Thread by @SethAbramson

(THREAD) In this thread, a longtime criminal defense attorney and bestselling Donald Trump biographer offers a detailed reaction to tonight’s federal criminal indictment of Trump. Follow along over the next couple hours as this thread breaks everything down.

Please RETWEET this.

1/ The first thing to note is that this was filed in Florida, rather than D.C.

D.C. offers a less favorable jury pool for Trump, so he dodged a bullet with *these* charges—but possibly not *all* future special counsel charges—being filed in Trump’s home state (albeit in Miami).

2/ The filing in Miami was quite intentional, however.

Had the case been brought in D.C., Trump would have fought for a year for removal of the case to Florida. By bringing the case in Miami, DOJ sidesteps that issue entirely on these charges.

And *time* is of the essence here.

3/ There are seven counts—we don’t know the charges yet—and we don’t expect Jack Smith to make any statement on them today (which is unusual, but in any case Trump has already revealed the existence of the charges himself). But the reasoning behind Miami seems very clear, anyway.

4/ DOJ—*for the sake of the country* and to be as fair as possible to the GOP and its voters—needs to get this case to trial as quickly as possible: before the 2024 presidential election certainly, and before the 2024 RNC if at all possible. So it really can’t fight jurisdiction.

5/ So some are criticizing DOJ for letting Trump break this news and staying quiet today, and some are criticizing DOJ for essentially giving up a preferable jury pool (D.C.) from the jump, but it *is* best for the country for this case to move as swiftly and fairly as possible.

6/ Even putting that aside, DOJ (and when I say DOJ I of course refer to the Office of the Special Counsel, run by Jack Smith on these charges) *may yet* end up in D.C. on *other* charges related to Trump, whether with respect to January 6 or *other* cases relating to Mar-a-Lago.

7/ Smith has a grand jury in D.C. *and* a grand jury in Florida, so DOJ can move on Trump in either jurisdiction (and avoid a change-of-venue fight based on which jurisdiction it selects). Moreover, from a legal standpoint, the criminal conduct here *largely* occurred in Florida.

8/ But let us be very clear: Trump *also* appears to have committed crimes related to the documents case in D.C. and maybe New Jersey as well. (On a side note, one wonders if Trump fled to Bedminster in the last few days to avoid being in either D.C. or Florida when charges hit).

9/ We don’t know how the seven charges break down, *but*—as I tweeted and linked to yesterday—a reliable media source, THE INDEPENDENT (UK), reported yesterday that Trump *will* face charges under the Espionage Act (mishandling of "defense information") among these seven charges.

10/ While an Espionage Act conviction would *theoretically* preclude Trump from public office, (a) that provision of the statute has never faced a constitutional challenge (and it would here), (b) trial will likely *not* be pre-election, and (c) Trump would appeal any conviction.

11/ So to be clear, the avoidance of a change-of-venue fight, smart-seeming as it is, will probably end up being immaterial because there is *no way* this case can wrap up before November 2024. So the real question *for now* (only for now) is if this forces GOP voters to wake up.

12/ I don’t like focusing on the politics of this rather than the law—and I believe the two must be kept separate (and unlike most I think judges, juries and prosecutors *can* keep them separate)—but when Trump is facing charges in 4 jurisdictions it will hurt, even in a primary.

13/ BREAKING NEWS (CNN, live on-air): One of the Seven Federal Criminal Charges Against Trump in Miami Relates to Criminal Conspiracy

14/ Returning to my comment about “four jurisdictions”—Donald Trump now faces major criminal charges in New York and Florida and all the current major-media reporting says he *will* be indicted in Georgia in early August 2023. But D.C. charges *eventually* are also fairly likely.

15/ While *none* of these charges can realistically wrap up preelection—I seriously doubt the criminal trial in New York will happen in Spring 2024 as currently planned, due to that being mid-primaries—*all* of them may well *issue* before GOP primary voting begins in early 2024.

16/ So while I continue to believe—as a Trump biographer—that Trump *will* be the 2024 GOP presidential nominee, I also think, as an attorney, that he’s likely to be facing criminal charges in four (*four*) jurisdictions by the start of GOP primary voting. So how do voters react?

17/ More than anything, Republicans want to win in 2024. It’s increasingly going to be necessary to discuss whether someone charged with (hypothetically, but we’ll see) an Espionage Act charge *can*—as a practical matter—win a general election.

That’s a legitimate question here.

18/ As to bail in Trump’s cases, I’ll reiterate that his history of Incitement, Violating Bail Conditions, Witness Tampering and Obstruction *should* lead to strict bail conditions and—as available—high cash bail. But a) judges are scared of that, b) he can make a high cash bail.

19/ That’s the microanalysis: Trump will face bail conditions but remain free on bail; while out on bail he *will* repeatedly violate his bail conditions and endanger witnesses and court personnel with his actions; but judges will go to any length to *avoid* jailing him pretrial.

20/ Here’s the macroanalysis:

(1) This may be the biggest federal case in U.S. history.

(2) No one—no one—has any idea whatsoever how America is going to go through an election cycle in which one of the two candidates is facing four (or more) sets of *serious* criminal charges.

21/ And here’s the midlevel analysis:

(1) Trump is guilty—clearly so—in this case and in the Georgia case, and at least guilty of misdemeanors in New York City.

He has no *realistic* hope (which is different from no hope) of winning against these three sets of criminal charges.

22/

(2) These cases will make GOP voters *like* Trump more, but we don’t know if that will make them *vote* for him in the primaries. They may fear he cannot win.

(3) DOJ has now bought itself some time in terms of deciding whether to charge Donald Trump in D.C. over January 6.

23/

(4) An X-factor is whether we are fast reaching a tipping point: the point at which certain Trump allies *think* he is going down so they abandon him and start revealing stunning things about Trump and his activities we can’t even contemplate right now.

That *could* happen.

24/ BREAKING NEWS (CNN, live on-air): None of the Seven Federal Criminal Charges Donald Trump Now Faces in Florida Are the Same, and Three of Them Are (i) Willful Retention of Documents, (ii) Conspiracy to Obstruct Justice, and (iii) Making False Statements

25/ To continue the midlevel analysis:

(5) Nothing that happens now changes the fact that—sadly—the DOJ moving too slow on January 6 and the Mar-a-Lago case has caused a year-plus delay in Trump’s trial timeline that will allow him to get to November 24 without—yet—a conviction.

26/ BREAKING NEWS (CNN, live on-air): It Is Not Expected That *All* of the Seven Federal Charges Against Trump Will Be Unsealed Today, and Possibly None Will Be (Either Way, Trump Has His First Appearance in Miami Before a Magistrate on Tuesday)

27/ Trump is believed to only have two attorneys barred in Florida, one of whom—Lindsey Halligan—is, uh.... well, she is not going to be his attorney on this case. She is apparently more or less an attorney he uses for advocacy on television. So Trump will have to lawyer up fast.

28/ Trump already has more lawyers likely to be witnesses against him in Florida than he has Florida lawyers—which is a wild sentence to write, but true.

Trump will also be a witness against *himself* in Florida, as DOJ has an audio recording in which Trump incriminates himself.

29/ Let’s also recall how many candidates Trump is now facing in the GOP primary:

🚩 Burgum
🚩 Castro
🚩 Christie
🚩 DeSantis
🚩 Elder
🚩 Haley
🚩 Hutchinson
🚩 Johnson
🚩 Pence
🚩 Ramaswamy
🚩 Scott
🚩 Stapleton

Expect more candidates to jump into the fray soon (e.g., Suarez).

30/ BREAKING NEWS (CNN, live on-air): Trump Releases Odd Post-Indictment Video in Which He Appears to Accidentally *Admit* That There Was “Election Inference” in 2016 and 2020

31/ We know this case will originate in the Southern District of Florida (a federal district), but the question remains of whether the jury will ultimately be drawn from Palm Beach County—which would potentially be helpful for him—or his home county *and* (say) Miami-Dade County.

32/ Trump allies are putting out that he’s calm about these charges. There’s no evidence of that, so I mention it just to underscore what his people want out there.

Trump allies also emphasize that none of these cases can be heard before the election.

That is their *main* play.

33/ Here’s the problem: what happens to any pending federal case if Trump is elected first? Well, obviously he would fire everyone at the DOJ involved in it to shut it down.

If the Democrats take the House in 2024, he’d then be impeached.

Which is why he will pick a *crazy* VP.

34/ Do I think the Senate would convict Trump with 67 votes for firing anyone prosecuting him? Actually... yeah, that actually *might* happen. But what if his VP is Marjorie Taylor Greene? Would anyone be willing to remove Trump from office at that point? I honestly have no idea.

35/ Do I think Trump has the sort of following now that he did on January 6, 2021, either in D.C. or among the GOP base? No, I do not. So the possibility of localized violence is lower than most think. I suspect most of his followers *do* believe he can find some way out of this.

36/ At the same time, the idea of America having a President of the United States who is universally known to have committed espionage for personal profit is... well, it is simply unthinkable. It would destabilize this country at a level I don’t think any of us can contemplate.

37/ Media is going to have to be careful. These matters can and should be discussed on CNN, MSNBC, FNC, and elsewhere with interviews with Trump attorneys.

But unaffiliated Trump shills, or deeply irresponsible lawyers like Robert Ray—on CNN right now—shouldn’t be on TV on this.

38/ You’ll be seeing a *lot* of lawyers on TV, like Jonathan Turley and Alan Dershowitz, who’ll say things about criminal justice that they would *never* say about *anyone* who is not the head of the Republican Party.

We need people on air who believe in equal justice under law.

39/ OK, I just watched the four-minute bonkers video Trump just posted on Truth Social.

Basically all Trump does is repeat his greatest hits—all of which are vicious, intentional lies—so there is no news to report here except that he says the Democrats are waging “warfare” now.

40/ By combining the phrase “election interference” and the new-ish—for him—word “warfare,” one does wonder if he’s testing out a future call for people to respond to “warfare” with violence. Remember, Trump may soon face two (or even three) *additional* sets of criminal charges.

41/ (The focus now is rightly on rule of law, this moment in US history, and our democracy. But I hope folks will spare a thought—just a thought and just a quick one—for those who saw Trump for what he is [a criminal] 8 years ago and spent 8 years getting attacked for that view.)

42/ Evan Perez makes a good point on CNN: DOJ made a big mistake in not issuing a formal—even televised—statement tonight soberly outlining what’s happening and why. By not doing that, Jack Smith has ceded the national megaphone to Trump, who per usual is using it to spread lies.

43/ Making the rounds of major media now. Here is what the NEW YORK TIMES has on this unfolding story (it is a series of time-stamped updates): nytimes.com/live/2023/06/0…

44/ Some of you know that PROOF published a book in the NYT-bestselling Proof series that offers significant discussion of the Mar-a-Lago case.

If you’re interested, you can access it—and all of PROOF—at the link below for $5/month (cancel anytime).

🔗: sethabramson.substack.com/p/book-release…

45/ Let’s return to the 3 charges we know of. The Conspiracy charge tells us that Trump allegedly conspired with other people, which means—in my experience researching and writing on Trump—that the odds of Trump having attempted to tamper with these co-conspirators approach 100%.

46/ In a Conspiracy case, what is required is a "meeting of the minds" to act in furtherance of a criminal ambition.

Each member of the conspiracy is deemed a member if he or she takes a "discrete" step "in furtherance of the conspiracy" and understood that its aim was criminal.

47/ In a Willful Retention case (I’m paraphrasing the statutory title), it doesn’t matter if the items are *classified*—a second instance of DOJ sidestepping potential problems (the classification issue)—but simply if they’re wrongly held and meet the statutory content standards.

48/ The False Statements charge is the one most written about already, and relates to lies told by Trump and his lawyers to the FBI as the FBI tried to determine what documents Trump had, where they were, and so on. Like the other charges we know of, the case on this is *strong*.

49/ But I keep saying this and will keep saying it: we mustn’t think about the charges against Trump as localized. Trump has a MASSIVE case in New York; a MASSIVE case in Florida; and will soon have a MASSIVE case in Georgia. He’ll likely to end up with a MASSIVE case in DC, too.

50/ Trump is also likely to be *re-sued* for Sexual Abuse and Defamation in New York—a MASSIVE civil case—because after Trump was found to have sexually abused and defamed E. Jean Carroll he literally *repeated* all of the words that had led to the suit *and* his huge loss in it.

51/ Trump enters the primaries beset on so many sides by ongoing criminal and civil cases—including a MASSIVE suit against the Trump Org so big that Ivanka Trump decided to separate herself from her family and get her own lawyer—that we’ve never seen anything *remotely* like it.

52/ Today Trump can pretend he faces only a case in Florida and try to pick it to death via lies and rhetoric.

But that’s not his situation.

His situation, and I say this as a longtime criminal defense attorney, is that he is—excuse my legalistic language—well and truly f*cked.

53/ MAJOR BREAKING NEWS (CNN, on-air): Trump Attorney Jim Trusty Confirms Trump Is Being Charged Under the Espionage Act

54/ MAJOR BREAKING NEWS (CNN, on-air): Trump Attorney Jim Trusty Confirms the Seven Federal Criminal Charges Against Trump Fall into Three Categories: Espionage Act (Willful Retention of Defense Documents), Conspiracy (to commit Obstruction of Justice) and Making False Statements

55/ Jim Trusty is on CNN making all sorts of allegations about DOJ without any proof whatsoever that I’m not going to repeat here because (a) there is no proof whatsoever for any of them, and (b) if years and years and years of history are precedent, all of it is abject nonsense.

56/ Weird that Trump attorney Jim Trusty says, “He [Trump] is not going to hide in Scotland,” as though that was... I don’t know, discussed? On the table? Something that could happen at a future date, if things get bad? The specificity of this statement by Trusty is... unnerving?

57/ Trusty forecasts that a) Trump will seek to move the case from Miami-Dade to Palm Beach County, and b) he has not seen evidence yet that DOJ is going to bring a documents case in Washington, D.C. as well as in Florida. He expects a fight on bail conditions and case timeframe.

58/ (Fun fact: I’m writing all this while dealing with a bad case of Poison Ivy on my primary arm that I got from my dog. I’m itchier than I can possibly express, argh! How can a fur baby I love so much cause so much anguish? 😁 I think it may have spread to my other arm, too...)

59/ BREAKING NEWS (CNN, live on-air): Kevin McCarthy has released a disgusting statement that falsely accuses President Biden of indicting Trump rather than a grand jury made up of average Floridians. McCarthy also claims Biden did the same thing as Trump, which is a vicious lie.

60/ Even if one believes Biden willfully retained defense documents—which there’s zero evidence of—Trump is also charged with Conspiracy to Obstruct Justice and Making False Statements, conduct that no one has ever shown *any* evidence of Biden committing.

Bad start for the GOP.

61/ There’s also a whisper on CNN, coming from Andrew Weissmann, that DOJ *may* still believe there are stolen classified documents unaccounted for—whether in the current possession of Donald Trump *or* (even worse, somehow) out of his possession because he passed them to others.

62/ I want to be clear in saying we’ve no evidence of this yet. What’s happening is that the facts of the case appear to offer *preliminary* and *circumstantial* evidence that some docs *may* not have been turned over and *may* have passed through Trump’s hands. (A lot of mays.)

63/ MAJOR BREAKING NEWS (CNN, live on-air): One of the Charges Against Trump Is Witness Tampering

64/ Be aware that Trump has campaign events in GA and NC over the next 48 hours, so he’ll have ample opportunity to incite violence and get covered (at least by RSBN and Newsmax) in doing so. He has also been *very* clear on Truth Social about where and when his Miami hearing is.

65/ There’s some suggestion that Trump is going to have at least one co-defendant (see below), and some suggestion (see Weissmann on CNN) that Trusty accidentally implied that person is Walt Nauta, who Trump ordered to move boxes to hide them from the FBI. themessenger.com/politics/secon…

66/ We don’t know if Nauta will be indicted, but certain major-media reporting has long seemed to indicate it as a *possibility*. We also don’t know to what extent Nauta has or is cooperating with DOJ.

For those wondering about the Making False Statements charge, it can apply...

67/ ...even in cases in which a person directs *another* to lie to law enforcement or another government official, which is certainly what we think Trump did with certain of his attorneys (remember, Trump historically seeks to use lawyers to commit crimes) and possibly Nauta too.

68/ I’ll add that in his wildly irresponsible and deceitful statement, Kevin McCarthy promised to use the power of the House Republican Conference to try to undermine the prosecution in Miami. Does that mean defunding DOJ? The FBI? Impeaching someone at DOJ or the FBI? Who knows.

69/ As much as it doesn’t seem like it, one could argue that this is going as well as could possibly be expected for Trump so far.

The case will be in Florida; only seven charges were brought (more were certainly possible); DOJ is giving Trump the floor to opine until Tuesday...

70/ ...Trusty sees no sign that additional charges will be brought in D.C. for the parts of Trump’s criminal scheme that occurred in D.C.; it does seem unlikely—if not absolutely impossible—that even with a Tuesday arraignment Trump could be brought to trial before November 2024.

71/ In other words, if Trump opts to be less concerned about these charges than some might expect, it may be because he believes *none* of the cases against him will go to trial before he’s POTUS again (in his view). Fani Willis already *ensured* this—stupidly, I would say—in GA.

72/ If Trump wins in 2024, it’s not clear that anyone could get *anything* to stick on him procedurally/logistically. So his theory seems to be, whatever doesn’t jail me makes me stronger—it makes Republicans and apolitical young people become *more* interested in voting for me.

73/ But it also means that if Trump wins in 2024 it’s a lawless, dangerous, authoritarian, dystopian administration from Day 1. I wouldn’t be able to conceive of the Democratic Party working with Trump in any capacity, then.

He’d literally be an outlaw—an in-plain-view fugitive.

74/ MAJOR BREAKING NEWS: ABC News Journalist Publishes List of Trump Charges

https://twitter.com/KFaulders/status/1666985775223767043?s=20

75/ (For those wondering with respect to Item #1, above—“Willful Retention of National Defense Information”—it does indeed fall under the Espionage Act, so yes, an Espionage Act charge was filed. Keep in mind that this is *quite distinct* from a charge of Espionage, i.e. spying.)

NOTE/ I do realize that Palm Beach County and Miami-Dade County went for Biden—albeit by a smaller percentage than in previous elections. I suppose I was thinking of Broward County as a place Trump wouldn’t want his case heard. But as between PBC and Miami-Dade it may not matter.

PS/ Writing on Substack is my fulltime job—and sadly Elon punished those who refused to pay him $115 a year to produce free content for him by taking away their “Tip Jar” buttons.

If you would like to support my work, please consider subscribing to it at sethabramson.substack.com.