Report: Trump Passed on a Plan to Avoid Criminal Charges, and Now He’s Facing Up To 400 Years in Prison

As you’ve probably heard, Donald Trump is currently in the eye of a legal shitstorm. Less than three months after being indicted by the Manhattan district attorney’s office, on Tuesday, he was arraigned on federal charges stemming from his handling of extremely classified documents, which included the willful retention of national defense information and conspiracy to obstruct justice. These are extremely serious crimes—to which the ex-president pleaded not guilty, as he did in the New York case—and, if convicted on all counts, Trump could legitimately be looking at going to prison for the rest of his life, a prospect that most people would want to steer clear of. And yet, given the opportunity to not just take prison off the table—and avoid an indictment entirely—the former guy apparently said, “thanks but no thanks.”

The Washington Post reports that in the fall of 2022, months before Trump was criminally charged, one of his new attorneys, Christopher Kise, proposed an idea to “quietly approach” the Department of Justice “to see if he could negotiate a settlement that would preclude charges, hoping Attorney General Merrick Garland and the department would want an exit ramp to avoid prosecuting a former president.” Kise, according to people he spoke with, believed there was an opportunity to “take the temperature down” by vowing to return all the documents the government had requested, and take a professional, decidedly non-Trump approach to the whole situation. (Again, given the choice of being indicted and risking prison time, or not being indicted and not risking prison time, most people would go with the latter!) But Trump, per the Post, “was not interested after listening to other lawyers who urged a more pugilistic approach, so Kise never approached prosecutors,” according to three people familiar with the matter. Shortly thereafter, Garland appointed Special Counsel Jack Smith to take over the investigation.

In a statement, a spokesman for the ex-president told the Post: “President Trump has consistently been in full compliance with the Presidential Records Act, which is the only law that applies to Presidents and their records. In the course of negotiations over the return of the documents, President Trump told the lead DOJ official, ‘anything you need from us, just let us know.’ Sadly, the weaponized DOJ rejected this offer of cooperation and conducted an unnecessary and unconstitutional raid on the President’s home in order to inflict maximum political damage on the leading presidential candidate.”

Of course, Trump’s reported rejection of Kise’s proposal was not the only time in the documents saga that the former guy passed on an opportunity to save himself due to some combination of ego and stupidity.

Since the National Archives first asked for the return of presidential documents in Trump’s possession in February 2021 and until a grand jury issued its indictment this month, Trump was repeatedly stubborn and eschewed opportunities to avoid criminal charges, according to people with knowledge of the case, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to reveal internal details. They note that Trump was not charged for any documents he returned voluntarily.

Interviews with seven Trump advisers with knowledge of the probe indicate he misled his own advisers, telling them the boxes contained only newspaper clippings and clothes. He repeatedly refused to give the documents back, even when some of his longest-serving advisers warned of peril and some flew to Mar-a-Lago to beg him to return them.

“It was a totally unforced error,” a person close to the ex-president told the Post. “We didn’t have to be here.” Trump’s second chief of staff, John Kelly, told the outlet he was not at all surprised that the former guy refused to give the documents back despite the fact that it could have gotten the government off his back. “He’s incapable of admitting wrongdoing. He wanted to keep it, and he says, ‘You’re not going to tell me what to do. I’m the smartest guy in the room,’” Kelly said.