Posted on 06/28/2023 6:05:18 AM PDT by ConservativeInPA
You really need to read the statute before making such a silly statement. The statute refers to documents, maps, tapes, charts, etc. in other words, things that are tangible, including digital copies. Trying to muddy the waters by including what a person remembers is the very definition of pretzel logic.
As president, Trump had access to all information the United States had, including all classified information. The president is the ultimate classification authority, as everyone keeps pointing out. But that authority ends as soon as the new president is sworn in. At that point, the former president only has such access as the new president grants him. Trump has no security clearance other than what Biden allows at this point. And since national defense information belongs to the United States, once Trump left office he had no authority to possess it unless that authority was granted by the Biden administration.
I read the statute. Certainly the statute mentions those things but the language is not exclusive so that the statute only applies to physical copies of information. The statute clearly protects “information” itself.
For example, look at the very first section:
“Whoever, for the purpose of obtaining information respecting the national defense with intent or reason to believe that the information is to be used to the injury of the United States, or to the advantage of any foreign nation, goes upon, enters, flies over, or otherwise obtains information concerning any vessel, aircraft, work of defense, navy yard, naval station, submarine base...”
You see that? “Obtaining information”, “information”, “obtains information”. Three times just in the first sentence of the first section the statue clearly refers to “information”, a non-physical thing, as the primary concern of the statute. So it is certainly not limited to physical things as you are trying to frame it.
If I were to fly over an army base, and take no photos, draw no map, take no notes, but still, they could prove that I was doing it to “obtain information”, which I knew could harm the United States, I could be prosecuted. And so could any former President simply for possessing such “information” (as they all do), if we were to interpret the authorization to possess such information to end the day they leave office.
That’s not the part of the statute Trump is charged under. Paragraph e, the section included in the charges, specifies “unauthorized possession of, access to or control of” documents, tapes, charts, etc.
Yet that is not all that is specified in paragraph e. Let's take a look, shall we?:
"(e) Whoever having unauthorized possession of, access to, or control over any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, or note relating to the national defense, or information relating to the national defense..."
There it is again, that pesky inconvenient phrase, "or information". The "or" is very important, as that denotes this is a non-exclusive list, legally speaking, so possession of any one of the items on the list constitutes a crime. So mere possession of "information" alone is indeed a violation of paragraph e.
“Show me where in the law it says that former presidents are authorized to possess national defense information. “
I take it your high school didn’t teach US Government.
You went off the rails with that one. Slow down and think through your comments and maybe you’ll catch your mistake.
I studied American Government in both high school and college. A former president has no official government position. Former president is not mentioned in the Constitution. The Constitution vests all executive power in the President, and only one person can have that power at a time. Once a president leaves office, he loses all of the powers and privileges of the office, save whatever the new president or the law may grant. While former presidents may be asked to consult on issues related to their term in office or in a specific area of expertise, that is at the request of the current president only. Once a president leaves office, as far as the Constitution is concerned he is just another citizen. Nothing in the law inherently authorizes a former president to possess national defense information.
Another thing to consider: even if you want to argue that the former president retained some authority by dint of tradition, that authority can be revoked at any time by the current president, who has plenary authority in these matters. So once the Biden Administration requested the return of the documents, any authority Trump might have had was removed. Even granting your premise, which I don’t, as soon as the subpoena was issued which requested all documents with classification markings, any defense based on the idea Trump had authority to keep the documents was rendered null.
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