It’s been a whole week since Donald Trump’s televised primetime town hall and CNN is still wondering if anyone will ever watch or trust the network again. Their ratings are down, often finding themselves in FOURTH place behind Newsmax. NEWSMAX. Think about that for a moment. The network founded by Ted Turner. The network that had anchor Bernard Shaw reporting from under a desk as bombs dropped in Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War. Now they find themselves behind Newsmax because ratings and money were more important than the truth.

Anderson Cooper is having the same existensial crisis after gaslighting America by lecturing us about having to listen to Trump, the one who cannot be debated, nor questioned. As Chris Hayes summed up after the town hall; “Trump’s only argument for electing him president is that he should rule, period.”

Not for nothing but Hayes also noted that Trump attempted to destroy American democracy during his first term and he’s attempting to come back and finish the job. Trump isn’t running for his second term, according to Hayes, he’s running for his “forever term.” (Something that we have reported and reported and reported…)

Trump felt loose and why wouldn’t he? CNN allowed Trump fans only. They told the audience that they could cheer but they couldn’t boo. Despite the fact that CNN should have its cable television license revoked, the “looseness” allowed Trump to feel confident enough to talk, and when he talks, and talks, and talks… without a lawyer present, he talks about various elements of crimes he’s committed.

Trump may have just given prosecutors an entire exhibit with so much evidence it will have to be spliced, Exhibit F-4(c). From Newsweek, we know that the country’s most esteemed law professor, the man who taught constitutional law to nearly every SCOTUS justice (don’t blame the professor), Professor Laurence Tribe – a gentleman, as well as a fantastic teacher – noted that Trump spit up a lot of evidence that might help convict him. (Tribe’s explanation below).

Trump’s CNN performance was one long series of confessions, strongly accelerating Special Counsel Smith’s timeline toward multiple indictments https://t.co/U3EjQVL85T

— Laurence Tribe 🇺🇦 ⚖️ (@tribelaw) May 12, 2023

Tribe, always teaching, explained a tweet in which he said that Trump helped Jack Smith by spilling a lot of facts by emailing Newsweek:

I had in mind the way CNN’s fake town hall gave Trump a platform to praise the insurrectionists as ‘great people’; to pledge that he would pardon ‘a large portion’ of them who are serving time; and to make clear that he fully intended the violent attack on the Capitol and on Mike Pence that his remarks incited, refusing to express regret even for having endangered his vice president’s very life,” Tribe told Newsweek via email Friday.

“Those remarks filled any remaining gaps in the proof of Trump’s intent to foment what the law defines as an insurrection,” he added. “In addition, Trump’s admission that he wanted to exploit Pence’s role by working with the fake electors and his lawyers to prevent the electoral votes actually cast on December 14 [2020] from being counted amounts to a confession of seditious conspiracy in the form of an attempted coup.”

l wouldn’t dare add anything to the professor’s summation.

And there’s more. Tribe also detailed how Trump gave up crucial evidence in the missing documents case. In a piece he wrote for Slate, Tribe wrote that Trump gave up a ton of evidence. But probably the most serious was what he revealed about taking classified documents from the White House. And what Trump revealed didn’t necessarily contribute to the criminal charges, but to where the eventual venue will be, Florida – where Trump took the documents – or Washington, DC – where Trump stole the documents from.

Tribe wrote, “One statement stands out for a reason of criminal procedure rather than just substantive criminal law: Trump made an admission that helps secure Washington, D.C., rather than Florida, as the proper venue for the indictment and trial. Where this case is tried can be the whole ballgame.

When asked why he took government documents from the White House, Trump answered: “I was there and I took what I took. … I had every right to do it. I didn’t make a secret of it. You know, the boxes were stationed outside of the White House.”

"I took what I took" — Trump on classified documents pic.twitter.com/8FnlNUq58f

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 11, 2023

There it is. “I was there and I took what I took”. Three I’d. Trump did it.

Tribe continued, “With those fateful words, Trump admitted that he was involved in willfully removing the documents from the White House. It is a federal crime to “willfully and unlawfully … remove … any … document … in any public office … of the United States.” Indeed, the Justice Department has identified “improper removal,” or “unlawful” removal, as a key concern in court filings in the Mar-a-Lago litigation.

Before making that admission, Trump might have blamed the removal on his aides. Indeed, his lawyers had recently done just that. In a letter they sent to the chair of the House Intelligence Committee last month, they claimed the removal of the documents marked as classified was a result of staff error and inadvertence.

But that no longer holds. Trump’s own statement directly implicates him in the deliberate removal of the documents at issue.

Tribe says that this case is all about location, location, location. And if it took place in Florida, Trump could get Aileen Cannon as a judge, and Trump-friendly jurors. In Washington DC, neither of those things would happen.

Having the venue be in DC could also allow Smith to charge Trump with conspiracy, which is a 5-year sentence.

“Another point as to venue is easily overlooked: an indictment for conspiracy. One potential charge Smith could bring is conspiracy to defraud the United States of its property or lawful functions—functions like maintaining national security documents in secure locations. That charge, of course, depends on Smith’s proof of an agreement between Trump and another person to remove the documents.

Conspiracy charges carry a potential five-year sentence, two years longer than the maximum prison term for unlawful removal of government property.”

I strongly recommend reading Tribe’s full Slate article. Of course much depends on how hard Smith goes on Trump. But as Tribe details, Smith now has the evidence to potentially lock Trump up for years. Let’s hope Smith realizes just how dangerous Trump is, and either locks the man up, or makes a deal to prevent him from ever seeking public office again.