Georgetown University law school professor Jonathan Turley laid out a rather daunting scenario for former President Donald Trump if he’s found guilty on just one or two of the federal charges against him.
Last week, special counsel Jack Smith charged Trump with 37 counts in a case regarding his handling of classified documents. Many of those counts carry maximum sentences of decades behind bars.
In a discussion with former U.S. attorney and South Carolina Republican congressman Trey Gowdy, as well as Fox News analyst Brit Hume, Turley said that the number of charges against Trump is significant.
“The problem is that he’s got to run the table, he’s 76 years old, [and] all the government has to do is stick the landing on one count and he could have a terminal sentence,” Turley said. “You’re talking about crimes that have a 10- or 20-year period, as a maximum. The evidence here is quite strong.”
Turley expressed his belief that once a trial jury has the opportunity to hear Trump’s defense team, certain charges may be dismissed. However, the former president still faces a predicament as he is confronted with more than three dozen counts.
“But some of this evidence is coming from his former counsel,” he said. “And these are very damaging statements that have been made against him. It may be hard to move those. The fact is, both things may be true.
“Yes, the Department of Justice may have been out to get him, but he made it easy. If you look at what is being described in this indictment, [when] confronted with someone that he felt was trying to get him, he couldn’t have made it more easy for them to do so,” Turley said.
When questioned about the potential exclusion of certain evidence, Gowdy suggested that the most incriminating piece of evidence against Trump stems from his own statements.
“Well, the most damning piece of evidence to me is the audio tape. I mean, you want to talk about consciousness of guilt,” he said. “You want to talk about knowledge and intent. I mean, those are the darlings of a prosecutor’s nursery. And that came from President Trump’s own mouth.”
