Ben Shapiro: “Donald Trump pretty much admits on tape to doing the thing that he's accused of doing”
Published
Citation From the June 28, 2023, edition of The Daily Wire's The Ben Shapiro Show
BEN SHAPIRO (HOST): So, let's just be real about this. Once again, should Donald Trump be prosecuted for the exact same crime that Hillary Clinton was basically let off the hook for? He shouldn't -- if it doesn't work for Hillary, it doesn't work for Trump. However, does that mean that Donald Trump did not do the thing he's accused of doing? It doesn't mean that either. Donald Trump pretty much admits on tape to doing the thing that he's accused of doing. Those two things you should hold in your mind at the same time. The prosecution is politically-motivated and unjust on the part of Merrick Garland, no question. Also, does what he did -- does that fulfill the elements of the crime? I mean, from the evidence that we've seen so far, pretty obviously yes.
So, you'll recall Donald Trump was accused in the indictment of having taken documents that he was not supposed to take, and then he was given every opportunity by the DOJ and by the National Archives and by the FBI to turn those documents back in. Not only did he not turn the documents back in, he instructed his lawyers to go say that he had turned the documents back in. And they have contemporaneous text messages of Donald Trump saying to his own people -- Walt Nauta, who's now under indictment also -- that he should move those boxes around without the lawyers knowing about it. Okay? That's a problem, guys.
I'm not somebody who's thinking that Donald Trump was, like, taking these secrets and distributing them all over the place. I think Donald Trump has a weird meticulous hoarder-like attachment to things that he thinks are his. But does that mean that he didn't fulfill the[[the]] tenets of, like -- they're elements of -- this is how law works. There's a law. The law says here are the things that the crime constitutes, A, B, C, and D. Did he hit all of those? I mean, by his own admission, kind of, yes. Now he's trying to walk that back because there's tape of him literally saying -- and we played it yesterday -- there's tape of him literally saying, here are classified documents. I could've declassified. I didn't declassify. Here they are. I will show them to you, a not-classified person. And -- and now he is walking through a variety of excuses.
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If you are rooting for Trump, then he has to have a plan. That plan should be meticulous. He's going to end up in a court of law on all of this. Would you like to see him not go to jail? Then perhaps he should stop talking like this. It is not smart. It's just not smart. Put aside whether you like or hate the guy. It's not a smart thing to do to do this. You're in the middle of a legal proceeding. Listen to your lawyers.