What’s taking so long?
This week, CNN revealed federal prosecutors have in their hands an audio recording from a summer 2021 meeting where Donald Trump acknowledges he held onto a classified Pentagon document about a potential attack on Iran.
The comments on the tape, uncovered by Special Counsel Jack Smith, allegedly show that the former president wanted to share the revelations in the meeting, but that he was aware of the limitations on his ability to declassify records.
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Trump’s comments are in stark contrast to his September 2022 remarks on Fox News in which he claimed that he declassified the documents he took to Mar-a-Lago—that have since become the subject of an extensive Justice Department investigation—just by “thinking about it.”
The New Abnormal co-host Danielle Moodie weighs in on this week’s episode: “We’re still waiting on Jack Smith to file charges, but at a certain point it’s like, ‘You got everything you need on tape, don’t you?’ I mean, how many times does somebody need to be caught on tape doing or saying something illegal at this point? It’s like candid camera in this and we can’t get this man indicted.”
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Adding to the time crunch is Trump’s 2024 presidential election campaign, which, according to co-host Andy Levy, will make it “increasingly difficult to indict someone who’s in the middle of an actual presidential race.” He adds: “What are you waiting on?”
Numerous reports, including from The Wall Street Journal, indicate that Smith is coming to a close in the investigation, however it is unclear if it will result in charges against the 76-year-old Trump.
Plus! The Daily Beast’s political reporter Jake Lahut, who is on the 2024 campaign trail, joins the show to discuss his recent piece entitled Why Maryanne Williamson's Staffers are Running for the Exits. Think: Horrible bosses.
“Ultimately this becomes kind of a cautionary tale of, you know, celebrity having a bit of a malign influence in kind of blinding people to the realities of what she’s like dealing with as a boss,” Lahut says.
“Some of these staff simply feel guilty that people are giving their money to a campaign that’s, you know, really what they describe as just a vanity project at this point.”
Listen to this full episode of The New Abnormal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon and Stitcher.
