| | | Trump's lawyers admit to him violating the Espionage Act in their own court filing: legal analyst
Sarah K. Burris
August 22, 2022
Harvard Law School Professor Laurence Tribe walked through the "strange" court filing from Donald Trump calling for a court-appointed reviewer of the documents taken from his golf club after a search warrant. But among the things that were the most unexpected is the admission of guilt.
Legal analyst Marcy Wheeler, of EmptyWheel, posted an excerpt from the documents showing the strange admission of guilt.
The court filing says that Trump was subpoenaed on May 11, 2022, and "On June 2, 2022, President Trump, through counsel, invited the FBI to come to Mar-a-Lago to retrieve responsive documents."
About a month after the subpoena, Trump invited the FBI to come in and look at what he had. So, why did Trump still have the documents after June 2, necessitating a search warrant?
"Responsive documents were provided to the FBI agents," it says on page 5.
Twice, in the document, Trump admits he took government documents, which is illegal under the Espionage Act and the Presidential Records Act.
"On June 8, 2022, Mr. Bratt wrote to counsel for President Trump. His letter requested, in pertinent part, that the storage room be secured. In response, President Trump directed his staff to place a second lock on the door to the storage room, and one was added," says the filing.
New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman revealed on Monday evening that the documents contained over 300 classified items that included national security information involving the NSA, CIA and FBI. The docs were not only in a storage room, but they were also being hidden in Donald Trump's personal office closet. It's unclear if the FBI knew about that prior to the search, however.
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