Donald Trump Jr might as well have just confessed

| 10:00 pm EDT September 11, 2018
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Each time Donald Trump Jr opens his mouth about his role in the Trump-Russia scandal, he inches himself that much closer to a prison cell. For reasons known only to him, Junior – who would be smart to lay low and hope investigators never get around to focusing on him while they’re in the process of taking down his father – decided to do an interview today with ABC’s Good Morning America. His answers were, well, bizarre.

Donald Trump Jr started off the interview halfway decently. When he was asked if he’s afraid of “legal exposure” (translation: going to prison) for the felonies he committed while meeting with the Russians during the campaign, he gave this answer: “I’m not because I know what I did, and I’m not worried about any of that. That doesn’t mean they won’t try to create something, I mean, we’ve seen that happen with everything.” This is more or less what you’d expect the target of an investigation to say. But then he said arguably the stupidest thing he’s ever said.

Here’s where Junior really screwed himself: “I’m not worried about that at all, because you know, I’ve done nothing that anyone else wouldn’t do in that position.” He’s practically admitting that he committed the crimes he’s accused of, and he’s falling back on the argument that anyone placed in his position would have committed the same crimes. But that’s not a legal argument.

If you walk past an open bank vault and you see a million dollars in cash sitting there unattended, and you steal it, and you get caught, you’re going to prison. You can argue at your trial that plenty of other people would have also taken the money in that situation, but that’ll get you nowhere. On the other hand, Donald Trump Jr’s assertion that anyone in his position would have committed the same crimes? You can expect prosecutors to use those words against him at trial, because it sounds a lot like a thinly veiled confession.