The Department of Justice's (DOJ) latest evidence against former President Donald Trump will be difficult for the jury to ignore, former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti said on Sunday.
Trump is facing new charges in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case, according to new court documents filed this week by the DOJ. He is facing two new counts of obstructing justice, with federal prosecutors accusing him of trying to delete security footage from his Palm Beach, Florida, home amid the investigation last summer. Prosecutors are also charging Trump with one count of willfully retaining a top-secret document based on an audio tape allegedly depicting Trump discussing a document outlining a potential military attack against Iran with guests at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, in July 2021.
The DOJ previously indicted the former president on 37 charges, including 31 counts of willful retention of national defense information, accusing him of illegally removing classified documents while vacating the White House in January 2021 and obstructing government efforts to retrieve the files. Trump pleaded not guilty to each charge and has maintained his innocence, saying that the documents were not classified and that the DOJ is targeting him for political purposes as he runs for president in 2024.
Mariotti explained during an MSNBC appearance Sunday morning that the jury might find the new charges more difficult to dismiss.
"He's included this obstruction conspiracy involving the destruction of evidence—very powerful evidence that frankly [is] a very powerful count that realistically, the jury, I think, is going to have a lot of trouble excusing. A lot of trouble ignoring," Mariotti said.
He continued that while Trump's attorneys will likely invoke the Presidential Records Act, which Trump has said granted him authority to keep those documents, in their defense of the former president, prosecutors may have an easier time convincing the jury on the obstruction charges.
"You can say what you want about the Presidential Records Act or about declassification, but the The bottom line is destroying evidence, that's the sort of thing that the average person could get their head around. So that's really important," he said.
Newsweek reached out to Trump's campaign and Mariotti for comment via email.
Mariotti added on Sunday that prosecutors charging a third defendant, Carlos De Oliveira, a property manager at Trump's estate, could also change the dynamic of the trial.
"Are they going to try to flip against [him?] Who is going to flip first? Is one going to flip against Trump? Are they both going to flip? There's a dynamic now where Walt Nauta, he can't just be assured to the fact that he is going to be the lone man," he said. "Now you have two potential employees, and neither of them know what the other might do."
Nauta, a former Trump aide, was also charged by the DOJ in the classified documents case.
Meanwhile, Trump reacted to the new charges in a Truth Social post on Thursday, writing that his classified documents case has been handled differently than that of President Joe Biden, who in January found Obama-era documents in his possession. Legal experts have noted a key difference in the cases is that Biden's attorneys have complied with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) once locating the documents.
"When it first came out that Biden had all of these Docs, many Classified, almost everyone, including those on the Left, said, 'there goes the case against Trump,'" the former president wrote. "But they waited and waited, got failed prosecutor Deranged Jack Smith, and STRUCK - but did almost nothing on the REALLY BAD Biden Documents case, many stored in Chinatown!"
