, ‘Hey, you are in real trouble here,’” Whitehouse continued. 


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Judge Aileen Cannon has set a preliminary trial date for the case Aug. 14, but Trump’s team will likely delay the trial past then through pre-trial motions. 

Trump was indicted on 37 federal charges earlier this month in relation to his handling of the documents that were taken from the White House to Mar-a-Lago after his presidency, including 31 counts of willful retention of national defense information in violation of the Espionage Act. He has also been charged with obstructing the investigation into his retention of the documents. 

The indictment alleges that Trump had documents containing military secrets and information on U.S. nuclear programs, pushed his attorneys to help cover up that he had the documents, and showed sensitive documents to people who were not authorized to see them at least twice.

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Trump has maintained that he did not commit any wrongdoing in the case and the charges are politically motivated. 

Smith defended the integrity of the Justice Department and FBI after the indictment was unsealed and emphasized the “scope” and “gravity” of the charges outlined in the indictment. 

Schiff ‘flattered’ by censure resolution, says GOP trying to distract from Trump legal problems

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said Wednesday that he is “flattered” by a Republican push to censure him, suggesting that the resolution was driven by hopes of distracting from former President Trump’s legal woes.

“This is really an effort at the end of the day to distract from Donald Trump’s legal problems, to gratify Donald Trump by going after someone they feel was his most effective adversary,” Schiff said on “CNN This Morning.”

“I’m flattered by it,” he continued. “But the fact that Speaker [Kevin] McCarthy [R-Calif.] would take up this MAGA resolution when we have so many pressing challenges before the country is really a terrible abuse of House resources.”

Schiff also accused his Republican colleagues of bringing forward the censure resolution as retaliation for his leading the first impeachment inquiry into the former president.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), who first introduced the censure measure late last month, called it to the floor Tuesday — the same day that Trump pleaded not guilty to 37 counts related to his alleged mishandling of classified materials.

While Democrats could make a procedural motion to table the measure — which would effectively kill it — that would require a majority vote. The office of House Democratic Whip Katherine Clark (Mass.) said the House is expected to hold a procedural vote related to the resolution Wednesday.

Luna's resolution centers on Schiff’s previous allegations of collusion between Trump’s team and Russia, declaring them “falsehoods” and claiming that the congressman “purposely deceived his Committee, Congress, and the American people.”

House Democrat: ‘Overwhelmingly devastating’ Trump indictment is of ‘serious importance’ to national security

Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) on Sunday characterized the federal indictment of former President Trump in connection with the handling of classified documents as "overwhelmingly devastating" and "of serious importance" to national security.

"This is an overwhelmingly devastating indictment that demonstrated Donald Trump believed the law does not apply to him, and that he would do anything he could to conceal and maintain possession of highly, highly classified national security information that would jeopardize our national security and would jeopardize the good men and women of the United States intelligence community who risked their lives to gather that information," Goldman said on CNN's "State of the Union."

"This is of serious, serious importance to our national security," Goldman, an attorney who served as the lead counsel in the first impeachment trial against Trump, stressed.

Trump was indicted last week on 37 counts in connection with his alleged mishandling of records at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida. Federal authorities also said the former president tried s to prevent the government from recovering the documents after the end of his White House term.

Goldman on Sunday also countered comments from Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), a Trump supporter who appeared earlier on the program and sparred with host Dana Bash over whether the former president had declassified the material at the heart of the investigation.

"He says, 'Yeah, we'll have to try to declassify it. As president, I could have declassified it. Now I can't, but this is still a secret,'" Goldman said, referring to Trump while paraphrasing a line from a transcript of an audio recording obtained by CNN.

"So there is no question based on his private recorded conversations that he did not declassify these documents. 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 House Democrat said.

Romney: Trump ‘brought these charges upon himself’

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) said Friday that Donald Trump had “brought these charges upon himself” after the former president was notified of his indictment in an investigation into his handling of classified materials.

“Mr. Trump brought these charges upon himself by not only taking classified documents, but by refusing to simply return them when given numerous opportunities to do so,” Romney said in a statement.

The former Republican presidential candidate acknowledged that Trump is “entitled to the presumption of innocence” and that the government is faced with “the burden of proving its charges beyond a reasonable doubt.”

However, he added, “By all appearances, the Justice Department and special counsel have exercised due care, affording Mr. Trump the time and opportunity to avoid charges that would not generally have been afforded to others.”

Romney compared the indictment to the former president’s two impeachments while in office. The senator broke with his party both times to vote in favor of convicting Trump.

“These allegations are serious and if proven, would be consistent with his other actions offensive to the national interest, such as withholding defensive weapons from Ukraine for political reasons and failing to defend the Capitol from violent attack and insurrection,” Romney said.

Trump is facing charges on seven counts, including for violations of the Espionage Act, as well as obstruction of justice and false statements, his attorney Jim Trusty said Thursday. The former president has been summoned to appear in court in Miami on Tuesday.

Dems react to Trump indictment with glee — and anxiety

House Democrats reacted with mixed emotions this week to the historic indictment of former President Trump, with some cheering the move with bald jubilation and others approaching much more cautiously ahead of Trump’s expected arraignment on Tuesday. 

While both camps are united behind the central premise that no one in America is above the law, the tonal contrast highlights both the toxic nature of Trump’s relationship with his congressional rivals and the Democrats’ deep-seeded anxiety that the indictment will only invigorate his conservative base and make him a more formidable force in the race for the White House next year.

Fueling that divide is the nature of the case being brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D), which centers around Trump’s role in providing hush payments to an adult film actress more than six years ago — a salacious saga divorced from the more serious allegations facing the former president, which relate to his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.

On one side of the divide are Democrats who cheered Bragg’s decision with evident glee. That group is composed largely of liberal and minority lawmakers, including members of the far-left “squad,” who have long accused Trump of being a racist and are now relishing an indictment they view as karmic justice. 

“Grand Jury votes to indict Trump!” tweeted Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), one of three Muslim lawmakers in Congress who has been a frequent target of Islamophobic Trump attacks. 

“It’s time that we ensure Trump is banned from running for any public office again,” echoed Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.).

Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.) shared in the celebration, saying the indictment is “one of many steps” toward eliminating Trump as a threat to fair elections.

“I will always believe that this twice-impeached former president is a threat to our democracy,” he tweeted.  

Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) tweeted a short clip of a crowd of women giving a standing ovation. 

And Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) responded to Trump’s indictment with a single word: “Good.”  

The celebratory mood is not being shared — at least not publicly — by a long list of other Democratic lawmakers, who are treading more carefully into the explosive debate. Those voices, which include members of Democratic leadership, have been no less critical of Trump over his political career, but are taking pains not to jump to conclusions before seeing the charges — which remain under seal — or reach a verdict before a jury does.

“This is not a moment to celebrate. This is a terrible moment for the country. But no one is above the law,” Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) said on Twitter. “Those lock her up chants that people were chanting like hyenas in a stadium around the country were never funny, perhaps they now understand why.”

There are also lingering anxieties that Trump, the current frontrunner in the early field seeking the GOP presidential nomination, will get a boost from Bragg’s decision, as Republicans — even some of Trump’s 2024 rivals — race to defend the former president from what they consider a politically motivated witch hunt designed solely to damage his presidential prospects.

Shedding a no-holds-barred approach to Trump in the past, many Democrats have adopted a neutral tone in response to the indictment, keeping a distance from the judicial process to let the wheels of the courts grind away. 

“No one is above the law, and everyone has the right to a trial to prove innocence,” Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the former Speaker who was a target of the pro-Trump mob on Jan. 6, said in a brief and subdued statement. “Hopefully, the former President will peacefully respect the system, which grants him that right.”

“In America we believe in the rule of law,” echoed Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), a fierce Trump critic. “We should wait to hear from the grand jury before jumping to conclusions.”

Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), who was among the managers of Trump’s first impeachment, called it “a somber day for our nation.” 

And House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) adopted the same muted tone, characterizing it as “a serious moment” for the country. 

“A jury of Donald Trump’s peers will now determine his legal fate,” Jeffries tweeted.  

Trump’s GOP allies, meanwhile, have rallied in his defense, characterizing the indictment — the first against any president, sitting or former — as a blatant “weaponization” of government by Democrats to take down a political rival. 

“It's Trump derangement,” Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) said Thursday evening as he was leaving his Capitol Hill office. “It's an illness of hatred that just — it shouldn't be in American politics.”

Wilson said House Republicans will move “immediately” to uncover the details of Bragg's probe, and he has confidence that GOP investigators — notably Rep. Bryan Steil (R-Wis.), chairman of the Administration Committee — will demonstrate that Bragg’s prosecution has been politically motivated from the start.

“We're going to find out, from the inside, as to their correspondence and communications,” he said.

Bragg’s case revolves around a $130,000 hush payment made by Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, to the adult actress Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 election in return for her silence about an alleged affair with Trump a decade earlier — an affair Trump denies. 

A Manhattan grand jury voted Thursday to indict Trump, who is expected to be arraigned in New York on Tuesday. The specific charges remain unknown, sealed until Trump’s appearance, but reports from CNN and NBC indicate he will face around 30 counts related to business fraud.  

Not all of Trump’s critics cheered the arrival of the indictment this week. 

Trump is also facing a series of separate criminal investigations into his conduct, including his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results and the discovery of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, his resort-residence in South Florida. And some Democrats have hoped that the Justice Department, which is investigating Trump on several fronts, would have moved more quickly on those other cases to lend more gravity to their underlying charge that Trump is unfit to serve as president for another term. 

Those voices fear that Bragg’s case, by coming first, will only bolster the argument from Trump and his allies that Democrats are pursuing “frivolous” cases designed solely to damage Trump politically. 

“After inciting an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, pressuring local officials to overturn the 2020 election, receiving financial kickbacks from foreign powers, and numerous other crimes during his presidency, it’s embarrassing and infuriating that the first indictment against Trump is about ... Stormy Daniels,” Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, said in a statement.

“The January 6th Select Committee and bold leaders like Jamie Raskin did their job,” he continued. “It’s time for Merrick Garland and the Justice Department to do theirs.”

Amid the emotional debate, some lawmakers are urging restraint by pointing out an obvious hole in the discussion: No one weighing in knows what charges await Trump next week. 

“Just a reminder,” said Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), “that there is no rule that you have to express your opinion before reading the indictment.”