Trump indictment is ‘very, very damning,’ his former attorney general says

After a 37-count criminal indictment against Donald Trump was unsealed Friday, Trump’s former Attorney General Bill Barr said there’s trouble ahead for the 2024 Republican presidential hopeful.

“If even half of it’s true, then he’s toast,” Barr told “Fox News Sunday.” “It’s a really detailed indictment, and it is very, very damning. And this concept of presenting Trump as a victim here, a victim of a witch hunt, is ridiculous.”

The indictment revealed allegations that the previous president willfully retained lots of of classified government records at his Florida home and conspired to forestall their return to U.S. officials.

The charging document, which was made public a day after a grand jury in U.S. District Court in Miami voted to indict Trump, said that the records contained details about defense and weapons capabilities of the U.S. and foreign countries, U.S. nuclear programs, and “potential vulnerabilities of the US and its allies to military attack.”

Trump stored these classified materials in cardboard boxes in a ballroom, a toilet, a shower, and office space, along along with his bedroom and a storage room at his Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida., in accordance with the indictment.

Barr said the best way Trump stored the documents at Mar-a-Lago could be enough to make anyone who cares about national security stomachs’ churn.

“He isn’t a victim here,” Barr said. “He was totally mistaken that he had the appropriate to have those documents. Those documents are amongst probably the most sensitive secrets the country has.”

Many Republicans, including presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, have rallied around Trump within the wake of the indictment.

Ramaswamy said he would pardon Trump if elected, even before the small print of the indictment were released. He told CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday that after reading the indictment, he’s “much more convinced that a pardon is the appropriate answer.”

House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan said Sunday that the indictment is “as political because it gets.” The Ohio Republican claimed Trump had declassified the materials and will handle them as he pleased. CNN’s Dana Bash repeatedly tried to press Jordan for evidence that Trump had declassified the documents.

“I am going on the president’s word, and he said he did,” Jordan said.

But Democratic officials have been less forgiving, and Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware said Sunday that “no man is above the law.”

“Former President Trump has nobody in charge but himself for being federally, criminally indicted,” he told ABC’s “This Week.”