In the immediate aftermath of his federal criminal indictment, Donald Trump delivered remarks at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, where the former president failed to present much of a defense. That wasn’t great news for the Republican’s many champions, who’ve gone out on shaky limbs to defend him.
Last week, Trump tried again during an interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier, arguing that he could’ve complied with a federal subpoena, but he was (a) busy; and (b) worried about losing some golf attire he had “interspersed” with the classified materials he took from the White House.
They were the kind of comments that federal prosecutors no doubt loved, even if the former president’s defense counsel found themselves smacking their foreheads with the palm of their hands.
On Saturday, the Republican spoke at the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s annual conference, where he told a supportive crowd that National Archives officials should’ve just left him alone and not bothered him about the sensitive national security secrets he decided to keep at his glorified country club. From the remarks:
“Whatever documents a president decides to take with him, he has the absolute right to take them, he has the absolute right to keep them, or he can give them back to NARA [the National Archives and Records Administration] if he wants. … That’s the law and it couldn’t be more clear.”
There is no such law. But just as notable was the rest of Trump’s pitch:
“Even The New York Times, in a major article — big article, they must hate, probably the writer was fired after he said this — but it said that when it comes to asking for documents from former presidents, the only power that NARA has is to say, pretty please. ‘Asking nicely is about all they can do.’ And yet, they reported me to the Department of Justice for criminal prosecution. They don’t even have the right ask — and if they do ask, they have to be very nice, and I don’t have to give it.”
As the videos of the comments show, Trump was reading from his trusted teleprompter — which is relevant because it suggests this was a scripted defense. The former president routinely makes up all kinds of nonsense, but in this instance, he and his team, ahead of Saturday’s remarks, prepared specific comments.
And this is what they came up with.
I was curious about the Times article that Trump quoted, and it wasn’t tough to find: In January, the newspaper published this report, which the former president — or whoever was responsible for writing this speech — apparently didn’t understand.
It’s true that in the second paragraph of the piece, the Times explained to readers that officials at the Archives have limited powers: “Asking nicely is about all they can do.”
But Team Trump probably should’ve read the third and fourth paragraphs, too, because they explained that while NARA doesn’t have an ability to enforce its requests, after “asking nicely,” Archives officials can turn to the Justice Department to ensure that laws are properly enforced. NARA can’t require people to follow the law, but prosecutors can. In other words, Trump told the public that under existing federal law, according to The New York Times, the Archives can merely request that former presidents please follow the law — and if they refuse, NARA simply has to accept and tolerate the intransigence, slinking away in disappointment. But that’s bonkers. Not only is this at odds with how law enforcement works, it’s largely the opposite of what the newspaper actually reported. The “absolute right” to ignore relevant laws, which Trump pointed to in his scripted comments, does not exist. If this is the defense he and defense attorneys plan to take to court, they will have to hope the jury is made up of Republican donors wearing red caps and reading right-wing blogs on their phones during the trial.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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