This post is not about the guilt or innocence of Donald Trump in the Classified Documents matter. Not really. It's about all the messages and articles and conversations and such I see about how solid or not solid the case against him is.
It was revealed today that — well, you probably heard this already if you care about this case but here it is. This is a CNN exclusive…
Federal prosecutors have obtained an audio recording of a summer 2021 meeting in which former President Donald Trump acknowledges he held onto a classified Pentagon document about a potential attack on Iran, multiple sources told CNN, undercutting his argument that he declassified everything.
Most of the articles say that Special Counsel Jack Smith — the man heading up the Justice Department investigation into Trump — has had this tape for a while. And most of the articles also quote some legal authority like this…
In a reaction to the news of this further damning evidence against Trump, Los Angeles Times Sr Legal Affairs Columnist, Harry Litman, tweeted, "Trump saying that he's limited in his ability to show classified documents is game, set and match as far as intent and guilty knowledge go. Blows the various 'I am entitled' claims out of the water."
All those discussions folks were having before today…all the articles about how Trump was or wasn't toast…were written before the discussers and commentators knew about this supposed tape. We all have a tendency to make up our minds about these things on the presumption that we know all the facts, we know all the evidence. But clearly we don't. We didn't know about this tape and that should remind us that Special Counsel Smith may have a lot more damning evidence. Or he may have or know of evidence that is in some way exculpatory. Or more evidence may still be found.
Some of us might like to believe Smith has an airtight case against The Donald…and he might. But newspaper accounts have been wrong, judges and juries sometimes surprise us…and bombshells are called that for a reason. They tend to explode without advance notice.
That's kinda what happened with the Watergate Scandal. All these folks, pro-Nixon and anti-Nixon, were absolutely sure how it would turn out. But the "pros" and the "antis" didn't agree and a lot of what they insisted was rendered inoperative or at least moot when the tape of June 23, 1972 came to light. (Click here if you don't know what it was and how it changed everything.)
I'm not saying this new Trump tape is in any way comparable to that tape; just that they both came out of nowhere as far as we spectators were concerned. Today, I see all these commentators, many of the esteemed legal experts, saying that Trump is certain to lose. But most of them seem to be overlooking something that was in the original CNN report I quoted way above, the one that started "Federal prosecutors have obtained…" In the article, it also said this…
CNN has not listened to the recording, but multiple sources described it. One source said the relevant portion on the Iran document is about two minutes long, and another source said the discussion is a small part of a much longer meeting.
So the reporters didn't hear it and it was a small part of a much longer meeting. They're quoting sources and it doesn't even say, "According to sources who actually heard the tape." Maybe it's being accurately described, maybe not. I just think we oughta withhold absolute certainty until we have a better idea of what the evidence is…and whether we have all of it. "Presumed innocent until proven guilty" is still the law of this land…and it will continue to be unless Trump gets a second term or Ron DeSantis gets his first.