That would make this prosecution a colossal waste if time, so I hope you’re not right. But I’m not quite optimistic enough to be sure Trump is going to come through this effectively unscathed.
FBI Search and Seizure at Trump's Mar-A-Lago Residence, August 8, 2022, Case Dismissed July 15, 2024
I can’t imagine the prosecution accepting anything less than a guilty plea, and I can’t imagine Loser Donald having the capacity to display a sense of guilt or contrition.
Who has to sign off on that? I can’t see Jack Smith agreeing to such a plea deal.
Another disturbing possibility, however, is that this could follow the pattern of former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell’s conviction on corruption charges. The Republican governor was convicted of corruption in 2012 for accepting numerous bribes, and the conviction was unanimously upheld by the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. McDonnell was sentenced to four years. The prosecutor in that case: Jack Smith. And then the Supreme Court magically reversed the conviction.
OUCH!
Oh please…not that. 
House arrest would be ok if he was enjoined from ever running for office again. And if he was kept off of social media, he would hopefully fade from public consciousness like a malignant growth that shrinks when its blood supply is restricted.
You are correct. I’ll add some context. The wording in the Espionage Act (of 1917) says you can’t retain documents relating to national defense. The reason it doesn’t mention classification, is because that wasn’t a thing in 1917. Classifying documents came decades(?) later - definitely after. So, that’s literally the only reason it doesn’t technically have to be classified to be related to national defense/NDI (national defense information) to be a crime under the Espionage Act.
With that said, it would be hard to fathom charging someone under the Espionage Act who stole non-classified NDI. I’m open to seeing what that possibly might be.
Also, while being classified doesn’t = NDI, it’s very determinative whether it is or is not and Courts definitely use it to determine whether documents relate to national defense. Being classified means the Gov’t determined it is “information that would damage national security if publicly disclosed”. Secret and Top Secret are only higher degrees of serious (ie, serious damage / grave damage). So, it doesn’t have to be classified, but if it is, how could it not be related to national defense/NDI? Possible if something was accidentally classified/erred on stamping something classified that wasn’t, but unlikely. Trump was charged with 20 Top Secret documents - hard to image a mistake there.
I mentioned upthread about dealing with these sensitive documents pre-trial and how long and difficult it might be, but using common sense they are related to national defense. It’s just that everyone should be able to defend themselves and a classified stamp doesn’t mean it’s classified (like your banana example, that would be incorrectly classified even though it was marked classified). So while the defense has some leverage (properly defending themselves; or daring the Gov’t to publish this to drop charges - called graymail, which is similar to blackmail, etc), on the flipside you might just stipulate these contain document NDI and focus on other elements of the crime. I just don’t see a stipulation coming in this case.
Wouldn’t the same cover-sheet markings that specify the classification level, also specify that it was national defense information?
Simply by being classified it is, by definition, National Defense Information.
" What constitutes national defense information?
As used in this order this term is synonymous with “classified information.” It is any information which must be protected against unauthorized disclosure in the interest of the national defense or foreign relations of the United States."
I wouldn’t object to some kind of clemency converting a prison term to house arrest, but he has to spend at least some time in prison first, behind several locked doors.
Because that’s the only possible way he would ever, even potentially, understand how colossally he fucked up here. It’s like in the Shawshank Redemption, the scene where they talk about the new guys’ first night in prison, when the reality of it finally hits them - they’re there, and there’s no getting out. Trump is behind a locked door, and no amount of demanding, ordering, or begging will get the guards to open that door before they’re good and ready to open it.
He needs to feel that, if he’s capable of it.
They could easily have the house arrest mimic the conditions of Florence Supermax.
23 hours of containment with 1 hour outside, no internet, limited visitors, etc. it would actually be very easy with trump’s various properties and secret service.
Give him the Pablo Escobar Treatment. Allow him to design and pay for his own luxurious prison.
The catch is, it will be built by contractors he’s screwed out of money in the past.
And it will be in North Dakota.
“Oh, sorry, Mr. First Convicted president, you didn’t want that gold toilet to actually flush, did you?”
National defense information isn’t a defined category. It’s something for the jury to decide.
I wonder about that. I don’t believe that any of the attorneys on either side doubt that Smith selected the 31 documents because they’re the real McCoy. By all accounts, the guy is a cold-blooded legal assassin who ensures that i’s are dotted and t’s are crossed.
If that’s a given (perhaps it’s not), what benefit does questioning the nature of the documents produce? Certainly it’s a strategy for delay, but at what cost?
I posted this somewhere (maybe this thread), but if the defense is pretty certain the documents are what the DOJ says, what does the jury infer after weeks of confirming that the documents are the real deal? “Oh, okay, turns out the contents seized weren’t bananas and magazines. Our bad!” Doesn’t that seem like flailing and weak to the jury?
Doesn’t that cement, in a way that mere classification does not, that this is serious, serious shit? “OMG! He kept nuclear secrets regarding XYZ in a bathroom!”
Frankly, I lack the imagination to come up with a strategy the defense could employ to get Trump out of the soup. Creating doubt and concerns about the nature of the stuff would help, but it’s not likely to happen. More than that, it removes any doubt a dunderhead on the jury might otherwise have had—“Man, I wonder what’s really in that stuff? I wonder if it’s as bad as they say.”
I would not be at all surprised Trump’s instructions to his lawyers are along the lines of:
“Let’s get hundreds of thousands of my supporters to storm the courtroom!”
“Tell Judge Cannon to shut this thing down immediately. Tell her she owes me.”
“STOLEN ELECTION! WITCH HUNT! LAPTOP! COFEVE!”
From everything I’ve read and heard reported, Trump has two defense strategies: 1) Hope for help from his sympathetic judge in empaneling a biased jury and issuing biased rulings; and 2) Delay in the hope that he or another sympathetic Republican can retake the White House, so he can obtain a pardon.
He really doesn’t have any defense to the charges contained in the indictment. Smith has got him pinned. I expected nothing less from the “cold-blooded legal assassin who ensures that i’s are dotted and t’s are crossed.” (Great description!!)
He will never understand that, no matter what happens. He will always see himself as the victim of a vast conspiracy.
Punishing him is to serve as a warning to future Trumps.
Emphasis added. Makes sense, and it’s about all they have. I guess they will be arguing over semi-colons for a few weeks after all.
What’s another word for ‘victim’, again?
Honestly, it’s very close to immaterial to me how Trump feels, or if he ever realizes he screwed up. What I hope for is for the American electorate to realize that we screwed up.
Unless Trump stipulates to this pre-trial, I think the prosecution would still have to prove the documents were NDI as an element of the crime (e.g., get an expert up there to explain why this is NDI). It is an element of the crime, no question. How it’s proven, is for me at least, more complicated. I’m now leaning they will lightly redact and declassify all this.
So what would Trump gain by not stipulating this NDI fact? I think your assessment is accurate. Factually, it seems the easiest part of this crime to prove. He can try to make a stupid argument that he de-classified them while President, but he can’t change the nature of the document itself - it says what it says and what it says means NDI, classified or not.