I don’t think it has any bearing on his case.
But it does show him in yet another lie, one he has taken great pains to repeat and stress over and over again, so it won’t do his reputation any favors.
FBI Search and Seizure at Trump's Mar-A-Lago Residence, August 8, 2022, Case Dismissed July 15, 2024
Apparently the Espionage Act, from WWI, pre-dates the system of classification, which is based on executive powers.
The Espionage Act makes it an offence to disclose gov’t documents that are harmful to the national security of the United States. The classification level (if any) of the documents is not determinative for a charge under the Espionage Act. The question is whether disclosing it is harmful to national security. The classification of the document may be one factual issue that assists in determining if disclosure would be harmful to national security, but the question remains the basic one of national security, not the classification level of the document.
By that analysis, the supposed war-plans for Iran that Trump is alleged to have waved around in Bedminster may or may not have been classified (although he admits it was), but regardless of classification, the question under the Espionage Act is whether disclosing harms national security.
Similarly, under the Energy Act provisions, there is a statutory classification system for nuclear matters, which can only be de-classified by following the procedure set out in the statute. There is no presidential jedi trick that allows mental (to use the term loosely) declassification of nuclear secrets.
(Note: am not a US lawyer, nor do I play one on tv, but this is what I’ve gathered from news reports since the Mar-a-Lago search. Kids, before you decide to disclose a secret US gov’t document, be sure to consult a lawyer licensed in your jurisdiction for legal advice!)
I think it does bear on this case. I think that is his main line of defense. That, as president, he can declassify any document he wants (which is true). And regardless of classification, as president, he can have access to any document whatsoever and can release them to anyone he chooses. Therefore, in his mind, he cannot be prosecuted for documents found at his resort.
It’s not a good defense but it seems all he has.
Again, using the term loosely…
That seems weirdly broad and borderline impossible to adjudicate.
That is one of the criticisms that has been made of the Espionage Act provisions, but the courts have to do their best to adjudicate charges under the Act.
But he wasn’t president at the time.
That doesn’t make it any more relevant. He could be using the Chewbacca Defense and I might point out that Chewbacca did not in fact live on Endor, but rather only spent some time there during the events surrounding the Battle of Endor. That still would have no bearing on the case because that line of defense was meaningless from the start.
Has a court decided that?
It seems it is a part of his legal defense. Maybe it will fail but his attorneys seem to think it is worth a try.
To be fair, I think this is uncharted legal territory.
My point is that Trump is not saying he had a standing order to declassify documents. At least, not to the court. Only to the press, which includes his base, who venerate Trump for his high morals.
This base is very strict on morals. They have a list of ten “Commandments” that illustrate these morals, which includes, “Thy shalt not lie”. But, perhaps surprisingly, this base also believe it is not only OK to lie, but the 1st Amendment to the US Constitution (a document obviously modeled to conform to those Commandments) guarantees not only that each and every American has the right to lie about anything they want to, but the Government is required to insure an individual’s lies are broadcast to the highest extent possible.
Now, if you don’t see anything wrong with the logic in the previous paragraph, you just might be interested in the modern Republican Party. The Party of Jesus.
I think Jesus would have…objections.
Not Jesus’ Party. The Party of Jesus.
From further down the article:
Notably, Trump’s lawyers do not mention a standing order in court documents because they could be penalized for making false statements.
It doesn’t seem to be part of his legal defense. It’s part of his campaign. None of the actual legal filings are referencing classification status.
Many of the charges, all the obstruction charges in particular, do not depend on classification status at all. Not even a little.
I’ve been pointing this out in this thread for a year now.
Weird since the media consistently reports this as Trump’s classified documents case.
The former vice president was just in the news referring to classification.
And, Trump’s indictment mentions “…willful retention of national defense information.”
I looked that up and it says,
national defense information means something more than export-controlled information.
< snip >
When the records or reports contain National defense information, classifying and handling will be in accordance with AR 380–5. - SOURCE
AR 380-5 (PDF) seems to talk a lot about classification.
(Also, happy cake day!)
Yes, sadly the media has fallen for this misdirection, but you don’t have to.
For really, really, real, none of the obstruction charges depend one iota on the classification status of the documents in question.
Not as part of the formal charge, but I would think the classification of particular documents could help with the evidential burden on the prosecution, to demonstrate that their release could be harmful to national security.
If a document has the highest possible classification, restricted to only a certain group of officials, and can only be reviewed in an SCIF, that will help the prosecutor to argue that the unauthorized release of that document is harmful to national security. The care taken to protect it is a measure of its importance.
I know it’s confusing (and that’s understandable, it is all very unintuitive) but the charges that were filed by Jack Smith were done in such a way that the whole issue of classification was sidestepped. That was deliberate on the part of the prosecution.
I already shared an article explaining it, I’ll share it again, and quote a different part:
But when a federal grand jury handed up a 37-count indictment of the former president in connection with the documents, the court papers revealed a curious thing: The Justice Department had moved to legally sidestep the issue of classification in several meaningful ways, nipping in the bud one of Trump’s long-standing defenses and avoiding a thorny legal fight.
Prosecutors indicted the former president on 31 counts of willful detention of national defense information, charging Trump under a specific statute of the so-called Espionage Act – 18 U.S. Code § 793(e) – that makes it a crime to have unauthorized possession or control of any “information relating to the national defense.” Notably, the statute does not anywhere specify that the information must be classified to fall under the umbrella of “information relating to the national defense.”
And perhaps more important than what prosecutors charged Trump with is what they chose not to charge Trump with: a separate criminal statute regarding the “unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material.”
In other words, although all 31 documents listed in the indictment were classified – including at some of the highest possible levels of classification – the Justice Department is charging Trump because the materials contained information about the national defense, not solely because of their classification status. As such, the decision sets aside what had been one of Trump World’s most reliable mechanisms for muddying the debate.
This. Technically, classification does not matter, but that’s purely an artifact as the classification system was not in existence when the Espionage Act was passed long ago.
You can definitely use a properly classified marking as evidence that something is national defense information - Courts have agreed. Classified means something is sensitive information that must be protected - Secret/Top Secret are higher degrees of sensitive information.
I mean, it would be hard to fathom NDI that is not classified. And if it wasn’t classified (ie, determined to not be sensitive information that must be protected), why would anyone really care. I’m wondering if someone has ever recently been charged under the Espionage Act with retaining properly unclassified NDI - it’d would be a very weak charge even if possible. Maybe a simple theft crime, but not Espionage.
So classifications inherently help the prosecution prove something is NDI - because that makes sense. If something is not nor should have been classified, that would help prove it was not NDI.
Trump’s argument is unconvincing because he’s leaving out the properly part. Leaving out whether it information “should have been” and/or was previously properly classified. Maybe this is what Lance_Turbo is referring to (magically disappearing the properly classified status doesn’t matter) - I would agree that marking doesn’t matter - but disagree that it did not matter that it was properly classified previously at some point close in time.
I’ll add a 4-page Congressional Research Service memo on this documents case matter. It explains, in part:
The Espionage Act does not define national defense information, but courts have elaborated on its
meaning. In a 1941 decision, Gorin v. United States, the Supreme Court agreed with the interpretation that national defense is a “generic concept of broad connotations, relating to the military and naval establishments and the related activities of national preparedness.” Lower courts have since stated that, to qualify as national defense information, the information must be “closely held” and its disclosure “potentially damaging” to the United States or useful to its adversaries.None of the statutes in the indictment requires that the materials at issue be classified, although the classified status of such documents may be relevant to a court’s determination under the Espionage Act as to whether the documents contain information that is closely held by the government and thus meet the definition of national defense information. Courts generally give great deference to the executive branch in matters related to security classification.
Splitters!