Indictment confirms Garland's indictment of Trump is political:
1. Presidential Records Act, not Espionage Act, controls former president's handling of his presidential records
2. Generally, legally impossible to obstruct investigation into non-crime, per binding 2019 OLC memo — 🇺🇸 Mike Davis 🇺🇸 (@mrddmia) June 9, 2023
Those are great arguments, but let me give both more heft with the third point, which applies whether the Espionage Act or the Presidential Records Act is at issue: A president’s power whether or not to treat documents as essential to national security supersedes anything either Congress or his own employees in the administrative state can do.
Normally, of course, the president is subject to the duly passed laws of the United States Congress. However, regarding national security, the president cannot be subject to Congress. He has plenary, or absolutely, power in that area.
The president’s authority over national security matters has been recognized at least since the end of WWII, when, as the court explained in National Federation of Employees v. United States, 688 F.Supp. 671 (D.D.C. 1988), Truman exercised that authority to classify documents:
Long before nuclear weapons, satellites, and orbiting laser defense systems, the President, pursuant to his Article II powers, undertook to defend national security by limiting access to and disclosure of sensitive information. See National Security and Civil Liberties, [citation]. After World War II, President Truman laid the foundation for the current system of classifying information possessed by the Executive Branch. [Citation.]
In other words, national security and the classification system are the president’s bailiwick, and Congress, as a co-equal branch of government, cannot constrain that authority.
If you read the indictment, most of it is focused on once Trump s out of office, not leaving.
Agree
Meritless Garland needs to be impeached and removed post haste.