Trump’s big mouth is a problem for his attorneys

The former president is not known for his restraint. But as yet more damning audio emerged this week, it’s clear that his attorneys have a growing problem on their hands.

The recording, which comes from an interview ABC’s chief Washington correspondent, Jonathan Karl, conducted with Trump in the spring of 2021, gives an insight into the former president’s mindset as the Capitol was besieged and corroborates a key part of the testimony given to the January 6 Select Committee – testimony that was strongly refuted by Trump world at the time.

In the audio, Trump confirms that he’d wanted to join the rioters at the Capitol and declares that he would have been “very well-received” by the violent crowd: “I was going to [go] and then Secret Service said you can’t…I wanted to go back. I was thinking about going back during the problem to stop the problem, doing it myself.”

During the J6 Select Committee hearings, a former White House aide, Cassidy Hutchinson, recounted that Trump had intended to join the rioters before being stopped by his security detail. In the immediate aftermath of her testimony, Trump took to Truth Social to brand her “a total phony” and a “whacko”, adding his customary “I hardly know who this person, Cassidy Hutchinson, is.”

The audio, however, tells a different story. Trump admits that the rioters were there to support him and that they went to DC “because they thought that the election was rigged.” These confessions will no doubt pique the interest of the Special Counsel’s office as they not only show that Trump was fully aware of “the problem” at the Capitol, but also that he knew he would be “very well-received” and had the ability to stop it. Those 187 minutes of inaction, where he reportedly watched the unfolding chaos on Fox News, look even more damning now.

The inclusion of Trump’s refusal to “issue a calming message aimed at the rioters” in the indictment suggests that Jack Smith and his team could use the recording as impeachment material should Trump take the stand. The audio could also be used as evidence of Trump’s intent in light of the charges he faces under 18 U.S.C § 1512 - conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding and obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding.

It's not the first time Trump’s statements have provided solid evidence against him in one of his many cases, criminal or civil. At his CNN townhall earlier this year, he further defamed author E Jean Carroll by calling her allegations of sexual assault a “made-up story”, just one day after he was found liable for defamation in a civil case brought by Carroll for similar statements and ordered to pay $5m in damages. An amended lawsuit seeking $10m in punitive and compensatory damages was immediately filed after his extend riff on the case was broadcast by CNN.

In September he told the SiriusXM host Megyn Kelly that he was “allowed to take” the documents discovered at Mar-a-Lago, a statement which seems to be an outright confession of a criminal act, especially as the jury in that case will be instructed that he was not in fact “allowed” to take and conceal the trove of national defense information.

At the aforementioned CNN townhall, Trump said of the purloined documents “I was there and I took what I took”, directly contradicting what his attorneys had written in a letter to Congress, where they blamed “haphazard records-keeping and packing” for the removal of hundreds of pages of material from the White House, as opposed to an intentional action by the former president.

At the upcoming hearing on Monday at the DC Court of Appeals to discuss the constitutionality of the gag order in the federal J6 case, one has to wonder if his attorneys are secretly hoping it gets upheld so that he’s made to keep quiet on at least some aspects of the case and its participants.