Former acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal thinks the indictment for Donald Trump is coming “soon” in the federal case around the documents scandal.
Speaking to MSNBC on Wednesday, Katyal said that what is coming down the pike for Trump is going to be his “worst nightmare” because it involves people like special counsel Jack Smith and Attorney General Merrick Garland, neither of whom are the extremist political players that Trump wishes they were.
“He has a long-standing reputation in Washington of being bipartisan, of being a careful and respected jurist on both sides of the aisle,” Katyal said of Garland. “But nonetheless, [he’s] a political appointee. So, as between those two, when we’re talking about something as sensitive as ‘do you indict a former president,’ it would make all the sense in the world that’s a Jack Smith determination. That’s what Donald Trump is afraid of. He’s afraid of having someone independent do this. If it’s someone political, [Trump] can trash it as being political or this or that. This is Trump’s worst nightmare.”
Host Nicolle Wallace remembered in 2018 when Donald Trump told the press that he was excited to speak to special counsel Robert Mueller and would be testifying in person. Washington Post reporter Carol Leonnig said that it’s the perfect example of how Trump is a “master in his own mind of the legal strategy, but more importantly the communication strategy. He’s decided, I’m going to break my own news.”
She went on to say that reporters have heard for weeks that the Smith probe was “nearly cooked, and it’s expected there will be charges. Those have not gone to the attorney general yet, but it’s looming, and Donald Trump knows that too.”
Katyal explained that the Justice Department rules are to bring cases when they’re ready and not consider politics one way or the other.
“My expectation is this is going to be soon,” he predicted. “That’s what — you know, the scope of the investigation, how it heated up in the last few weeks, you know, The Wall Street Journal story which broke some of this said there’s still some investigation left to be done. But I suspect it’s not much.”
He added in the caveat of Georgia, where the D.A. claimed charges were “imminent,” but a lawyer snafu means it will be closer to the end of July or early August that charges would fall in that case.
“But I think Carol is right, the attorney general is also thinking about the clock,” Katyal continued. “Not just the campaign clock, but also the election. And if a Republican wins, say it’s [Gov. Ron] DeSantis (D-FL) or something like that. They may try to pardon Trump and avoid these charges. So, you want to try to get this to a jury so you have a final record of what the jury thinks happened before the prosecution might otherwise be truncated.”
See the conversation in the video below or at the link here.
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