In the coming days and weeks, plenty of people are going to weigh in on the decision to “wind down” the federal cases against Donald Trump after his election win. It’s disappointing, for sure, but there isn’t much choice: Trump already told everyone back in October that, on his very first day as president, he would fire Jack Smith and have the cases dismissed.

So what happens with all that evidence? We know that boatloads of it exist, we’ve SEEN a bunch of it already.

On Thursday, there was a discussion of this very topic on MSNBC. In attendance was Ken Dilanian, the NBC justice correspondent. He posed the question that was on everyone’s mind:

“There are a lot of questions really about all these cases, including the federal cases, which is, for example, what happens to the evidence?” Dilanian said. “What if Donald Trump gets into office and orders all the evidence to be destroyed? Is there a chance that any of these cases could be resumed?”

Trump was indicted on four charges of trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Special Prosecutor Jack Smith has been handling those cases. He was also facing 40 counts for taking classified documents from the White House while he was president, but the presiding judge — Aileen Cannon, one of his appointees — dismissed that case.

So, of course the conversation must be about the fact that Trump will likely be able to evade prosecution for his crimes. But it must equally be about whether this can be the standard going forward, and whether he will be allowed to destroy the evidence.

A law professor from NYU, Stephen Gillers, told a news outlet on Friday that the Supreme Court’s July ruling on presidential immunity could shield Trump from prosecution if he does order the evidence to be destroyed, even though it would be illegal to do so.

“Various federal obstruction of justice statutes would make any such conduct a felony,” Gillers said. “But the Supreme Court’s immunity decision would very likely prevent prosecution of Trump for any instruction to destroy the evidence.”

But, he says, the people who carry out such an order would not be immune to prosecution. “Immunity under the court’s decision does not extend to anyone who carries out a president’s instruction,” he said. “So they could be prosecuted for obstruction even if Trump could not.”

Of course, he added, “This assumes that the Supreme Court will not later extend immunity to subordinates of the president who implement his wishes.”

Former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani saw it from another perspective:

“I don’t think destruction of evidence is a concern. The key evidence [in the election fraud case] has already all been seen by the January 6 committee or, in the classified documents case, the evidence has been filed in court, albeit under seal,” he said.

“Once the election fraud case is dismissed, it can’t be refiled after Trump leaves office because the statute of limitations will have run,” Rahmani said. “The statute for most federal crimes is five years. Now that Trump has won, the prosecutions are over and the evidence doesn’t matter.”

That’s unfortunate, because he almost assuredly would have been found guilty. It would have made it to the Supreme Court, of course, where his convictions would suffer an uncertain fate. But it would maintain an unblemished record of losing for Donald Trump.

The weird part of all of this is that the destruction of evidence still wouldn’t be enough proof of wrongdoing for his true believers. I mean, undertaking the destruction of evidence is essentially an admission of guilt, but MAGA cultists would see it as simply a correction of the record.

This, despite the fact that a pretty sizeable cross-section of the evidence came from the Republican ex-aides who Trump appointed, who were disgusted by his behavior. There were even some who went to jail themselves, who flipped on Trump just so they wouldn’t be alone in having been prosecuted for the crimes that Trump carried out.

Imagine if you were nothing but a spoke in a wheel of crime, and you went to jail for something you only participated in, that you didn’t instigate yourself but merely followed instructions that were illegal to give in the first place. And imagine that the guy who gave the instructions was later allowed to destroy all the evidence — you know, the evidence that already sent you to jail — so that he could avoid punishment himself.

That might make someone pretty bitter, I’d imagine. I’m bitter about the whole thing, and I wasn’t anywhere NEAR the Trump crime spree.