As Donald Trump watches a damning indictment for his mishandling of classified documents, a common refrain is that the former president has no one to blame but himself. Throughout the process, Trump has denied government requests to return documents stored at his golf clubs in Florida and New Jersey. That refusal sparked the infamous Mar-a-Lago raid and a public spectacle that now includes photographs of documents stacked to the ceiling in a bathroom.
However, a new report claims Trump dug his own hole even deeper thanks to advice from a guy who isn’t even a lawyer. According The Washington Post, Trump’s legal team tried to negotiate a settlement with Attorney General Merrick Garland that could have avoided a lawsuit against a former president. Determined to keep his “boxes,” Trump reportedly spurned legal advice and chose to fight with the Justice Department due to advice from a right-wing activist with no legal training:
Trump has repeatedly rejected the advice of lawyers and advisers who have urged him to cooperate and has instead taken the advice of Tom Fitton, the head of the conservative group Judicial Watch, and several others who have told him that he could legally keep the documents and would have to fight the Justice Department, advisers said. Trump would often quote Fitton to others, and Fitton told some of Trump’s attorneys that Trump could keep the documents, even if they disagreed, the advisers said.
THE Job reports that several Trump aides blame Fitton for filling the former president’s head with false hopes of keeping his “boxes,” which put Trump in the crosshairs of an indictment and possibly from another in New Jersey.
(Via Washington Post)