Donald Trump claims he is innocent of the secret documents affair. But his defense seems more than outrageous.
WASHINGTON DC – It is the first time a former US President has been indicted at the federal level: on June 13 it stood donald trump to the Hearing before the federal district court in Miami. It is about the embezzlement of top secret government documents and the obstruction of justice. William Barr, former US Attorney General and Trump confidant, is just one of many companions who are gradually turning their backs on the ex-president. After Barr last at Fox News Sunday predicted the end of Trump’s careerthe lawyer criticized his defense strategy in court at the weekend.
Trump wants to be innocent by law: “I had every right”
On June 18, in the Face the Nation news program of the American television station CBS talked about the Trump case and its first hearing. There, the former US President had justified the storage of the secret documents with the so-called Presidential Records Act (PRA). “Under the Presidential Records Act — which is civil, not criminal — I had every right to obtain these documents,” Trump said.
The 1981 law, enacted in the wake of the Watergate affair, mandates the retention of White House documents as US government property. Records that must be kept include documents related to political activities and the President’s duties, including emails, text messages, and phone records. Personal documents of the President or documents of a purely private or non-public nature are exempt from the retention obligation.
According to Trump’s indictment, the boxes found at Mar-a-Lago contained “newspapers, newspaper clippings, letters, notes, maps, photographs, official documents and other materials” reported CBS News. Before the end of office of a US President, official and private documents must be separated and submitted. Trump is currently claiming that the objects found are all personal documents. Former Trump attorney Tim Parlatore also misinterpreted the law. At CNN he said that outgoing presidents “are allowed to use the first two years after they leave office to go through all these documents and figure out what’s personal and what’s presidential.”
Barr calls Trump defense ‘absurd’
Barr was interviewed in the CBSnewscast asked if he thinks Trump is misreading the law. This is “definitely” the case, according to the former US Attorney General. “The legal theory that he is allowed to take war plans and sensitive national security information as his personal papers is absurd,” Barr said. The purpose of the law is “to prevent presidents from stealing official documents from the White House.” It should restrict the president and not empower him. Barr called the nature of the defense “insane.”
Jason Baron, former director of litigation for the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), called the idea that Trump could declare any record a personal document as contrary to the “real spirit” of the law. Baron wrote this in a official press release the authority. NARA is an independent agency of the United States government responsible for the management and preservation of government records. She had requested the secret documents from Trump several times.
“It is obvious that these documents are not purely private, they are not even discussed. What’s being talked about is that the President has the agency to present it that way, even though by definition they clearly don’t fall under it,” Barr added, calling the Presidential Records Act an “absurd argument” in this context. Trump is in the Charged with 37 counts of the secret documents affair. (aa)
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