Legal analyst and former U.S. attorney Harry Litman on Monday said he believes “the table is set” for the imminent indictment of Donald Trump in special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the former president’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election result and his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection.
“There’s one main signal,” Litman told MSNBC’s Joy Reid.
“That is, everything they’re talking about in terms of witnesses they have to interview, they don’t need the grand jury for, but it is customary,” he explained. “And in this case, it will happen that Trump’s lawyers will be afforded a final chance to come in and make a last-minute plea, which will not succeed, but they have the opportunity.”
Litman noted Trump’s increasingly unhinged rhetoric about the probe.
Last week, Trump shared a video on his Truth Social platform in which he is heard saying: “If you fuck around with us, if you do something bad to us, we are going to do things to you that have never been done before.”
The “hysteria levels from Trump are hitting the stratosphere because this is one that he would know about,” Litman said of the possible indictment.
“So, to me, the table is set, Smith is ready to go and that’s what the target letter means save only you guys coming in or not? And by the way, you can’t take two weeks, you know, come in off the pitch after that. Here’s the indictment,” he added.
Smith last week sent Trump a target letter in his probe.
On Sunday, former acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal predicted Trump would be indicted this week. “You don’t send the target letter to a former president, unless you’re pretty darn sure that you’ve got the goods,” he said.
Trump already faces trial in 2024 over the Stormy Daniels hush money case.
He remains under investigation in Georgia for attempting to overthrown the 2020 election result and has been charged with Espionage Act violations for allegedly mishandling classified documents after leaving the White House.