Trump rejected a proposal to 'take the temperature down' and help him avoid a criminal indictment

15 June 2023

On Tuesday, June 13, 2023, Donald Trump became the first former president in United States history to be arraigned on federal criminal charges. Trump, in a Miami courthouse, pleaded "not guilty" to 37 counts — 31 of them for alleged violations of the Espionage Act of 1917.

At issue in the case, which is being prosecuted by special counsel Jack Smith for the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), are government documents Trump was storing at his Mar-a-Lago compound in Palm Beach, Florida. Trump has maintained that all the documents were "declassified"; Smith vehemently disagrees, alleging that Trump violated federal law by moving documents with classified information to Mar-a-Lago.

Smith, in the indictment, alleges that Trump jeopardized national security and emphasizes that documents containing top-secret information should have remained in Washington, D.C. when Trump left the White House on January 20, 2021.

According to Washington Post reporters Josh Dawsey and Jacqueline Alemany, one of Trump's attorneys, Christopher Kise, proposed an idea during the fall of 2022 that he hoped would help Trump avoid a prosecution: try to negotiate a settlement with the DOJ. But Trump flatly rejected the proposal.

In an article published on June 14, Dawsey and Alemany report that Kise "wanted to quietly approach Justice to see if he could negotiate a settlement that would preclude charges" and hoped that "Attorney General Merrick Garland and the Department would want an exit ramp to avoid prosecuting a former president."

"Kise would hopefully 'take the temperature down,' he told others, by promising a professional approach and the return of all documents," Dawsey and Alemany explain. "But Trump was not interested after listening to other lawyers who urged a more pugilistic approach, so Kise never approached prosecutors, three people briefed on the matter said."

That was before Garland appointed Smith as special counsel for two Trump-related investigations: that one, and DOJ's probe of Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.

Many pro-Trump "whataboutists" in right-wing media have claimed that Trump is being unfairly singled out for prosecution by DOJ, noting that President Joe Biden and former Vice President Mike Pence have also been investigated for having classified government documents in their possession — Biden at his home in Delaware, Pence at his home in Indiana. But Trump's critics have responded that Biden and Pence, unlike Trump, have fully cooperated with DOJ — and that Trump, in contrast, angrily railed at DOJ.

Moreover, Garland, very much an institutionalist, has made it abundantly clear that he isn't giving Biden any preferential treatment.

Kise declined to be interviewed for Dawsey and Alemany's report.

Dawsey and Alemany note, "Kise, who originally urged a more cooperative approach, told others when he took the case that he believed that charges could be avoided. He began asking other advisers what happened during the subpoena process in an effort to understand why the Justice Department would take such an extraordinary step of searching the former president’s property. Kise has largely been away from the documents case publicly in recent months as other lawyers pursued a more aggressive strategy, and Trump advisers say other lawyers badmouthed Kise to Trump."

Read the Washington Post's full report at this link (subscription required).

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