Former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann said Donald Trump’s speech on Tuesday night defending himself after he was arraigned on 37 federal charges could come back to haunt him during the trial.
“Part of what he said is just a straight-out confession,” Weissmann told MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell. “It’s not a defense. It’s a confession.”
Speaking at his country club in Bedminster, New Jersey, hours after pleading not guilty, Trump told supporters he had “every right under the Presidential Records Act” to keep the sensitive documents found at his Mar-a-Lago home during an FBI search last summer.
O’Donnell later asked what, specifically, was a confession in Trump’s speech.
“When you are charged with the illegal retention ― the possession, the illegal possession of the documents ― it is not a good idea to say, ‘Hey, you want to know why I took these? Because I could,’” he said. “That is not a defense to that charge. That is an admission to the charge.”
Weissmann, who was part of Robert Mueller’s investigation team, also noted that even if Trump himself doesn’t take the stand during the trial, these and other public statements will be admissible in court.
See more of their conversation, as posted by Mediaite, below: