MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell on Monday spotted the moment he believes Donald Trump essentially confessed to illegally storing classified government records at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
At a weekend rally in Arizona, Trump admitted: “I had a small number of boxes in storage at Mar-a-Lago guarded by Secret Service and my people and everybody. I mean it’s safe.”
The former president later added: “There is no crime. It’s not a crime and they should give me immediately back everything that they’ve taken from me because it’s mine, it’s mine.”
O’Donnell said that with those comments, Trump has “in front of thousands of witnesses … proved beyond a shadow of a doubt his criminal intent to continue to illegally possess government records, including classified records.”
“Donald Trump, with that statement, made it clear that he had the criminal intent and planned to never return the government’s property to the government,” he continued.
Trump’s rally comments blew apart his potential defense that he simply didn’t know the documents were there, said O’Donnell, who pointed out that the excuse may have created “enough reasonable doubt in the mind of a jury” to acquit Trump if he’s charged.
Trump was essentially “taunting Attorney General Merrick Garland to indict him,” said O’Donnell.
Watch the video here: