Callicoon Center

To the editor:

One of the extraordinary features of the criminal charges brought against Donald Trump is that so much damning evidence is already public.

THE DOCUMENTS CASE: Most of us have seen the pictures of boxes of government documents piled up next to a toilet at Mar-a-Lago, and the classified papers strewn across the floor of Trump’s personal office. And then there’s the audio recording where he brags about showing top-secret war plans to visitors at his New Jersey golf club. Trump can be heard saying, “This is secret information. Look! Look at this! … As president I could have declassified this. Now I can’t.”

THE ATTEMPT TO OVERTURN THE 2020 ELECTION: After all legal challenges to the election results were exhausted, Trump’s team created what they called “fake electors” to be used to block the counting of the state-certified Electors on January 6th. When Vice-President Pence refused to go along with the scheme, Trump tweeted that Pence “didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done.” The Secret Service  immediately evacuated the vice-president as chants of “Hang Mike Pence!” rang through the halls of Congress.

GEORGIA: Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, recorded a January 2nd phone call with Trump in which he pressed Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to overcome Biden’s narrow victory in the state. When Raffensperger refused, Trump turned to veiled threats saying, “You know what they did and you’re not reporting it … that’s a criminal offense…that’s a big risk to you.”

It will be fascinating to see what juries make of all the rest of the evidence that’s been amassed.