Lordy, Trump's Lawyer's Voice Memos About BOXES HOAX
Trump knew exactly what he was doing.
This summer, we learned about recordings Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran made last year documenting his thoughts, feelings, recollections, and reflections on an entire month of the quest for Donald Trump to turn over the documents he stole from the American people. It was apparently very narrative-style, very page-turner, very Drag Queen Story Hour! And investigators had them.
Corcoran talked about meeting with Trump in May about the Justice Department’s subpoena for the missing documents, and about how he tried in June to search Mar-a-Lago in response to an impending visit from the feds to collect anything Trump had been refusing to turn over.
Remember, we are learning about all this because in March, both DC District Court Judge Beryl Howell and an appeals court panel ruled that attorney-client privilege didn't apply with Corcoran because of the crime-fraud exception, because of a reasonable belief Trump had lied to him about the location of certain classified documents. That’s why Corcoran isn’t on the documents case anymore. (He was at Trump’s arraignment in DC, though.)
Trump’s people were/are reportedly very scared of Corcoran’s recordings.
Now ABC News has reviewed the transcripts and is reporting on just how bad they really are.
The highlights are Picture It, Sicily, Last May: Evan Corcoran said hey Donald Trump, you actually have to comply with this subpoena, and the feds might come by Mar-a-Lago for a little searchy-searchy if you don’t.
And then Picture It, Sicily, A Few Minutes Later: A different Trump lawyer tells Corcoran by the swimming pool that if he makes Trump obey the subpoena, Trump is “just going to go ballistic.”
ABC News says the transcripts “appear to shed more light on [Trump’s] frame of mind when he allegedly launched what prosecutors say was a criminal conspiracy to hide classified documents from both the FBI and Corcoran, his own attorney.” The overall point is that he knew, at every turn, that what he was doing was wrong, because he was warned, multiple times.
Of course, they’re so much more detailed than that, and contain allegations both damning and also just really fucking pathetic.
For instance, this, from when Corcoran went to visit Trump to try to get him to comply with that subpoena:
[W]hile sitting together in Trump's office, in front of a Norman Rockwell-style painting depicting Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, Bill Clinton and Trump playing poker, Trump, according to Corcoran's notes, wanted to discuss something else first: how he was being unfairly targeted.
As Corcoran later recalled in his recordings, Trump continuously wandered off to topics unrelated to the subpoena — Hillary Clinton, "the great things" he's done for the country, and his big lead in the polls in the run-up to the 2024 Republican presidential primary race that Trump would officially join in November. But Corcoran and [attorney Jennifer] Little "kept returning to the boxes," according to the transcripts.
Jesus Christ, the painting, what a fuckin’ dork. And the dialogue is another reminder that Trump is the exact same babbling moron behind closed doors that he is on stage or in interviews or on his garbage Twitter knockoff website.
Corcoran was trying to impress upon his fool-for-a-client that if he didn’t comply, there would be consequences. The babbling moron asked, “[W]hat happens if we just don't respond at all or don't play ball with them?" You know, like it was a negotiation over buying a shitty strip mall and not the feds trying to retrieve America’s secrets that the disgraced former president criminally stole.
As ABC News notes, a good bit of this is also in Jack Smith’s indictment, like Trump’s question above about refusing to “play ball” and protests about "I don't want anybody looking through my boxes” and similar bitchings.
According to these recordings and to Smith’s indictment, Trump was just hellbent on obstructing and criming:
[I]n a private, pool-side conversation during a break at Mar-a-Lago that day, according to Corcoran's recordings, Little relayed to him what she was told herself by two other Trump attorneys: that Trump would "go ballistic" over complying with the subpoena — "that there's no way he's going to agree to anything, and that he was going to deny that there were any more boxes at all," Corcoran recalled on his recordings.
There’s much more, including more detail about how Trump appears to have actively pushed Corcoran away from looking for classified documents anywhere but the basement, as in, away from Trump’s office at Mar-a-Lago.
Another thing Trump appears to have been fully aware of, per Corcoran’s voice memos, is that documents did not magically declassify themselves when he stuck them under his armpits and took them to bed with him in the White House.
Obviously he knew that. He may be an abject moron, but he literally was the president for four years. There is no circumstances under which he did not understand that he could not declassify things with his brain.
Come on, now.
Meanwhile Over There In The Election-Stealing Case!
Smith seems to be getting sick of all Trump’s constant public blabbing and threats about the election-stealing/Republic-overthrowing case, saying in a new filing that Trump has made “daily extrajudicial statements that threaten to prejudice the jury pool.” CNN explains that this came amid sparring between Smith and Trump’s lawyers that’s happening mostly under seal. Smith made that comment in response to a request from the Trump camp that Smith says “would grind litigation in this case to a halt.” Which was unacceptable, partially because of those “daily extrajudicial statements.”
What Else, What Else, What Else?
Did we mention Smith is reportedly really zeroing in on Sidney Powell in the election-stealing case, suggesting she may be fucked on a federal level and not just in Fulton County? We think we mentioned it yesterday. MENTIONING IT AGAIN.
OK, we think that’s it, OK bye, OK.
[ABC News]
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Breaking News Wankers!
Mar-a-Lago IT chief Yuscil Tavares has struck a cooperation agreement with Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith and will testify against disgraced ex-President Trump in exchange for immunity from prosecution, CNN reports
"The judge just ruled that Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro can’t sever their cases from each other. They’ll be tried together. Their “speedy trial” requests have officially backfired."