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BY EWAN PALMER
Donald Trump essentially admitted to one of the federal charges he is accused of in the classified documents case during his speech in New Jersey, according to a legal expert.
Former FBI general counsel Andrew Weissmann was reacting to the remarks the former president gave after pleading not guilty to 37 federal charges in Miami, Florida, on Tuesday in connection to Special Counsel Jack Smith’s probe.
Speaking at his Bedminster resort, Trump dismissed the federal charges against him, while attacking Smith as “deranged” and a “thug.”
Trump also said that the reason he had so many boxes of classified materials at his Mar-a-Lago resort after he left office was that he had “every right under the Presidential Records Act” to keep them, and that the boxes also contained “all types of personal belongings.”
However, under the Presidential Records Act, which was implemented in the wake of the Richard Nixon Watergate scandal, all presidential documents must be sent to the National Archives when the commander-in-chief leaves office as they belong to the federal government.
Speaking to MSNBC, Weissmann, who worked on special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia inquiry into Trump, said the former president’s comments about purposely holding onto the materials he has been charged over could be used as evidence of admission of guilt against the Republican, regardless if he takes the stand at a trial.
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