BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) – Former President Trump pleaded not guilty Tuesday to dozens of felony charges that he seized classified documents and denied government demands to return them at a court appearance in Miami.
Several local attorneys and political analysts joined News 4 Tuesday to discuss the proceedings and what might be next. None of the lawyers are involved in the former president’s case.
“It’s clear that some attorneys must have been witnesses here. They indicated that they were asked to do things that were illegal,” said local criminal attorney Paul Cambria. “There are security cameras all over Mar-a-Lago, those security cameras show records and record movements and people accessing records that they didn’t have authority to do.”
Political analysts Jack O’Donnell and Carl Calebrese say President Trump’s lawyers should want to drag out a trial as long as it can last, even if it reaches the 2024 election.
“If I’m Donald Trump’s lawyers, I’d like to extend this,” O’Donnell said. “I wish I had the election, I wish I could say he won, or X million people support him, how can you do that to him, I wish I had that kind of evidence.”
“I think Donald Trump would love for this trial to be a jury of his 140 million peers and essentially be a referendum. Do you want Donald Trump to be president regardless of all of this, or not? Calabrese said.
However, that is not particularly up to the former president to decide, said political analyst Shawn Donahue. Donahue also said President Trump can continue to campaign the way he has during the legal process if it works.
“You’d have to think that if he sees his poll numbers going in a positive direction based on the way he’s campaigning, he’d continue to do that,” Donahue said. “The only thing we don’t know right now is the scheduling of a potential trial, when it would take place. A lot of that will depend on the judge in the case.”
Legal analyst Barry Covert says no matter what happens, this case will be remembered throughout history.
“Everyone involved in this case will be written about for the next 100, 200, 300 years,” Covert said. “Look at how we talk about (former President Richard) Nixon’s case, and he wasn’t even impeached, he wasn’t even impeached, but our generation remembers the Nixon proceedings. We remember the OJ Simpson case. This will surpass them everyone, pun intended.”
You can watch all the full interviews below:
Paul Cambria
Barry Covert
Jack O’Donnell and Carl Calabreese
Shawn Donahue
Aidan Joly joined the News 4 staff in 2022. He is a graduate of Canisius College. You can see more of his work here.
