Republican senator calls Trump’s classified documents case a ‘slam dunk’

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One of the Republican senators who voted to convict Donald Trump for his role in the January 6 Capitol riot has described the criminal case regarding the former president’s handling of classified documents as a “slam dunk”.

Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA) spoke to Kasie Hunt on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday where he said that Mr Trump should drop out of the 2024 presidential race.

“I'm not an attorney. There's 91 charges, I think,” he said.

“I think the charge that seems most likely, I mean, seems almost a slam dunk is the one related to mishandling of classified documents.”

A federal grand jury indicted Mr Trump in June stemming from his unlawful retention of classified documents that included information related to national defence. The case is one of four indictments the former president now faces.

Mr Cassidy said that he could not comment on the other four cases, such as the indictment in Fulton County, Georgia or the other federal indictment for his actions trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

“But there's at least one which is the mishandling of the federal documents, which is, seems again, a very strong case they have a tape recording of them speaking of it,” Mr Cassidy said.

An audio recording reported by CNN showed Mr Trump discussing a document seemingly related to a potential military attack on Iran.

“If that is proven, then we may have a candidate for president who has been convicted of a crime,” Mr Cassidy said of the audio.

Mr Cassidy said that Mr Trump’s legal problems mean that President Joe Biden would win if the two went head to head in the 2024 race. The Republican senator said that he thinks Mr Trump should drop out of the race.

“But obviously, that's up to him. I mean, you're just asking me my opinion, but he will lose to Joe Biden,” he said.

“If you look at the current polls.”

When Ms Hunt asked if Mr Cassidy if he would support Mr Trump if he were to win, he implied that he would.

“I'm gonna vote for Republican but my threshold issue for any person who wants to be the leader of our country, is well, you take care of the issues before us,” he said.

He went on to criticise Mr Trump for keeping the same policy of not changing Social Security, which he said would lead to the program becoming insolvent.