Donald Trump's legal defense will be "dead in the water" if it relies on the former president's attorneys trying to defend him on cable news shows, according to an expert.
Bradley P. Moss, a lawyer who specializes in national security, was reacting to Trump attorney John Lauro speaking with CNN's Kaitlan Collins shortly after the former president was indicted in relation to the January 6 attack and attempts to overturn the 2020 election.
The four charges Trump faces in Special Counsel Jack Smith's probe—conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of, and attempt to obstruct, an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights—are the latest in a line of legal issues facing the former president.
Trump, the frontrunner in the GOP 2024 presidential primary, denies wrongdoing. He called the investigation in a Tuesday statement a "continued pathetic attempt by the Biden Crime Family and their weaponized Department of Justice to interfere with the 2024 Presidential Election" and described the persecution he is facing as being "reminiscent of Nazi Germany in the 1930s."
On Tuesday, Lauro appeared on CNN to defend Trump's actions, describing how there was "nothing wrong" in trying to get "alternate electors" to falsely state that Trump had beaten Joe Biden in several key states at the last election.
While sharing a clip of the interview, Moss tweeted: "If this is their legal strategy, they're dead in the water. Just like I said back in 2022 about the [Mar-a-Lago] docs case." Lauro has been contacted for comment via email.
In the tweet, Moss shared an extract of an interview he gave to New York magazine's Intelligencer last August soon after the FBI recovered classified documents from Trump's Florida home in which he also criticized the former president's lawyers. Trump is accused of 40 federal offenses over allegations he willfully retained top secret materials after he left the White House, then obstructed the federal attempt to retrieve them.
During the interview, Moss was asked why Trump had not made the FBI search warrant public—which would have proven whether federal agents had planted evidence at Mar-a-Lago, a baseless claim pushed by the former president and his lawyers in the wake of the search for classified documents.
"If any of those accusations that we're hearing from Trump lawyers had a modicum of merit, there would've been emergency motions for temporary restraining orders to enjoin the FBI from going through everything; there would've been motions to suppress the warrant itself," Moss said.
"This is what actual lawyers with credible arguments would be doing right now, not going on TV and leveling innuendo and accusations. But because they don't have anything to really rely on, they don't take that step."
Elsewhere in his interview on CNN, Lauro said Trump had every right to dispute the election results under the First Amendment.
"The president was told, given advice that under these circumstances, the state legislatures have the ultimate ability to qualify electors," Lauro said. "He followed that advice. Now, you may disagree as to whether or not those things actually occurred or not. That's why we have political debate. We don't have criminal trials over that."
The indictment against Trump states that the former president "had a right, like every American" to speak publicly about the election and even to "claim, falsely, that there had been outcome-determinative fraud during the election and that he had won."
The indictment adds that Trump was entitled to formally challenge the results by lawful and appropriate means, but that each one of his attempts were "uniformly" unsuccessful.
"Shortly after election day, [Trump] also pursued unlawful means of discounting legitimate votes and subverting the election results. In so doing, the Defendant perpetrated three criminal conspiracies," federal prosecutors said.
"Each of these conspiracies which built on the widespread mistrust the Defendant was creating through pervasive and destabilizing lies about election fraud targeted a bedrock function of the United States federal government: the nation's process of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the presidential election."
In a statement attacking his latest indictment and denying all wrongdoing, Trump's office said: "Why did they wait two and a half years to bring these fake charges, right in the middle of President Trump's winning campaign for 2024? Why was it announced the day after the big Crooked Joe Biden scandal broke out from the Halls of Congress?
"The answer is, election interference! The lawlessness of these persecutions of President Trump and his supporters is reminiscent of Nazi Germany in the 1930s, the former Soviet Union, and other authoritarian, dictatorial regimes," the statement added. "President Trump has always followed the law and the Constitution, with advice from many highly accomplished attorneys."
Uncommon Knowledge
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