As the entire world now knows, Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith's sweeping indictment of Donald Trump on a range of charges relating to the Mar-a-Lago documents investigation was released in full last Friday afternoon. Numerous explications of this remarkable document are available from many different media sources; criminologist and Trump expert Gregg Barak supplied an analysis for Salon over the weekend. Even former Attorney General Bill Barr, a staunch defender of Trump's dubious conduct while in office, now forecasts a dire legal future for the embattled former president.
But I still have questions; I imagine we all do. On Sunday I reached out to another frequent Salon contributor, former federal prosecutor Dennis Aftergut, now of counsel to Lawyers Defending American Democracy, a self-explanatory nonprofit. I wanted Dennis to share not just his legal expertise, although that's extremely important, but also his larger, atmospheric sense of this extraordinary indictment and its historical moment. We held this conversation by email; I have edited Dennis' responses here and there for clarity, but have not altered the substance of his remarks.
