My understanding.
1. EO’s from previous presidents, including Trump, and various other actual laws, outline how classified information is to be managed in many instances. But mishandling of classified is not one of the charges against Trump.
2. The Presidential Records Act was written to define what is a Presidential Record verses what is Personal Record, and it makes those definitions very distinctly on its own, and does not leave it up to Presidents to adjust it to fit their needs when leaving office. It is not a criminal charge, only civil, for violating it.
3. What Trump is being charged with are criminal laws under the Espionage Act. They have been rarely used in all of US history, and never against a President, but they are laws governing the handling of government owned, national security information, whether it is classified or not.
b) the PRA basically states that what a President deems a personal record is a personal record: its classification level is not addressed, but no restrictions are specified.
c)The rule of lenity would suggest that without specific legislation saying otherwise, Smith cannot change the interpretation of the law to criminalize behavior that isn't clearly criminal beforehand.
Point (b) above is part of Judge Cannon's questions to Trump's attorney's and Smith.
1. Isn’t this exactly what is being asserted here by the DOJ in its attempts to hide the evidence from the court and/or jury?
2. How does the Espionage Act define “national security information?”
The judge in this case has painted the DOJ into a corner. The prosecutors are going to need SOMEBODY other than the prosecution team to provide the legal basis for that determination.