Trump Has a long history of stiffing on payments whether it’s architects, lawyers or even for his campaign rallies.
https://jewishworldreview.com/0623/carter061423.php How Trump's indictment compares to other espionage act cases By Stephen Carter Bloomberg View Published June 14, 2023 Is former President Donald Trump being treated unfairly by the special counsel? That's the claim being made by many of his supporters following his indictment last week on felony charges related to hundreds of classified documents found at his Mar-a-Lago estate. The critics are right that the case is unusual, but the former president's own behavior helps distinguish it from most of the precedents. Allow me to explain. I should say at the start that I don't root for a particular side in criminal cases. But I do believe that like cases should be prosecuted alike. We should be clear, moreover, that the question of whether Trump is being treated differently is an argument only about the 31 counts of the indictment that charge the former president with willfully retaining sensitive documents in violation of Title 18, section 793(e), of the United States Code — a part of the Espionage Act. The six other counts involve obstruction of justice and false statements to investigators, for better or worse the common currency of white-collar prosecution. If he lied, he's stuck. Section 793(e) is used regularly in national security cases. To take a prominent current example, violating that provision is the principal charge against Jack Teixeira, the Air National Guardsman arrested in April after classified documents he shared on Discord found their way into the news media. I'm not a big fan of the Espionage Act, which upon its passage in 1917 was immediately used in the ruthless suppression of dissent, a purpose the drafters probably had in mind. From World War II until the early years of the 21st century, Section 793(e) arose primarily in the prosecution of actual spies — people who shared secrets with foreign governments. More recently, it's also used to prosecute those who leak to the news media, a practice that became frequent under President Barack Obama's administration. But nobody thinks Trump was giving information to the news media. According to the indictment, such dissemination as occurred seems mainly to involve showing off to his friends, including, for example, telling an associate that a document was classified and warning him not to get too close. That's dreadful behavior, but it's tough to find cases where anything similar was held to violate the Espionage Act. The principal allegation against Teixeira, for example, is not that he bragged to his online buddies but that he posted images of classified documents ”on a publicly accessible U.S. social media platform” (presumably Discord). Nevertheless, dissemination isn't a necessary element of a charge under Section 793(e), and there exist rare cases in which it hasn't been present. Consider the 2012 prosecution of James Hitselberger, a civilian linguist who worked as a military translator. Hitselberger was charged under Section 793(e) after he allegedly printed out classified documents without authorization. Copies were found in his backpack and his living quarters. Apparently Hitselberger was a collector of documents and intended to keep the papers for his own use, although a part of what he took was later found in a California archive. Part of Hitselberger's difficulty — and part of Trump's — is that the courts have not read the statute to require an intent to injure national security. It's enough for prosecutors to show that the defendant had reason to know he had no legal right to possess the documents. True, courts generally hold that in order to violate Section 793(e), the defendant's actions must be ”not prompted by an honest mistake as to one's duties, but prompted by some personal or underhanded motive.” This suggests a potential Trump defense: ”I honestly believed that I had the legal right to retain the documents.” Perhaps it was with an eye toward rebutting this contention that the prosecutors chose to include in the indictment so many examples of what they describe as efforts by the former president to conceal what he had retained. After all (one imagines the prosecution telling the jury) — if Trump thought he had done nothing wrong, there was no reason to play fast and loose in response to a grand jury subpoena. On the other hand, if we want to think about fairness, we might frame the debate as involving not the accusation but the outcome. Let's go back to Hitselberger, the linguist who kept classified papers for his own use and transferred a handful to an archive. In the end, the Espionage Act charges were dropped in return for Hitselberger's guilty plea to a single misdemeanor count of mishandling classified documents under a different part of Title 18, Section 1924(a). That provision was crafted expressly to deal with people who weren't spies but kept classified materials when they knew they shouldn't have. It's the section under which former CIA Director John M. Deutch agreed to plead guilty in January 2001, after classified documents were found on an unauthorized laptop. (No plea was entered, because Deutch was pardoned by President Bill Clinton on his last day in office.) In 2016, during the investigation of Hillary Clinton's use of a non-secure email system while serving as Secretary of State, Section 1924(a) was often mentioned as a possible ground for charges. It's also the provision under which President Clinton's former national security adviser, Sandy Berger, was permitted to plead guilty in 2005, after knowingly removing classified documents from the National Archives. In some ways, Berger's case is a mirror version of Trump's — Berger only took a handful of documents, but he could not plausibly have claimed to have a right to them. He initially attempted to conceal his wrongdoing and the FBI ultimately searched his home. After coming clean, he received a sentence of community service and a $50,000 fine. Given the precedents, I'd suggest that the test of whether Trump is being treated like everyone else would be the willingness of prosecutors to drop all charges in the indictment if the former president pleads guilty to a misdemeanor under Section 1924(a) and pays a hefty fine. That middle ground would, of course, require that Trump admit he was in the wrong. And that's something he's never been willing to do.
Turley's got a book coming out on the Espionage Act https://jonathanturley.org/2023/06/...e-act-against-revives-long-standing-concerns/ 4 minutes ago Trump Card: The Use of the Espionage Act Revives Long-Standing Concerns by jonathanturley June 16, 2023 Below is my column in the Daily Beast on the use of the Espionage Act against former president Donald Trump in the federal prosecution by Special Counsel Jack Smith. The statute is currently being used against Julian Assange and has a long and troubling history. Here is the column: “May God have mercy on them, for they need expect none from an outraged people and an avenging government.” Those were the words from Attorney General Charles Gregory in November 1917, when Congress enacted the Espionage Act, the very act now being used to prosecute former president Donald Trump. Many of us in the free speech community have long denounced the Espionage Act, which was passed to crackdown on political dissidents, particularly those opposed to World War I. In a forthcoming book, I explore the checkered history of this Act where thousands were arrested for political speech. In an age of rage, the Espionage Act is the government’s favorite weapon to use against its critics. The Act often seems like the last refuge of the government when it lacks any other means to punish targeted persons. This includes the continued prosecution of Julian Assange for publishing classified information, an act that newspapers have regularly done throughout history to expose government lies and abuses. In a curious way, the charges against Trump are welcomed as another opportunity for the courts to look at this insidious law. That need existed long before the raid on Mar-a-Lago. For years, I have expressed reservations about criminal allegations raised against Trump, including the dubious prosecution by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. However, even before the appointment of Special Counsel Jack Smith, I also stated that the real threat to Trump would come at Mar-a-Lago. The Trump indictment hit as expected: hard and below the waterline. It includes an audiotape that portrays Trump pointing to a document that he says is a classified attack plan on Iran. In contradiction to his public claims, Trump admits that he did not declassify the document and thus could not show it to two guests. There are also pictures of documents stacked around a toilet—succeeding in matching the image of President Joe Biden storing documents next to his Corvette in his garage. Thirty-one of the 37 counts fall under the Espionage Act, which criminalizes allegations that require a showing—under 18 U.S. Code § 793—that someone “having unauthorized possession of, access to, or control over any document … relating to the national defense” “willfully retain[ed] the same and fail[ed] to deliver it to the officer or employee of the United States entitled to receive it.” The pictures in the indictment are clearly designed to drive home the gross mishandling of documents to the public. No one is seriously going to argue that storing documents in a ballroom or next to a commode are good retention practices. The law references an intent either to harm the national security of the U.S. or benefit a foreign power. No one is suggesting that harm actually occurred or that Trump intended to cause such harm. However, the government is proceeding under specific provisions making mishandling (and the refusal to turn over documents) a crime. That is the harm that the government will argue. The indictment may have revealed the motive that the government believes is behind the inexplicable refusal of Trump to turn over these documents: vanity. Trump is portrayed as showing the Iran attack documents like a trophy. That is not a great fit with the Espionage Act. The government can read Trump’s alleged words: “I don’t want anybody looking” and “I don’t want anybody looking through my boxes, I really don’t, I don’t want you looking through my boxes.” The prosecutors may use these scenes to portray Trump like a Captain Queeg or a Gollum, jealously protecting his treasure. However, for most citizens, retaining documents for vanity does not merit charges under an espionage (or any criminal) law, particularly if there is no showing of actual harm to national security. The use of the Espionage Act avoided basing the case entirely on false statements or another provision—under 18 U.S. Code § 1924—that prohibits unauthorized removal and retention of classified information. That statute, however, would have put debates over classification authority that Smith clearly wanted to avoid. The problem for Trump is that, even if the Espionage Act attack works in a challenge, it would leave six counts. That includes three counts on withholding or concealing documents in a federal investigation; two counts on false statements, and one count on conspiracy to obstruct justice. At the end of the day, even if the government was wrong on the Espionage Act, you are not allowed to obstruct or lie to federal investigators. In adding the 31 Espionage Act counts, the Justice Department was engaging in a familiar tactic to those of us who have handled national security and criminal cases on the defense side. It “count stacked” to try to get the jury to, at a minimum, compromise in giving it convictions on some of these counts. In some ways, knocking out the 31 Espionage Act claims could produce a cleaner case for the jury and the country. It might also allow a court to rein in on this long-abused statute. It may even get the Congress to reconsider the mistake that it made in 1917 — and replicated in later years. That is why the Trump indictment is historic, but it is also history repeating itself with the government reaching for this dangerously all-purpose statute.
He should be tried as a traitor......he should be in total isolation for the rest of his sorry life. DD
consider the source! he along w 3 legal experts had previously defended Trump in the Manhattan DA lawsuit; but they have all warned that the Justice Department has a "strong" case against Trump over the mishandling of confidential records found at Mar-a-Lago. https://www.newsweek.com/lawyers-defended-trump-raise-alarm-classified-document-indictment-1806308 now, Turley is just tweaking his own conclusions when suits his favorite cable news audience
related https://althouse.blogspot.com/2023/06/6-reasons-dojs-get-trump-documents-case.html 11 minutes ago "6 Reasons DOJ’s 'Get Trump' Documents Case Is Seriously Flawed." by noreply@blogger.com (Ann Althouse) This is a concise article at The Federalist, written by Will Scharf who is a former federal prosecutor and currently a Republican candidate for Missouri Attorney General. I'll give you the 6 headings and some excerpts: 1. Interplay Between the Espionage Act and the Presidential Records Act ... Section 793(e) [of the Espionage Act] requires the government to prove that the defendant knew he had National Defense Information (NDI) in his possession, knew there was a government official entitled to receive the information, and then willfully failed to deliver it to that official.... [But t]he Presidential Records Act sets up a system where the president designates all records that he creates either as presidential or personal records (44 U.S.C. § 2203(b)). A former president is supposed to turn over his presidential records to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), and he has the right to keep his personal records.Based on the documents I’ve read and his actions I’ve read about, I believe Trump viewed his “boxes” as his personal records under the PRA.... [and so] he may have believed NARA simply had no right to receive them at all — meaning he did not willfully withhold anything from an official he knew had the right to receive them.... It is simply not the case that the fact that previously classified documents were found in boxes in a Mar-a-Lago bathroom means Trump is guilty.... 2. Classification and National Defense Information Just because something is classified... does not mean it is National Defense Information within the meaning of the Espionage Act. NDI, for the purposes of an Espionage Act prosecution, is defined as one of a long list of items “relating to the national defense which information the possessor had reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation.”... 3. Walt Nauta and DOJ Misconduct ... Nauta’s lawyer, Stanley Woodward, alleged in a court filing that during a meeting with prosecutors about his client’s case, the head of the Counterintelligence Section of DOJ’s National Security Division Jay Bratt “suggested Woodward’s judicial application [for a DC Superior Court judgeship] might be considered more favorably if he and his client cooperated against Trump.”... Woodward... is a legal heavyweight, and he is leveling an extremely serious allegation of misconduct against a senior official at DOJ.... 4. Attorney-Client Privilege The indictment relies on a significant amount of information received, in one form or another, from one of Trump’s lawyers, Evan Corcoran, who was compelled to testify in front of the grand jury. According to news reports, the argument for breaching the privilege was the crime-fraud exception.... [T]he special counsel is going to have to show why the communications in question were a solicitation by Trump to Corcoran to join him in criminal acts, as opposed to Trump asking a lawyer he hired to advise him on his legal defense.... Reading the conversations in the indictment, they sound a lot more like honest attorney-client communications than they do crime [or] fraud to me, even with all ellipses and modifications made by the special counsel’s team.... 5. Timing: Why Now? ... They know Trump is the leading candidate for president. They know he is beating Biden in the polls. They must know how bad it looks for a sitting president’s DOJ to indict that president’s primary political opponent. DOJ has long had policies in place to prevent new indictments from being brought, or overt investigative acts being committed, in the months preceding an election in order to avoid the appearance of political timing.... If I were Trump’s lawyers, I would consider moving to continue further proceedings until after November 2024.... 6. Jack Smith: Why Him? ... The single case Jack Smith is most publicly associated with was the prosecution of Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell. In that case... [a] unanimous Supreme Court smacked Smith down for an overzealous, legally defective prosecution of a Republican politician.... As has been noted publicly as well, Smith’s wife is a leftist filmmaker who produced a hagiography of Michelle Obama, and he currently lives in the Netherlands.... If this is not a political prosecution, if Merrick Garland wasn’t just trying to “get Trump,” then why was Jack Smith the pick?.... Posted by Ann Althouse at 11:13 AM Tags: evidence, law, prosecutorial ethics, Trump troubles
here's the Federalist article in case anyone missed it 6 Reasons DOJ’s ‘Get Trump’ Documents Case Is Seriously Flawed https://thefederalist.com/2023/06/16/six-reasons-dojs-legal-case-against-trump-is-seriously-flawed/
Os working hard spreading fake news sites and propaganda, he is so deep up the cult's ass that his entire head is covered in ****. Lock up Trump and let him take O's with him as his personal assistant penis shaker. DD
A fee things from Trumps public defense attorney. -Turley tries to conflate free speech to speak out against the US military and other policies that government employees or citizens disapprove of with what Trump did here which wasn’t about free speech. It was simply about sharing classified info with people who aren’t authorized to see it. His argument, if used by Trumps lawyers in court, is probably going to baffle the jury. Painting Trump as an anti war protestor because he was sharing classified docs will probably blow up in their face. -Even Turley… Trumps nut hugger… has to admit that the counts of lying, obstruction, etc. are where Trump is truly screwed. If you are Trumps lawyers the obvious play here would have been to plea guilty to obstruction or false statements, and hope that you get Judge Loose Cannon who likely lets you off with probation. Trump was plainly stupid for not allowing his attorneys to make that deal and instead is banking on himself winning and pardoning himself after the win. If this is all team Trump has to work with, Trump is screwed and his only hope is a fix from the courts/Juror who lies about being impartial (which could still get appealed) or wining the election and pardoning himself.
there u go again, cutting n paste convenient claims Smith was the head of the section when the department failed to convict former senator and vice-presidential candidate John Edwards, a Democrat, in a corruption case in 2012 and when then-Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, a Republican, was indicted in 2014. He also oversaw the investigation into former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, a Republican, closing the probe in 2010 without bringing charges. In recent years, Smith lived outside of the United States as the chief prosecutor for the special court in The Hague, a role he assumed in 2018 in which he investigated war crimes in Kosovo.
Smith's Indictment of Trump In Florida Suggest He Won't Bring An Insurrection Charge in D.C. Does the special counsel "seek to avoid distracting fights"? https://reason.com/volokh/2023/06/1...-he-wont-bring-an-insurrection-charge-in-d-c/
Smith’s office and the DOJ can do more than one thing at a time. Jan 6th charges are harder to charge for Trump which is much more why I think a charge has be been made yet.
