CNN
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The latest revelations from the special counsel’s investigation into former President Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents deepen the sense that a serious political moment is upon us.
An exclusive CNN report that appears to point to a core weakness in Trump’s case is bolstering the possibility that the 2024 presidential candidate is in for a ton of legal trouble.
The possible evidence that Trump knew his claims that he could simply declassify material on a whim were false highlights his characteristic belief that laws and codes of presidential behavior do not apply to him. This is a factor that made his tenure in the White House a daily test of American democracy and the legal system and may become even more acute if he wins the 2024 election.
The latest look at special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation also shows that while any charges against Trump for possible violations of the Espionage Act and obstruction of justice could be warranted in a purely legal context, they would have a high of responsibility to explain to the public why such a step was deserved in a potentially complex case in the charged atmosphere of a presidential election.
On the one hand, there is nothing more sacred than protecting the country’s secrets, especially those that could harm allies, help America’s enemies, and endanger undercover agents. But the proposition that inside Washington arguments over classified material represent a priority for millions of voters has yet to be tested.
And the fierce controversies still surrounding Trump over the 2016 election show how toxic campaign season probes can be for American unity and US political and judicial institutions, all of which sharpens the need for ‘a strong national interest justification for any prosecution.
The exclusive report by CNN’s Jamie Gangel, Zachary Cohen, Evan Perez and Paula Reid is another serious sign of Trump’s potential legal exposure in the documents case, one of a series of investigations that include the Smith’s examination of the former president’s role in front of his supporters. ‘attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 and a separate investigation by a local district attorney into his effort to overturn Joe Biden’s election victory in Georgia. Trump has already been indicted in Manhattan over alleged business irregularities related to a hush money payment in 2016.
CNN reported that the National Archives plans to hand over 16 documents to the special counsel that show Trump knew the correct procedure for declassifying this material. That could be significant because it gets to the question of whether Trump had criminal intent, a staple of any case against him. If there’s evidence that the former president knew he couldn’t simply declassify documents away from the White House — or even with a private thought as he once suggested — his defense of the records stored in his Mar-a -Lago’s house in Florida becomes more difficult.
In a May 16 letter obtained by CNN, Acting Archivist Debra Steidel Wall wrote to Trump: “The 16 records in question reflect communications involving close presidential advisers, some of them directed to you personally, about whether, why and how you should declassify certain classified records”.
At a CNN town hall event last week, Trump falsely claimed of the top-secret documents, “By the way, they’re automatically declassified when I took them.”
But former Trump White House lawyer Ty Cobb told CNN’s Erin Burnett on Wednesday that CNN’s latest report surrounding the National Archives was a sign that Smith was taking steps that could indicate he may soon act against trump
“I think this is an ‘i’ and ‘t’ crossing. I think this case is ready to go,” Cobb said.
“The simple fact is that there is a process … and (Trump) completely ignored it and thinks that the mere fact that he took them declassifies (the documents). That’s not the law.”
Still, Trump’s lawyer, Jim Trusty, told CNN on Wednesday that Trump had done nothing wrong and argued that as president he previously enjoyed substantial powers to declassify documents, in a possible preview of any defense future of the room.
“At the end of his presidency, he relied on the constitutional authority as commander in chief to take documents and bring them to Mar-a-Lago while he was still president as he was at the time and to declassify them and personalize them effectively. . He talked about declassifying them but he didn’t have to,” Trusty said. He also argued that there was a wide gray area in the interpretation of the Presidential Records Act, which says the government reserves and retains full ownership, possession and control of presidential documents.
If Cobb is right, and Smith could be moving toward impeachment, Americans could soon be grappling with an increasingly familiar question: What is the proper way to hold to account a president and presidential candidate whose core political model is rooted in breaking all the rules, but whose accusation could further inflame an already deeply polarized nation?
The new look at Trump’s allegedly brazen handling of classified documents as president and after is the latest twist in a saga that drew public attention with the FBI’s surprise search of his compound last year , the first time such a search has occurred at the home of a former president. The agents took classified and top-secret documents, but Trump allies claimed he had a “standing order” to declassify the documents he brought from the Oval Office to the White House residence. Some of these files may have moved to Mar-a-Lago.
But 18 former senior Trump administration officials said they never knew of any such order being issued during their time working for Trump, telling CNN the claim was “ridiculous” and “ridiculous”. And there is no power for former presidents to declassify or hold highly sensitive national security documents, so the exact treatment given to each piece of classified information found at Mar-a-Lago could come down to Trump’s potential culpability.
More broadly, however, the documents’ case reinforces the underlying issue revolving around Trump that is becoming more acute as the next election nears.
There is a clear national interest in protecting classified information and enforcing the laws surrounding presidential conduct to prevent the erosion of the political institutions that underpin the democracy that Trump has so often tried to undermine. And there is also a national interest in showing that no one, whether president or ex-president, is above the law.
At the same time, however, there is also a deep national interest in the peaceful conduct of a presidential election that all Americans believe to be fair. And Trump has already successfully cast deep suspicion on the motives of the Justice Department and the Biden administration, arguing that it is the target of a coordinated campaign of political persecution.
Smith has an obligation to follow the law and the evidence wherever it leads, and to make decisions about potential charges and prosecutions on the same basis. But this case cannot unfold in isolation given Trump’s past role and the current presidential campaign. It comes with an obligation, presumably for Attorney General Merrick Garland, to look into the broader potential consequences of bringing a former president and current presidential candidate to trial.
That also raises the question of whether a case about the mishandling of classified documents, which could raise complex legal arguments and questions of motivation, will be an easy sell to a wider audience and could play into Trump’s claims that he is being victimized. They may be fake, but they help prepare the secret political sauce that their supporters love.
The case is particularly sensitive because Biden also had his own classified documents problem over material found in an office he used after leaving the vice presidency and his garage. The cases are different because there is no indication that the president deliberately took the documents, and unlike Trump, he made no attempt to prevent their return to the Archives when they were found. But it will be easy for the former president and his allies to obfuscate the details of these cases and politically argue that there is a legal double standard at play and that it is politically motivated.
The question of the political impact of prosecuting Trump has already arisen since his indictment in a case prosecuted by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg appeared to boost his popularity in the Republican nomination race. It also prompted his potential rivals for the top of the ticket to denounce the move as politicized, complicating their own attempts to defeat the former president. The case, centered on alleged accounting violations, is also complex to boil down to an argument that could convince millions of Americans that Trump is being treated fairly.
A big unknown in the current presidential campaign is whether future and multiple impeachments would further embolden Trump and cause persuasive voters to unfairly target him. Or could it send his campaign into an abyss of legal and criminal liability?
The release this week of a report by another special counsel, John Durham, appointed by the Trump administration, gave Trump new political ammunition to argue that he is being victimized. Durham argued that the investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia in 2016 should never have begun, although officials serving at the time and many legal analysts questioned its findings. Trump immediately took advantage of the report to embroider his claims that he is the victim of politicized investigations, and presented his argument to try to taint the Smith investigation, the Georgia case and the Manhattan indictment.
Wednesday’s new details about its apparently deeper danger than previously known in the document probe only add to a deep-seated problem clouding the 2024 election.
It may be against the national interest to ignore major affronts to the rule of law by a previous president, including the alleged mishandling of classified information, as there are issues fundamental to northern democracy American But a prosecution could reignite a political inferno that could further damage confidence among millions of Americans in the country’s legal and electoral systems.
This is the treacherous edge Trump has once again brought the nation to.
