Indictment Watch: Trump Charged in Classified Docs Probe

The wrong spiritual war.

By and
200

In an emergency pod, Sarah Isgur and David French review the 7-count indictment against Donald Trump which was unsealed on Friday: what is (and isn’t) in the indictment, and how does this case compare with those of Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden.

Show Notes:

-Trump Classified Docs Indictment, Annotated

By and
Comments (200)
Join The Dispatch to participate in the comments.
 
  1. Melissa.Feagins

    Someone needs to send the Goshens (hope I spelled that right) a year's subscription to the Dispatch for making the best man late for their wedding!!!

    Collapse
  2. Payette

    Good discussion.

    Collapse
  3. Jwpetite

    Where Trump's GOP shills lose me in the whining campaign against Hillary Clinton's non-indictment, who was running the show from 2017-20 and could have pursued charges at any time?

    Collapse
  4. Jwpetite

    Compelling intellectual exercise over Ford's pardoning of Nixon, and the counterfactual is interesting. But the mere fact that the conversation was had is indicative that some individuals are, indeed, above the law. Whether it is Mr. Trump, the Attorney General and/or the Special Counsel, just shut up already.

    Collapse
  5. T_flight

    This was great, but Sarah’s description of what she would advise on the RDS/Tim Scott teams was depressing.

    Collapse
    1. Avatar photo
      Richard Maxton

      At least she's honest about what she'd say in a political advisory role.

      Collapse
      1. T_flight

        Yeah I definitely appreciate the honesty.

        Collapse
  6. Avatar photo
    George.Skinner

    It's depressing when David noted that many Republicans continue to support Trump to deny any "win" to their political opponents. That's a pretty good example of the sin of pride: continuing to do something because they can't bear to have been wrong, or allow anybody else to tell them they were wrong. Then again, their champion seems to be a living exemplar of the Seven Deadly Sins.

    Collapse
  7. Avatar photo
    Harry Paget

    So David, if one were to access your personal gmail account (or hotmail or whatever) from your time in the military, and submit all that information to DoD, DoS, etc., and ask them to staff it, review their security classification guides, and determine if there was any classified information in those emails, would you be surprised if they uncovered a statement that, maybe according to some classification guide no one even references any more written in 1977 or something, was confidential? And it wouldn’t matter that you were just referencing a National Review article, for example. And in this hypothetical you should have been criminally charged?

    Collapse
    1. Michael.Mcchesney

      While I have no trouble believing that David would be extremely (probably overly) conscientious about respecting his security clearance, I will take a stab at whether David could be prosecuted. But for the record, the only experience I have with criminal law was providing legal assistance to federal inmates as a law student.

      As I understand the law, if top secret information is leaked in, say, a National Review article, discussing the article would not necessarily be a crime, so long as you aren't confirming that the allegedly classified information is accurate. Any discussion of the ramifications along the lines of "Well if true, that would mean..." would be legal, while saying, "Yeah, I know from classified documents that the leak is accurate and true" would be illegal. But your example read as though David discussed an NR article that contained classified information that was marked classified in the 70s but didn't clarify whether David was aware of the information because he learned about it from a classified source or because of his security clearance. If he didn't learn the information because of his clearance, I don't see how de could be prosecuted.

      But if David is prosecuted and thrown into jail, who should be Sarah's new podcast partner? Does the list of potential replacements begin and end with David Latt, if for no other reason than it will be easier for Sarah not to have to learn a new name? Or should The Dispatch take a play from the Live With Kelly Ripa Show and hire husband of the Pod, Scott? I am reasonably sure she knows his name; I've heard her use it. Any other nominations?

      Collapse
  8. MathewA

    In the WSJ editorial on the subject they note

    "But it’s striking, and legally notable, that the indictment never mentions the Presidential Records Act (PRA) that allows a President access to documents, both classified and unclassified, once he leaves office. It allows for good-faith negotiation with the National Archives. Yet the indictment assumes that Mr. Trump had no right to take any classified documents."

    I would like to hear more on that defense. Of course that still wouldn't allow sharing of those docs with a reporter...

    Collapse
    1. Bobby D

      Nor does the act allow one to take the documents unilaterally without consulting the Archives and lying to the Archives about your possession of them. It’s a generous reading of “access” to suggest that one can deprive the Archives of the documents and merely store them in your bathroom. After all, the documents belong to the American people, not to Trump personally. And he isn’t the only one who is legally entitled to have access to the documents. If he’s exercising his right to “access” in a way that deprives others of similar such rights, then it’s a stretch to suggest that Trump complied with the PRA.

      Collapse
      1. MathewA

        I VERY much doubt these were the only copies.

        So Trump having them wasn't denying anyone else of them

        Collapse
  9. Avatar photo
    Guffia

    To me the question is, if he were a politician who was basically friendly on policy and rhetoric to the powers that be, would this still have happened to him?

    I would like to think that the answer is yes. However, it’s certainly possible that he might have been cajoled into changing course to avoid this outcome had this been the scenario instead of the confrontational posture taken by the government, which he then reacted to confrontationally.

    It’s similar to the police narratives: if they are hostile towards a suspect they will act in ways that escalate the situation until they are “forced” to react forcefully, while if they are friendly towards them they can sometimes influence a suspect to comply peacefully. How somebody divides up blame and responsibility in these cases usually depends on where their affinity lies.

    Collapse
    1. Michael.Mcchesney

      I understand what you are saying about how this situation might have been defused by an investigator more sympathetic to Trump. When the subpoena was served, that investigator could have warned that if they had any reason to suspect classified documents had been withheld, they would be forced to obtain and execute a search warrant. In a sense, they could have tried to save Trump from himself. The thing is, it is entirely possible that somebody did warn someone on Trump's team that a search warrant could result. But Trump might have refused, figuring that Biden would be too much of a wimp to let his Justice Department indict him.

      Even paranoids can have enemies, and just because past investigations were tainted by political bias (even if that bias was anger at the damage to the dignity and decorum of the president's office) doesn't mean that the SG's indictments aren't completely warranted. Trump is like an incredibly entitled toddler and those qualities were not improved by 4 years in the White House. He wanted to keep "his" documents even though the law said those documents weren't his. So he simply did what he needed to do to keep them. Trump may not have deserved the Mueller probe, but he deserved this one. If the SG can prove these allegations, and they appear to have really damning evidence on both audio and video tape(I use "tape" in the figurative sense), Trump deserves to go to prison.

      Collapse
  10. Avatar photo
    East Tn mom

    David I wish that you'd not leave your only mention of NR comments to be a single one that was proTrump which, if I wasn't a NR reader would have made me think NR and or its readers are likewise proTrump. Thankfully this not at all the case and many if not most commenters are indeed wanting to move on and away from all things Trump.

    Collapse
Load More