Is “defendant Trump” starting to hear the footsteps? At least one prominent legal analyst has detected a shift in the GOP front-runner’s tone as he defended his keeping of classified documents in an interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier.
MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell, repeatedly referring to the former president as “defendant Trump,” on Monday night replayed parts of Trump’s interview for a panel of guests on “The Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell.”
But it wasn’t just Trump’s elliptical arguments that caught the ear of Andrew Weissman, a former federal prosecutor and general counsel for the FBI.
“I’ll be interested in what everyone else things in terms of demeanor,” Weissman said after watching the clip. “It’s a little striking to me that he sounds very unsure of himself, and frankly a little scared, and he rightly should be as he’s facing 71 felony counts in federal and state court and maybe could be facing additional charges.”
Weissman was referring to the moment that Trump told Baier that he retained the boxes because he needed to sort out his personal belongings – things like “clothing” and other items he said were interspersed among the sensitive classified material.
“In my case I took it out pretty much in a hurry, but people packed it up in a hurry and I had clothing in there,” Trump said, his voice rising. “I will go through these boxes! I have to go through those boxes.”
Weissman read Trump’s elevated pitch and volume in that moment as a tell that his usual bulldozer confidence was perhaps on the wane.
“That was the thing that struck me the most was his tone,” Weissman continued. He added that Trump’s insistence that he keep talking to the press about the felony indictment is only hurting him.
“This is the kind of thing that (special prosecutor) Jack Smith has to be salivating over,” Weissman said. “His talking is the best possible thing – as E. Jean Carroll knows full well. This is a colossal blunder on his part to continue down this road.”
Watch the entire clip above.
