June 13 (Reuters) - Donald Trump faces a formidable task defending against charges that he illegally kept top-secret documents upon leaving the White House in 2021, according to legal experts, who say neither the law nor the facts appear to be on his side.
National security law experts were struck by the breadth of evidence in the indictment which includes documents, photos, text messages, audio and witness statements. They said this made a strong case for prosecutors’ allegation that Trump illegally took the documents and then tried to cover it up.
“The details are pretty shocking in terms of the carelessness with which these documents were handled, and the concerted effort to keep them out of the hands of the FBI,” said Elizabeth Goitein, a national security law expert at the Brennan Center for Justice.
This probably isn’t a good attitude, but I feel hopeless when it comes to the prospect of Trump facing any kind of meaningful consequences for his actions. He’s gotten away with too much already, and I have no reason to believe that anyone will start holding him accountable now.
I really hope I’m wrong.
I’m with you. We’ve had so many years of him doing things that would land anyone else in jail, but that he never faces any consequences for. It’s really hard to get my hopes up that he’ll actually face the music.
On the other hand, it sure does look like a solid case, and I’ve read that the success rate for federal prosecutions is like 95%. On top of that, this won’t be his last indictment. They have to file in the state where the alleged crimes took place, so anything that happened at Bedminster has to be filed in NJ. And we still haven’t seen anything from his attempts to overthrow the election. So there’s really is cause to be hopeful.