Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) said he believes that former President Donald Trump is in "real trouble" in the classified documents case after a recent filing from special counsel Jack Smith indicated there was additional evidence in the case.
Whitehouse said the court filing tells him that federal prosecutors believe they have a strong case against the former president. The filing said Smith has begun providing the evidence he plans to use to Trump's lawyers, including multiple interviews of Trump.
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“It tells me that there’s going to be bad Christmas for the Trump lawyers as they open the different files of evidence and find out how awful the evidence is against their client,” Whitehouse told MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell on Wednesday.
“And it tells me that they want to get Trump’s attention early by getting his lawyers the evidence that they need to be able to go to their client and say, ‘Hey, you are in real trouble here.'"
Trump was indicted by a Florida grand jury earlier this month on charges of mishandling classified documents after he left the Oval Office. He faces 37 charges related to the classified document scandal, including 31 counts for the willful retention of national defense information, which violates the Espionage Act.
Judge Aileen Cannon has set a preliminary trial date for the case for Aug. 14, but the former president's defense team is expected to delay the trial beyond August via pretrial motions.
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The case stems from an FBI raid conducted last August at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida. The FBI seized hundreds of classified documents in the raid, but only 31 are being used in the case. He was also recently barred from sharing the classified documents used in the case and is only allowed to view the documents in the presence of his attorneys.
Trump has pleaded "not guilty" to all charges.