Trump might have made Evan Corcoran, another former lawyer who withdrew from his defense in the Mar-a-Lago documents investigation, into a witness against him. According to the indictment, after Trump was issued a subpoena last year seeking the return of any classified documents, Trump took steps to remove boxes of documents from a storage room that Corcoran intended to search through in order to find materials responsive to the subpoena. The steps Trump took to have those boxes removed from the storage room, an episode now at the heart of the obstruction charge, caused Corcoran to certify a false certification to the justice department confirming that no further documents were at the property, the indictment said.

Even the likely 20 year sentence could be a "life" sentence for Trump.