Trump's big mouth is going to get him in the end

The jaws of justice are beginning to tighten around the ankles of Defendant Trump.  One of the great ironies of this century, or any other for that matter, is that the jaws are Defendant Trump’s own.  That is to say, the verbiage spewed by those jaws back in 2020 is coming back to bite his own capacious ass.

Defendant Trump was trying to overturn the election he had lost, the election he had been told by his campaign advisers that he lost, the election evidence gathered by Special Counsel Jack Smith shows that he knew he lost, and he engaged in every scammy little gambit he could think of to accomplish his ill begotten and illegal goal.  It turns out that Defendant Trump, famously averse to putting things down on paper or sending texts and emails, was making use of one of the things he wasn’t afraid of – in-person meetings and talking on the telephone, into which he spoke incriminating words making illegal demands that are now in special counsel Smith’s crosshairs.

CNN reported this week that the FBI has spoken to former Arizona Speaker of the House Rusty Bowers about two conversations he had with Defendant Trump in November of 2020.  The first conversation was with Defendant Trump and his then-lawyer and friend Rudy Giuliani.  Later, Bowers spoke with Defendant Trump alone, without Giuliani or any other aides in on the phone call.  Bowers has not said what he talked about with Defendant Trump alone on the phone, but he testified movingly before the January 6 Committee about the call he got from Defendant Trump and Giuliani. 

This is my bi-weekly column in Salon. You can read the rest of it on Salon.com.

Trump's big mouth