It’s a bad day for Donald J.
A bad day, and a bad week, and a bad month, and a bad year. His lawyers quit. He’s been arrested twice, and will likely be arrested again before summer’s end. It’s not looking good for his presidential campaign. It’s not looking good for his already-soiled reputation. And if we’re very lucky, it’s not looking good for his plans to spend the remainder of his days a free man.
While the nation has anxiously awaited Trump’s indictment due to his potential criminal activity during the January 6th uprising (and also, separately, in regard to his pushing of election fraud claims in Georgia!), special counsel Jack Smith pulled a fast one on ol’ Donny and brought additional charges against the couldn’t-be-more-disgraced-if-he-tried former president with regards to his alleged mishandling of classified documents during his tenure in office.
According to CNN, prosecutors say that two Trump employees—aide Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago maintenance worker Carlos De Oliveira—attempted to delete damning security camera footage from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort after the court issued a subpoena for it. Not a smart move, gang. De Oliveira allegedly told the IT director at the resort “that ‘the boss’ wanted the server deleted,” according Smith’s indictment. Oops.
In case you lost count, Trump was already facing 37 different criminal charges against him in this case alone.
He was already charged with deliberately retaining a top-secret document that was a “presentation concerning military activity in a foreign country'” per CNN, with the outlet also reporting that the country in question is Iran. He’s also getting nailed for allegedly discussing the document with biographers during a taped meeting at Bedminster, New Jersey in July 2021.
Now the number of charges in this case is up to 40—adding one additional charge of willful retention of national defense information and two separate obstruction counts.
Twitter is overjoyed.
This indictment hits like a between-seasons special episode of your favorite TV show. It just feels GOOD. Journalists are reveling.
Journalist Aaron Rupar praised Jack Smith’s additional indictment as a “swerve”. I would have also accepted language suggesting that Smith “stunted on,” “dunked on,” or “bodied” Trump with the indictment.
Trump’s response to these new charges? To do what he does best: shift blame. A Trump spokesman called the additional charges “nothing more than a continued desperate and flailing attempt by the Biden Crime Family and their Department of Justice to harass President Trump and those around him” in a recent statement. The Biden Crime Family, that’s a new one. Someone sure seems to be flailing, doesn’t he?
(featured image: Mario Tama/Getty Images)
