Donald Trump Is 'Done,' Indictment 'Leaves No Room for Dispute': Kirschner
The federal indictment of former President Donald Trump is backed by evidence so devastating that the ex-president is simply "done," according to legal analyst Glenn Kirschner.
Kirschner, a former federal prosecutor, said that the evidence "leaves no room for dispute" while urging his viewers to read the indictment for themselves during the latest episode of his Justice Matters podcast on Friday.
The Justice Department unsealed the historic indictment of the ex-president earlier on Friday, revealing that Trump is being charged with 37 felony counts ranging from violations of the Espionage Act to obstruction of justice.
Kirschner said that the indictment was "breathtaking" in exposing "just how obvious, just how transparent and just how nefarious Trump's classified documents crimes are."
Ex-President Donald Trump speaks at a rally in Warren, Michigan, on October 1, 2022. Former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner on Friday said Trump "is done" after the unsealing of an indictment charging him with 37 federal felony counts. Emily Elconin
The legal analyst suggested that a July 2021 audio recording mentioned in the indictment, which purportedly features Trump saying that he did not declassify a document that he was openly discussing with people who lacked security clearances, had caught the former president in a lie.
"He's been incessantly telling us that he declassified everything, either with his mind or automatically when he removed it from the White House," said Kirschner. "Here he is on an audio recording saying, 'Well, I could have declassified it when I was president, but I didn't and now I can't.'"
Kirschner said that the "strongest witnesses" at Trump's trial would be his own attorneys. The indictment alleges that the former president and his aide Walt Nauta, who was also indicted on Friday, deliberately hid boxes of documents from Trump's lawyers.
"[Trump] will be convicted in large part on the testimony of his own attorneys," said Kirschner. "The obstruction of justice and the conspiracy to obstruct by hiding these boxes, these documents ... is so transparent, and so brazen, and so easily proved, and so criminal and clumsy."
"It's like Donald Trump took a page out of the playbook, you know, Conspiracy to Obstruct Justice for Dummies," he continued. "And he followed that manual."
Kirschner went on to urge his viewers to read the indictment, even if "you've read no other legal documents in connection with the legal hellscape that is Donald Trump and the endless crimes he's committed."
"Please sit down and read this ... document, this indictment, because it leaves no room for dispute," he said. "Anybody who is willing to engage in a fact-based analysis and reach a conclusion about whether Donald Trump committed grave crimes against the United States will be persuaded."
Newsweek has reached out via email to the office of Trump for comment.
Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung previously dismissed Kirschner as "a notorious trafficker of wild conspiracy theories and dubious legal analysis" in a statement to Newsweek, maintaining that the legal analyst had "been shunned by the legal community at large."
The charges that the former president is facing grew out of Special Counsel Jack Smith's investigation of issues related to his post-presidency handling of classified documents.
Smith said in a statement delivered shortly after the indictment was unsealed that there is "one set of laws in this country, and they apply to everyone." He said that prosecutors "very much look forward to presenting our case to a jury."
The former president could be facing a combined maximum sentence of 100 years in federal prison if convicted of all charges.
He is also facing over 30 felony state felony counts in New York and may still be charged with additional federal felonies at the conclusion of Smith's ongoing investigation of his activities related to January 6.
Trump denies criminal wrongdoing of any sort, repeatedly professing his innocence in a lengthy series of Truth Social posts on Thursday and Friday, while claiming that all of his recent legal woes are part of "the greatest witch hunt of all time."
Source: Newsweek
