Why a former Trump assistant could be a 'blockbuster witness' in Mar-a-Lago documents case: ex-US attorney

21 September 2023

Molly Michael, a former assistant to Donald Trump, is among the witnesses in special counsel Jack Smith's Mar-a-Lago documents case. Smith alleges that Trump endangered the United States' national security by storing classified government documents at Mar-a-Lago — documents that, Smith says, should have remained in Washington, D.C. when Trump left the White House.

In an article published by the Los Angeles Times on September 21, Harry Litman (who hosts the "Talking Feds" podcast) lays out some reasons why Michael could be a "blockbuster witness" in Smith's case.

"News reports this week led with the startling new detail that Trump sent Michael notes and to-do lists carelessly scrawled on the back of classified documents," Litman explains. "It's a memorable snippet that drives home Trump's indifference to classification and national security. For a prosecutor, however, that was among the least of the revelations from Michael, known as 'Trump Employee 2' in the first federal indictment of the former president."

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Michael, according to Litman, has a "singular ability to tell the story of Trump's conspiracy to obstruct justice in unimpeachable terms."

"Michael apparently didn't rush to tell authorities everything she knew, but did draw a clear line at trying to deceive them," Litman notes. "She found and turned over the classified documents with Trump's notations. And she appears never to have hesitated to abide by her legal duty to tell the truth. She also has detailed knowledge of the conspiracy to hide documents from the FBI."

Litman continues, "She dealt personally with Trump and (co-defendant Walt) Nauta. She brought some of the boxes of documents to Trump's residence for his review. And most damningly, when Trump learned that FBI agents wanted to talk to Michael, he told her, 'You don't know anything about the boxes.'" Given the plain evidence that Michael knew plenty about the boxes, and that Trump knew she knew, a reasonable juror could only interpret such an instruction as a patent effort to obstruct justice."

Read Harry Litman's full Los Angeles Times article at this link.

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