May Not Matter If Info Seized from Trump Was Classified
August 12, 2022 at 3:37 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 177 Comments

Donald Trump is now arguing that he used his authority to declassify the material seized by the FBI from Mar-a-Lago before he left office.

But the New York Times reports none of the three criminal laws cited in the search warrant "turn on whether information was deemed to be unclassified."

More from the New York Times: "Two of the laws that a search warrant executed at Mar-a-Lago this week referenced -- Sections 1519 and 2071 of Title 18 of the United States Code -- make the taking or concealment of government records a crime regardless of whether they had anything to do with national security."

"For another, laws against taking or hoarding material with restricted national-security information -- which generally carry heavier penalties than theft of ordinary documents -- do not always line up with whether the files are technically classified."

Jeralyn: "This is not a historic disclosure. DOJ's filing a motion to unseal the warrant (but not the affidavit with the sworn facts supporting it) and the receipt for the property taken, copies of which were left at Mar-a-Lago at the time of the search, are unlikely to disclose anything that hasn't already been in the public arena. It's the affidavit that bakes the cake (or causes its center to sink). And that's not being released."

... likely contain information pertaining to the FBI's source of information concerning the whereabouts of the material being kept at Mar-a-Lago? Agents apparently knew exactly where to look in order to find it. Burning that source would probably not be a good look, particularly given the escalating threats of violence emanating from the far-right.

This is a very serious national security issue and a potentially volatile situation. As much as it pains me to say it as an LE skeptic, we're going to have to trust AG Garland and DOJ on this one. They need to first assess the full scope of the security breach and its accompanying threat level, and then determine whether Trump actually shared these documents with anyone and if so, with whom.

If that scheme involved Trump himself and the Mar-a-Lago documents, it could have significant legal implications for the Justice Department's ongoing criminal investigation. Any plan to release the documents could potentially trigger specific elements of the Espionage Act and other criminal statutes designed with the core purpose of preventing unlawful dissemination of classified and other sensitive government documents. As I discuss below, credible evidence of such a plan also would likely factor into the Justice Department's decision on whether to bring criminal charges.