‘That’s Just A Cheap Shot!’ Trump Lawyer Chafes at Chuck Todd Asking If Trump Holding Docs Hostage For Money
Trump attorney Jim Trusty bristled at NBC News anchor Chuck Todd for asking if former President Donald Trump is holding on to classified documents in hopes of a payoff from the government.
Trump’s arraignment in Manhattan over crimes involving hush money payments to adult entertainment entrepreneur Stormy Daniels and others was the big story this week. But Trump is also facing Special Counsel Jack Smith-led Justice Department probes into Trump’s mishandling of classified information under the Espionage Act and his conduct surrounding the January 6 insurrection, as well as Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ grand jury investigation of former President Donald Trump’s effort to overturn election results in Georgia
On Sunday morning’s edition of NBC’s Meet the Press, Todd devoted his entire interview with Trusty to the documents case, including an exchange in which Trusty accused Todd of taking a “cheap shot” for quoting Trump’s suggestion that “Nixon got paid” and asking if that’s the endgame a “financial settlement”:
CHUCK TODD: Does the Former – does Donald Trump think he should get paid? Is that what’s going on here because Nixon got paid $18 million? He wants– is he just holding these documents for some sort of financial settlement?
JAMES TRUSTY: Ah, that’s just a cheap shot. Look if you’re –
CHUCK TODD: He keeps bringing up this Nixon thing. What other reason is there for bringing it up?
JAMES TRUSTY: Let’s go, let’s go more modern day because you’re right about the time you were Presidential Records Act. Bill Clinton had multiple recordings he kept in a sock drawer of his presidency while in the oval office talking to foreign leaders, talking to advisers. He basically said, “Hey, that stays in my sock drawer. It’s personal” and everyone didn’t blink.
Obama Foundation had millions of documents in a former – I think furniture store out in Illinois. Arguable whether it was ever really truly secured. They acknowledge that they had classified documents probably to the tune of thousands and there was never any blink by NARA.
They in fact said we’re going to give NARA $3.3 million to help move these documents back eventually when we have a digitized library. That’s never happened. Now the payments may have happened, but that’s never happened. NARA was perfectly comfortable accepting money for a move that won’t happen for thousands of classified documents in some place near a McDonald’s in Illinois, and never blinked
Never any criminal tools, never any criminal referrals. So look, this is – this has rotten underpinning in terms of bureaucrats being politicized followed up by an all too eager DOJ to criminalize something that’s not a crime. That was the point of the president’s comments.
Trump made those comments and more in an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity.
