John Yoo on the Trump indictment

AEI’s Marc Thiessen and Danielle Pletka take up the Biden Justice Department’s indictment of President Trump with our own 3WHH’s Professor John Yoo on their What the Hell Is Going On? podcast. Dated yesterday, the podcast takes up one or two of the the themes I have touched on in my own series of theses on the indictment. I have about 13 more parts and 77 theses to go, but need to take a breather before I pick them up again.

The WTH podcast has a Substack site here. At the site the hosts extract “three things” — I’ll call them theses — from their discussion with Professor Yoo:

• The indictment of a former President (and presidential candidate) by a sitting President of the other party crosses the constitutional Rubicon.

• There is no question that Trump put himself in this position, but his prosecution will only further cement in many Americans’ minds the sense that American justice is hopelessly politicized.

• The correct jury to assess Trump’s fitness is the jury of the American people, not 12 random Floridians.

The WTH Substack site’s linked post — here it is again — provides a summary of the podcast, a selection of highlights, and a full set of show notes with “resources.”

Well, what about the merits of the case? On the merits:

John Yoo: If it was anyone else other that a former President, I would be telling the defendant to go get a good plea bargain while you can. Usually, people who are prosecuted for this kind of crime, taking classified information, have a lot less evidence in the indictment. I mean, you’ve got pictures of the documents themselves in unsecured facilities. You’ve got apparently tape recordings of the defendant talking about how he’s got the documents and how he knows they’re still classified. This is the most damaging of evidence in a way because you don’t need to rely on witnesses’ valuable memory, you don’t have to worry about the witness changing stories on the stand. You’ve got physical photographic proof or recorded proof of Trump himself talking about how he shouldn’t have these documents, how he knows that they’re classified, and he’s violating the law.

I have embedded the podcast below.

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