WASHINGTON – Former White House special counsel Ty Cobb said there is “overwhelming evidence” in the classified documents case against Donald Trump after special counsel Jack Smith added new charges against the former president on Thursday.
Trump was indicted last month on 37 felony counts for allegedly storing hundreds of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate upon leaving the White House in 2021. Some of the charges include willful retention of national defense information in violation of the Espionage Act and conspiracy to obstruct justice.
In a superseding indictment, Smith alleges that Trump also sought to destroy security footage of rooms in which subpoenaed boxes of classified information were kept and induced others to do so. Smith also brought charges against Mar-a-Lago employee Carlos De Oliveira for allegedly lying about hiding boxes with indicted aide Walt Nauta
“I think this original indictment was engineered to last 1,000 years and now this superseding indictment will last an antiquity,” Cobb, who worked in the Trump administration, said in an interview with CNN host Erin Burnett. “This is such a tight case, the evidence is so overwhelming.”
Cobb said that Trump’s lawyers at some point advised him “not to destroy, move (the documents) or obstruct this grand jury subpoena in any way or the government’s request in any way.”
“So this is Trump not just going behind the back of the prosecutors. This is Trump going behind the back of his own lawyers, and dealing with two people who were extremely loyal to him,” Cobb said.
The superseding indictment came down the same day Trump’s attorneys met with Smith’s office about a federal case on Trump’s alleged efforts to subvert the 2020 election.
“It’s very difficult to imagine how Trump could say his lawyers met with Jack Smith today to explain to him that he hadn’t done anything wrong on the same day that Jack Smith produces this overwhelming evidence of additional wrongdoing on his part,” Cobb said.
District Judge Aileen Cannon, who was assigned to the classified documents case, has scheduled a trial in May 2024.
Contributing: David Jackson
