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--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Welcome to Today Explained. I'm Sean Rameswaram.
--:-- Donald Trump: All right, let's do this one last time. My name is Donald J. Trump. I was just indicted by a New York prosecutor. And for the past few months, I've been the one and only former president to ever be indicted for crimes. But now I've been indicted by the government that I used to run. A federal indictment that's never happened before. I'm pretty sure you know the rest.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: [pauses] I think we do, Mr. Trump. You took a bunch of classified documents from the White House to your big peach house in Florida. The federal government asked for them back, but you sort of refused to cooperate. And then you kind of lied about giving them all back. And then we all just kind of sat around and waited for the charges to drop. Oh, and in the meantime, you told everyone you wanted to be president again, and you're leading the pack. No big deal.
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--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Today, Today Explained. Andrew Prokop, Vox, the former president has done another unprecedented thing. Take it away.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: So Trump is now the first former president of the United States to be indicted twice, and in this case, federally. So here's what he wrote on Truth Social. The corrupt Biden administration has informed my attorneys that I have been indicted seemingly over the boxes hoax, even though Joe Biden has 1850 boxes at the University of Delaware, additional boxes in Chinatown, D.C., and even more boxes, etc., etc.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: That's quite a list, Andrew. What's the context here?
--:-- Andrew Prokop: Well, it's about the classified documents that Trump took from the White House to Mar-a-Lago. The federal government asked for them back, but Trump refused to cooperate. And then he lied about giving them all back.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And what's the indictment say about this?
--:-- Andrew Prokop: It's a lengthy and detailed indictment that alleges that basically when he was out of office, Trump deliberately kept many documents involving military, nuclear, and intelligence secrets. It makes the case he knew full well that a lot of this information was classified.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And what's the most shocking thing you've seen in this indictment?
--:-- Andrew Prokop: There's a pretty damning piece of evidence that Smith's team obtained, which is a voice memo recorded by Trump's own attorney, Evan Corcoran. Traditionally, this stuff would be protected by the attorney-client privilege, but Smith's team argued that this was used in the commission of a crime, which makes it fall under the crime-fraud exemption.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And what does the voice memo say?
--:-- Andrew Prokop: He describes when he first came to meet with Trump that the government has subpoenaed them trying to get these documents back. And according to this attorney, Evan Corcoran, Trump said, "I don't want anybody looking. I don't want anybody looking through my boxes. I really don't. I don't want you looking through my boxes."
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And what happens next?
--:-- Andrew Prokop: Well, Corcoran says that Trump told him a story supposedly about Hillary Clinton's attorney who deleted her 30,000 emails. And Trump said he did a great job. You know what? She didn't get in any trouble because he said that he was the one who deleted them. Basically, hint, hint, maybe if you made some of these documents disappear, that would help me out as well.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And what about the images in the indictment of the classified documents?
--:-- Andrew Prokop: There are images of like a box of classified White House documents in what appears to be like some kind of Mar-a-Lago closet. There's some suit bags in there. There's a Gibson guitar case, and a box literally on its side spilling out all over the floor. It really makes it seem like these documents are just everywhere in the Peach Mansion.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And what's the significance of this indictment?
--:-- Andrew Prokop: It describes how Trump would repeatedly request they be sent up to his bedroom. And he would just go through them, apparently, take certain things out, and then send them back to the storage room. He was really into these documents.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And what's the reaction from the Biden administration?
--:-- Andrew Prokop: Biden has said that he does not interfere with these decisions in the Justice Department. He's never tried to interfere, and he has nothing to do with it. In an implied contrast to his predecessor, Donald Trump, who very regularly opined on and tried to order the Justice Department to investigate certain people and do certain things.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And what about the current president's own situation with classified documents?
--:-- Andrew Prokop: Well, Biden has had some issues with classified documents himself. But it's a different situation. He's returned all the documents, and there's no evidence of him trying to hide them.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And what about the other investigations into Trump?
--:-- Andrew Prokop: There's the New York case, where he's been charged with 34 counts related to hush money payments. There's the Georgia case, where he's being investigated for trying to swing the outcome of the election. And there's the federal investigation into his attempt to stay in office and overturn the outcome of the 2020 election.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And can any of these investigations impede him becoming president of the United States again?
--:-- Andrew Prokop: The short answer is no. There are various theories floating about the liberal legal world of ways he could be disqualified from office. But I don't think any of them will survive the scrutiny of this Supreme Court.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And what about the question of whether he could be in prison by the time of the election?
--:-- Andrew Prokop: That seems far-fetched to me, too. But theoretically, if Trump was in prison while he's supposed to be sworn into the presidency, that would certainly be a very interesting, unprecedented situation.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And how's American democracy doing in the midst of all these investigations?
--:-- Andrew Prokop: I worry about kind of where this apocalyptic mindset, this despair and rage against institutions does lead on the right.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Andrew Prokop writes about the political news of the day at Vox.com. Our show today was produced by Miles Bryan and Siona Peterous. It was edited by Matt Collette. It was fact-checked by Laura Bullard. It was mixed and mastered by Michael Raphael and Cristian Ayala. I'm Sean Rameswaram, and this is Today Explained.
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