Former Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal said Thursday on MSNBC’s “The Last Word” that former President Donald Trump hopes that he or another Republican wins the presidency in 2024 so the Department of Justice “can just drop the prosecution.”
At a rally in South Carolina on Saturday, Trump said, “I had every right to have these documents, personal belongings, and boxes. I had the absolute right to have them.”
Katyal said, “I don’t think even Trump believes that this is a legal defense. I think this is a political defense. He’s throwing up a lot of spaghetti at the wall and hoping that that will delay the trial and cause enough doubt so that if, in 2024, he or some other Republican wins, they can just drop the prosecution. And I think that’s all that’s going on. This is a political game. These are not legal arguments.”
He added, “I mean, I suppose if Donald Trump got a love letter – and of course, this is a counterfactual hypothetical – but if he actually got a love letter from someone, that would be something that he could take home. But these kinds of things – nuclear secrets, military secrets, and the like – are absolutely the property of the United States. He will lose this argument in court every day of every week, which is why nobody, no real lawyer believes this.”
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