In His Own Words

Donald Trump has long lied to advance his personal and political interests, sometimes yielding dangerous and even deadly results. Now his private utterances may finally be his undoing.

(Photo Illustration by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Perhaps the most remarkable element of the arraignment of Donald J. Trump on Tuesday was that he did not speak. He was, according to New York Times justice reporter Glenn Thrush, “grim,” with his “jaw set, arms crossed, his back muscles tensing visibly under his dark suit jacket.”

But within hours, he was back to his usual toxic antics, serving up a flurry of grievances. “It’s a political persecution like something straight out of a fascist or communist nation,” he said, surrounded by his MAGA cultists. “This day will go down in infamy.”

That was followed by a promise of retribution: “I will appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt President in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family…On November 5, 2024, justice will be done.”

There’s little doubt Trump will repetitively insist—between now and until he takes his final breath—that the felony charges are and were just politics. Don’t forget he hurriedly announced his candidacy for president back in mid-November when the reality of indictments was increasingly likely. Don’t doubt that he’s running in 2024 with two main goals: obtaining presidential immunity and meting out vengeance.

But a sober reading of the 49-page indictment offers ample evidence of the necessity of Special Counsel Jack Smith filing charges for willful retention of classified documents and obstruction of justice. And while the criminal defendant did not say a word in the courtroom, relying on his attorney Todd Blanche to assert he’s “most certainly” not guilty, his own words depict a very different reality.

It’s the story of a candidate determined to highlight the laws surrounding the handling of classified documents. As we know now, this was all about targeting thee (Hillary Clinton), not me. The words would be almost laughable in hindsight if they weren’t a reminder of his felonious intentions and so fraught with danger.

• “In my administration, I’m going to enforce all laws concerning the protection of classified information. No one will be above the law.” (August 18, 2016)

• “We also need to fight this battle by collecting intelligence and then protecting, protecting our classified secrets. We can't have someone in the Oval Office who doesn't understand the meaning of the word confidential or classified.” (September 6, 2016)

• “One of the first things we must do is to enforce all classification rules and to enforce all laws relating to the handling of classified information.” (September 7, 2016)

• “We also need the best protection of classified information.” (September 19, 2016)

• “Service members here in North Carolina have risked their lives to acquire intelligence to protect our country.” (November 3, 2016)

But that was then, when he was just a candidate, before he occupied the office and became increasingly convinced of his immunity and his right to act with impunity even after he was compelled to exit the White House on Jan. 20, 2021. Remember the false, despicable words of his old friend, the disgraced former President Richard Nixon, in his 1977 television interview with British journalist David Frost: “Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.”

They were words that match Trump’s anti-democratic, dictatorial mindset: No one is above the law? Haha. What a joke. That principle was something candidate Trump would mouth to appease Americans still clinging to traditional values—that is, before he possessed the levers of power and stopped pretending.

After federal agents entered Mar-a-Lago last August to retrieve the classified documents and other government materials Trump refused to return, the excuses and defenses came fast and especially furious. After all, he asserted, he did nothing wrong. In fact, he had (magically) declassified everything just by thinking about declassifying them. At least that’s what he said publicly.

Yet, in private, his own words belied the fallaciousness of his claims. Let’s return to the unsealed indictment, where there’s a transcript of recorded conversations (not so easy to refute).

In July of 2021, just months after leaving office, he told a publisher and writer at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club that he had documents prepared by the Pentagon. One was a "plan of attack" against a foreign nation, reportedly Iran.

“This is secret information,” he told these people researching a book and lacking security clearance. “Look, look at this.”

“Isn't it amazing?” he boasted. And, “isn’t it incredible?”

“As president I could have declassified it,” Trump told them, adding, “Now I can't, you know, but this is still a secret.”

A month or so later at Bedminster, Trump showed someone from a political action committee without clearance “a classified map related to a military operation,” the indictment alleges. Expressing consciousness of guilt, he said that “he should not be showing it to the representative and that the representative should not get too close.”

First are the lies he spews in public—I did nothing wrong! It’s a hoax! It’s the greatest witch hunt in history!—then there are the actual facts he may recognize in private. This contrast may not bother his cult, but facts are facts with real-world consequences, both in a courtroom and when it comes to life and death.

Never forget the lies he told the public about the coronavirus and what he told author Bob Woodward in private, which we know because the conversations were recorded.

“This is deadly stuff,” Trump told Woodward in a February 7, 2020 phone call. “You just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed…It’s also more deadly than even your strenuous flu.”

Meanwhile, three weeks later in public, Trump was lying like this: “It’s going to disappear. One day—it’s like a miracle—it will disappear…We’re doing a great job with it. And it will go away.”

Why face facts and provide real leadership rather than make false claims to serve your personal and political interests? Maybe because it keeps the country secure and saves lives. The World Health Organization reports that, as of Wednesday this week, there have been 767,984,989 confirmed cases of COVID-19 globally, including 6,943,390 deaths—not exactly a miracle that will just “disappear.”

While we don’t know yet why Trump refused to return the classified documents nor what he’s done with them beyond the bits of information detailed in the indictment, we are left to wonder if they have been sold to or otherwise handed over to America’s deadly enemies; and more, to worry that his actions have substantially endangered the lives of Americans around the world who risk their survival for the security of us all.

“I did nothing wrong!” he insists publicly. “I am an innocent man!” The coming trial should shed light on the distinction between what he says in the light of day and what he knows to be true—and what he did when he assumed the safety of shadows and a continued history of invincibility.

In the weeks and months ahead, we’ll learn whether assigned trial judge Aileen Cannon will enable Trump to get away with politicizing what he has done or whether the legal process will be a testament to fairness, no matter who the defendant is. I doubt she’ll recuse herself, even though she’s already shown she thinks Trump deserves special protections. But we can all hope against hope that Cannon decides to redeem herself by conducting her duty without fear or favor and with the recognition that she should not be a judicial advocate for two systems of justice. 

Honestly, I’m not optimistic, particularly since this is a complex, high-profile criminal trial and Cannon has a total of 14 days of criminal trial experience. The potential for errors and other misconduct resulting from her inexperience is serious.

What I do know is there are plenty of Trump’s own words that are sufficient to bury him—and maybe, just maybe, yield a conviction. If that sounds uncertain to you, remember this is the closest this man has ever been to real accountability, including incarceration.

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