House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan broke down the major “flaw” in the indictment against former President Donald Trump Sunday on CNN with Dana Bash.
Trump announced the indictment Thursday, ahead of the official indictment being unsealed Friday. The charges against Trump include 31 counts of alleged violation of the Espionage Act or the willful retention of national security information, as well as one count of “conspiracy to obstruct justice,” one count of “withholding a document or record,” one count of corruptly concealing a documents or record,” one count of “concealing a documents in a deferral investigation,” one count of “scheme to conceal” and one count of “false statements and representations.”
Bash asked Jordan to comment on part of the indictment.
“The indictment said: ‘TRUMP directed NAUTA,’ who’s his personal aide, ‘to move boxes before Trump Attorney 1’s June 2 review, so that many boxes were not searched and many documents responsive to the May 11 Subpoena could not be found and were in fact not found by Trump Attorney 1.’ [sic] In plain English, this alleges that Trump instructed his aide to help him remove sensitive documents in defiance of a federal subpoena. A), Does that trouble you? And B) If he thought he had the right to have these documents, why was he trying so hard to hide them?” Bash asked.
“No, it doesn’t bother me because again, you can’t have obstruction of something when there was no underlying crime. The standard is set. The standard is what the Constitution says. The commander-in-chief — the president of the United States — has the ability to classify and control access to information. That’s what the Constitution and the court have said. So you can’t obstruct when there is — you can’t obstruct when there is no underlying crime,” said Jordan.
“He is not the president of the United States — ”
“That is the fundamental flaw,” Jordan shot back.
“And you’re just taking him at his word?” Dana asked.
“And when he was president, he declassified the material. He’s been — he’s been very clear about that.”
“He says point-blank, on tape, ‘As president I could have declassified it. Now I can’t.’ He says, in his own words, it’s on tape as part of this indictment, that he did not declassify the material. Therefore, it is classified.”
“Dana … saying he could have, saying he could have is not the same as saying he didn’t,” Jordan pushed back.
“He said, ‘now I can’t’,” Bash said.
“Now he can’t — right — because he’s not president now. But when he was president, he did declassify it. He said that,” Jordan said.
“Which means that what he was holding was classified,” Bash argued.
“Not if he declassified it when he was president of the United States, for goodness sake!” (RELATED: ‘Trump Doesn’t Go After His Political Enemies’: Jordan Spars With CNN Anchor Over Hillary Clinton’s Emails)
“But he’s saying point-blank in this audio tape that he did not declassify it,” Bash said. “What you’re saying just doesn’t make sense on its face.”
“Dana, what this truly is, Dana, is an affront to the rule of law. It’s an affront to consistent application of the law. You have Secretary Clinton — who had classified material on a server — she was not president of the United States. She was Secretary Clinton. You have that happen, nothing happens to her,” Jordan continued before the duo moved on to other issues.
Bash was referencing was a July 2021 call which alleged Trump showed a “plan of attack” to a writer, a publisher and two staffers, which he said was prepared for him by the Department of Defense, according to the indictment. “As president, I could have declassified it,” Trump allegedly said at the time, and “now I can’t, you know, but this is still a secret.”