Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton burst into full-throated roars of laughter at former President Donald Trump’s expense on the eve of his second indictment while basking in schadenfreude Monday night.
Trump pleaded not guilty to 37 federal counts in a Miami courtroom on Tuesday to charges that he mishandled top secret docs – an ironic development considering his 2016 attacks against Clinton for supposedly doing the same.
“I have a lot of reactions,” Clinton crowed with delight when asked about the case against her former presidential rival at a Tribeca Film Festival taping of the podcast Pod Save America.
“I think the best reaction – publicly – is let’s see how it unfolds and see what happens, right?”
Joined by New York Attorney General Letitia James and comic Roy Wood, Jr., a visibly amused Clinton said Trump entered “dangerous territory” by allegedly storing top secrets near a toilet inside his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida among other questionable locations.
When presented with a t-shirt that read “Totally Impartial Potential Juror,” the former secretary of state howled with laughter – seemingly unaware of her own actions.
She guffawed at comparisons between how she supposedly mishandled top-secret docs compared to the Florida Man who claims he values law-and-order – at least when it has nothing to do with himself.
“It’s odd let’s just say to the point of being absurd,” she said about Republicans who still bring the topic up while refusing to acknowledge the seriousness of Trump’s alleged actions.
The former secretary of state used a private email server while she served in the Obama administration – a practice that resulted in a rhetorical wrist slap from the feds but no formal charges.
Trump allegedly took documents from the White House when he left office in disgrace in early 2021 –reportedly including sensitive details on topics like nuclear weapons and prospective war plans against Iran – then hid them from the feds once they came looking for them last year.
Maybe some responsibility is in order, with minimal excuses on the side? Clinton suggested.
“This is [about Trump] – not about anybody else – no matter how much they try to confuse people and how much they try to raise extraneous issues,” Clinton said of Trump’s GOP defenders. “And it’s going to be fascinating, I guess, in a bizarre and sad way to watch them spin themselves up.”
The notoriously narcissistic Trump has denied he ever committed anything wrong while casting himself as the victim of a political witch hunt despite the evidence against him collected by local, state, and federal authorities from both political parties.
The 2024 GOP frontrunner is expected to go to trial in Manhattan sometime next year following his indictment by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg on 34 felony counts of business fraud related to an alleged hush-money payment by Trump to porn star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election.
His business could also get banned from operating in New York if state Attorney General Letitia James wins a civil fraud case against Trump that is scheduled to go to trial this October.
He also faces potential criminal charges stemming from two different probes overseen by Fulton County District Attorney Fanni Willis in Georgia and special counsel Jack Smith, who filed the federal indictment over mishandling documents last Thursday, over Trump’s deranged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
“I believe that my case, as well as DA Bragg’s and the Georgia case, will unfortunately have to be adjourned pending the outcome of the federal case. So, it all depends upon the scheduling of this particular case,” James said on the podcast after appearing after Clinton – a rare admission about pending lawsuit.
She added that she is “concerned” about how US District Judge Aileen Cannon might handle the federal documents case against Trump, considering her past records of moves helpful to his interests.
“I know there’s going to be a flood of flurry of motions – motions to dismiss, discovery issues, all of that. So it really all depends. Obviously, all of us want to know what this judge – Judge Cannon – is going to do and whether or not she’s going to delay this particular case.”
The federal case could affect pending criminal matters, while its effect on civil actions will likely be much smaller.
Attorney Roberta Kaplan said “there is no overlap” between the federal criminal case and her own litigation against Trump related to sexual abuse claims by writer E. Jean Carroll that were vindicated at a civil trial earlier this year.
Former federal prosecutor Justin Danilewitz told The Post on Tuesday that local or state authorities could put their own legal actions against Trump on ice, but any decisions would likely depend on how the federal documents case plays out in Florida in the coming days and weeks.
“The federal cases are frequently the 900-pound gorilla so it does make some sense that states would defer to the federal proceeding. They have good reason to do so because that is likely to take center stage and there may be discovery that comes out of the federal case that the state can benefit from.
“It could also give them an opportunity to assess the witnesses and help further their investigation. That said, states are separate sovereigns, so they have the ability to separately prosecute even the same conduct.”