Neal Katyal Predicts an Indictment for Trump and ‘A Pretty Easy Conviction’ in Mar-a-Lago Documents Case

Former U.S. Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal predicted that Attorney General Merrick Garland will reluctantly indict Donald Trump.

Katyal added that securing a conviction against the former president for absconding from the White House with classified documents should be “pretty easy.”

On Friday’s Deadline: White House, Nicolle Wallace asked Katyal about the possibility of the Department of Justice charging Trump with crimes related to the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection.

“Part of Garland’s problem is that Trump is such a rampant criminal in so many different spheres, in so many different places, that Garland’s got to kind of prioritize and figure out what goes, when,” Katyal stated. “So, obviously, like, Jan. 6 is such a fundamental betrayal of everything that America is about.”

However, he explained that charging Trump with Jan. 6-related offenses would likely prove “harder and more complicated,” unlike in the case where Trump took official government documents with him to Mar-a-Lago. Those documents – some of which are classified – were supposed to be turned over to the National Archives when he left office. Among them are reportedly materials about Iranian missile programs and intelligence on China.

“That is also really serious,” Katyal went on. “It’s not Jan.-6-potential-threat-to-democracy serious, but it’s incredibly serious for national security professionals. I used to have access to these kinds of documents. If I did even one one-thousandth of what Trump did, I’d be in jail in a second.”

Katyal said he believes Garland does not want to prosecute Trump, but may feel he doesn’t have a choice.

“I think that Garland is the guy who really doesn’t want to do this, who doesn’t want to bring criminal prosecutions against a former president of the United States,” he said. “My gut is, he feels he has to. Just to take the classified information thing for one, these are really serious crimes with lots and lots of jail time. How, if you run the Justice Department, do you look at the dozens and dozens of people you lock up every day for minor crimes and say, ‘Oh, yeah, you’re going to jail, six months, a year, five years, 10 years, but this guy, who did something far more serious, no.’

“How do you look at the intelligence community professionals who have literally given their lives for some of this information and say, ‘Oh, don’t worry, you know, next time we’ll do better?'”

Katyal predicted an indictment.

“So, I think Garland starts there,” he said. “I think he starts with an indictment in Washington, D.C. about Mar-a-Lago. And then, I think we’ll get a pretty easy conviction.”

Watch above via MSNBC.

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