TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — Since no cameras are allowed in federal court, we did not get to see what happened when former President Trump was booked and processed at a courthouse in downtown Miami on Tuesday. But we are getting some new perspective on the case against Mr. Trump from someone who has served on his legal team.
Timothy Parlatore was once on the inside of the investigation into alleged mishandling of classified documents.
“I got involved in the Mar-a-Lago case after the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago,” Parlatore said.
Parlatore departed from Trump’s legal team on May 16.
On Tuesday, shortly before the historic arraignment of former President Trump, Parlatore discussed the strength of the government’s case with Investigator Mahsa Saeidi.
“If the indictment is true, if everything is backed up by airtight facts, then it is certainly problematic,” he said.
“Oftentimes, in my experience you have an indictment that seems pretty damning, but once you get down to the actual discovery, you find out that not everything is at clear as it first appears.”
In a 37-count indictment, the government alleges Trump illegally kept classified documents and criminally obstructed the probe to get them back.
According to the indictment, Special Counsel Jack Smith intends to use surveillance video, text messages and testimony from Trump’s own legal team to show Mr. Trump and his aide, Walt Nauta, conspired to hide documents.
Moments after the proceeding, Trump stopped at Miami’s famous Versailles Cuban restaurant, where he offered to buy lunch for everyone.
“How did it go in court? I think it’s going great, I think it’s a rigged deal here, we have a rigged country, we have a country that’s corrupt, we have a country that’s got no borders, we have a country that’s got nothing but problems. We’re a nation in decline and then they do this stuff, and you see where the people are, we love the people,” said Mr. Trump.
It was a remarkable sight on a historic day. Ministers of different faiths appeared to pray over Mr. Trump. The former president took pictures with the crowd.
Parlatore outlined two allegations in the indictment that in his view posed the greatest threat to the former president.
“The exchanges between the president and Walt Nauta before the search that Evan Corcoran conducted, as well as the meeting where he allegedly showed a map with a member of the pact.”
In total, the charges against Trump carry a maximum sentence of 400 years.
How could Trump fight this case in court?
Parlatore says there’s multiple options.
Trump’s new attorneys could argue he had a right to take the documents or that he declassified them.
But Parlatore says based on his personal experience, there’s an even better potential option: prosecutorial misconduct.
“These prosecutors lied to a federal judge in a sealed proceeding. There’s a transcript of that. Where I tell you that these prosecutors improperly suggested to a jury that the invocation of constitutional rights can be taken as evidence of guilt, there’s a transcript of that.”
Parlatore tells Investigator Mahsa Saeidi he was in the room, and he witnessed part of the grand jury proceedings.
In his view, he says the process was marred and the transcripts will allegedly show that.
“I think that this case, of all cases, certainly has a lot of strong arguments for dismissal, specifically on the prosecutorial misconduct angle,” he said.
Legal experts say this is a standard defense.
It’s not uncommon for defense attorneys to argue that prosecutors have been unethical; however, it’s a very difficult charge to prove.
