Catching up with Jack Smith's Mar-A-Lago Investigation
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 6 June 2023
⏱️ 63 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On May 31, CNN reported that federal prosecutors investigating the unlawful removal of classified documents from the White House to Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence have obtained an audio recording in which the former president acknowledges that he knowingly kept a classified Department of Defense document that contained details about a potential attack on Iran. According to CNN, the tape indicates that Trump “understood he retained classified material after leaving the White House.”
Trump’s alleged comments made on the recording have sparked a debate about whether he will be charged with violating 18 U.S.C. 793(e) of the Espionage Act.
What exactly did Trump say on the tape? Did he violate the Espionage Act? How does this change Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigations? And what does all of this mean for Trump’s reelection campaign? To go over everything that happened, Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down for a live recording of the podcast alongside Lawfare Senior Editors Scott R. Anderson, Quinta Jurecic, and Roger Parloff, who unpack all of these questions and more.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising to access an ad-free version of the LawFair |
| 0:07.2 | podcast become a material supporter of LawFair at patreon.com slash LawFair. |
| 0:14.7 | That's patreon.com slash LawFair. |
| 0:18.2 | Also, check out LawFair's other podcast offerings, rational security, chatter, LawFair |
| 0:25.6 | no bull and the aftermath. |
| 0:32.6 | You know, how many more smoking guns do you need? |
| 0:37.4 | There have been so many stories told since NARA started looking into this. |
| 0:42.8 | You have Trump telling the people assisting him what to tell NARA. |
| 0:48.2 | There's just been a litany of false assurances that he didn't possess anything. |
| 0:55.8 | It was all anodine and when you put it all together, it's going to be an amazing tale for |
| 1:02.6 | any jury. |
| 1:04.6 | I'm Benjamin Wittis and this is the LawFair podcast June 6, 2023, a meeting at the |
| 1:12.6 | Justice Department between Trump's attorneys and special counsel Jack Smith may presage |
| 1:19.5 | an indictment of the former president or it may not. |
| 1:23.9 | It's been a wild few weeks in the Mar-a-Lago investigation. |
| 1:28.4 | Lordy, there are tapes. |
| 1:30.4 | There's mishandling of security cameras. |
| 1:34.0 | There's moving of boxes. |
| 1:36.0 | There's an audio tape of a lawyer spilling his soul to an iPhone. |
| 1:42.5 | There's all kinds of new information and it's all coming out at the same time. |
| 1:47.6 | Joining me in the virtual jungle studio before a live audience on YouTube and Zoom are LawFair |
| 1:55.0 | senior editors Scott R. Anderson, Quinted Jurassic and Roger Parloff to talk it all through. |
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