President Trump sat for an interview with Bret Baier for Fox News Special Report. They played the first 30 minutes of the interview last night. They discussed the allegations of the documents indictment at the top of the interview and then moved on to other subjects. Trump’s comments seemed to me illustrative of some of the theses I have set forth in this series.

• President Trump is an impossible client. If he has a lead defense lawyer in this case, the attorney would certainly have instructed him not to make any substantive comments on the indictment. Either he doesn’t have one or ignored the advice.

• Trump should not have engaged with Baier on the factual allegations of the indictment or the related legal issues. He did not help himself. He helped the prosecution.

• In the give-and-take with Baier, Trump previewed his response to the incriminating audiotape quoted in the indictment. Trump asserted that he had no document with an Iranian attack plan in his possession.

• Trump also cited the Clinton sock drawer case in his defense. As stated previously in this series, this argument is a loser. Insofar as the indictment requires proof of Trump’s “willfully” retaining documents he was not authorized to retain (per 18 U.S.C. § 793(e)), his misunderstanding might bear on his state of mind.

• However, Trump cannot testify in his own defense at trial. He cannot withstand questioning by a well-informed journalist let alone cross-examination by a capable prosecutor supervised by a judge.

• Trump’s assertion that he was “very busy” — too busy to return the documents that had been subpoenaed — tends to support key allegations of the indictment. The government’s interactions with Trump during the relevant period of time are set forth in this application for an order allowing limited disclosure of grand jury information.