The Soapbox

Los Angeles Hoo

Joined: 03/05/2014 Posts: 19767
Likes: 30402


I think your misunderstanding is related to...


...something getting lost in translation, as you are misstating my views, and I'm not blaming you for that, given the format here.

Here's the deal as I see it:
1) Trump is charged under the Espionage Act (and obstruction, but that's a sideshow). He is notably not charged with violating the PRA.
2) An element of the crime of Espionage is that the alleged offender must KNOWINGLY and WILLFULLY possess documents to which he is not entitled and willfully withhold them from another entity that he KNOWS has such authority to possess them. (As an aside, an alleged lack of intent, for lack of a better word, is why neither Biden nor Hillary Clinton were prosecuted for same.)
3) The Constitution provides the president with authority over the executive branch, which means he can possess (and declassify) ANYTHING he wants. Likewise, he has sole authority to categorize his records and keep what he deems personal. (Note that neither Biden nor Clinton were president, so they did not have these powers.)
4) Hence, the elements of the Espionage Act cannot be proven against a president. If he has -- or merely thinks he has -- the right to possess said documents as personal records, then the willfullness element of possession can't be proven. Likewise, if he considers the records to be personal, then he definitionally also believes that no government entity has a right to retrieve them, which means the willfullness element of withholding them from an entitled authority can't be proven. Case closed.

As for the PRA, that act is raised by folks who think Trump is GUILTY, not innocent. They claim that the PRA -- because it defines what SHOULD be categorized as personal vs. presidential -- implicates Trump because "there's no way that 'national defense information' could be deemed a personal record", or so the theory goes.

The problem with this theory, however, is that it is the president AND ONLY THE PRESIDENT who gets to make that determination. If that is the case -- and it is -- then Trump had every right to have every document in his possession under the theory that they were his personal records which the PRA itself acknowledges he has a right to possess. The folks trying to implicate Trump with the PRA are thus hoisting themselves on their own petard.

So, the only question remaining is the one I keep asking. To disprove any of the above, you must state the person/entity who can overrule a president's categorization of his records as personal vs. presidential and cite their respective authority No one has answered that question. Hence, my argument stands.

(In response to this post by fishhoo)

Posted: 04/05/2024 at 12:05PM



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Current Thread:
 
  
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