MSNBC host Joe Scarborough said Wednesday on his show “Morning Joe” that it was “obvious” former President Donald Trump could be charged with obstruction of justice based on the back and forth with the Department of Justice over classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago.
Co-host Willie Geist asked, “The filing lays out again how long it took to get this stuff. It comes out in dribs and drabs. You get some of it in January, 15 boxes of highly classified material. That’s not all of it. They go back in June. They get 50 boxes. They say 50 boxes are remaining. Does this get at it all? Does it show the Justice Department might be pursuing obstruction in some way?”
NBC News investigations correspondent Tom Winter said, “I think that was one of the key revelations from yesterday’s filings, the fact that they laid out all the steps they took, so we have additional detail on that.”
Scarborough said, “Based on the fact pattern that is out there in the press, the fact pattern that really all sides have admitted to, one charge, potential charge really does seem more obvious than others even right now, and that is flat-out obstruction of justice—lying, claiming that you have given back all the top-secret documents and all the documents that Trump had stolen from the White House, a government building, and taken down to Mar-a-Lago. They just lied about it and lied to the FBI about it. Again, let’s just keep it to the standard of no man is above the law. Anybody else would have been in jail for doing that. It’s that simple.”
Co-host Jonathan Lemire said, “Legal experts have zeroed in on the obstruction possibility, Joe. You’re right about that – that the lawyers said everything was returned. It wasn’t.”
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