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Former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner urged the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) on Sunday to stop playing “games” with Donald Trump and to criminally indict him.
Kirschner’s comments came after the former president’s legal team requested that the Supreme Court ensure that the classified documents that federal agents seized from his home at Mar-a-Lago in August could be reviewed by a special master before they’re accessed by DOJ officials.
The FBI took the documents as part of an investigation into whether or not Trump mishandled classified materials. The ex-president has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in regard to the documents, and said that any classified documents that he took from the White House when he left last year had been declassified.
Trump appealed to the Supreme Court following a lower court’s ruling in favor of the DOJ, allowing officials to continue to use the classified materials as evidence as part of its criminal investigation, without the intervention of a special master.
During an interview on MSNBC on Sunday, host Katie Phang of The Katie Phang Show asked the former federal prosecutor about Trump’s legal team’s strategy.
“Do you think it’s going to be a successful one…but do you think it’s just yet another delay tactic on the part of Trump?” Phang asked.
“When has Trump’s strategy of delaying the legal process not worked? Not won him enough time, sometimes to run out the clock,” Kirschner said. “I do wish the Department of Justice would stop playing Donald Trump’s reindeer games, stop playing on Donald Trump’s playing field, because civil litigation is Donald Trump’s playing field. It’s where he can best weaponize the delay that is inherent in the civil litigation process. You know how DOJ can put an end to all of that: indict him.”
Kirschner added that once someone is indicted criminally, “the delays, the ability to appeal things in a piecemeal fashion is over. Because then, virtually the only time you get to appeal anything is after you’ve gone to trial, been convicted, been sentenced and then the appeals begin.”
Kirschner has previously called on federal prosecutors to indict the former president. In July, Kirschner said that the DOJ has “evidence that satisfies the burden to indict” Trump in connection with the events on January 6, 2021.
He said DOJ “has a responsibility to protect the American people, including the Trump supporters. Hundreds are going to prison now for doing what Donald Trump told them, and Donald Trump is recruiting the next batch of future insurrectionists…and we’re letting him do it.”
Trump has blasted federal investigators in response to their investigation into whether he mishandled documents, characterizing the raid at his home a “witch hunt” and raising the possibility that agents planted items on his property.
Newsweek has reached out to Trump’s press office and the DOJ for comment.
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