June 12, 2023
The federal felony charges including the ones under the Espionage Act against former President Trump are stirring up a lot of questions. And I want to make it clear – they don’t mean what a lot of you think they mean. So let me explain what the special counsel is actually alleging the former President did by charging him with these 37 counts.
First and most importantly – yes the special counsel charged the former President under the Espionage Act. Now – I know that word immediately makes you think spies and foreign government. But the Espionage Act has a lot of components. The specific charge the former President is facing under the Espionage Act is 18 USC 793 section E.
Section E is about willful retention of national defense information. Basically, illegally having possession of, access to or control over any document related to national defense *or willfully communicating that information to someone else. It’s important to not under 18 USC 793 e – the word classified does *not* appear. So whether the document was classified or not is technically irrelevant.
As for the other charges – have you ever heard the phrase – the cover up is worse than the crime? That’s what the other charges basically deal with – 18 USC 15-12 sections (k) (b) (a) (c) and 18 USC 1001 section (a)(1)and (2)….all deal with conspiracy to obstruct justice, withholding documents, concealing documents and making false statements to law enforcement. Those charges aren’t about whether the president had the documents, those charges are specifically about him allegedly not giving them back or allegedly trying to hide them from the grand jury.
It’s also important for you to understand what the former President is *not* charged with. The former President and his team turned over boxes of presidential records and classified documents to the national archives long before the FBI search of Mar a Lago happened. I outlined that timeline in this video. And the former President is absolutely *not* being charged with any crime for those documents. He gave those back so no harm no foul. And we know nearly 200 additional documents with classified markings of confidential, secret, top secret and top secret sci were found during the August 2022 search of the former President’s home. Of those only 31 are listed as criminal possession in the indictment. So there’s well over 150 documents found at Mar-a- Lago that the former president is *not* being charged with.
