“ They are saying Trump was carelessly storing these documents while not charging him that way to avoid cases against Biden, Pence and the rest. ”
And that is why I think they included the audio tape. If you read the charges, Trump is not actually charged with anything related to the Milley document that Ican see. So why even include that in the indictment?
1. To obviate a defense based on the claim that Trump didn’t know he had classified documents or that he believed they were already declassified.
2. To establish intent - that knowing the documents he had were still classified, he knowingly shared them with people not authorized to have access to them.
I think they will use #2 to justify the disparate treatment. It’s BS, but I think that’s the plan.
That is totally the plan.
RE: To establish intent - that knowing the documents he had were still classified, he knowingly shared them with people not authorized to have access to them.
Again this begs the question:
1. Who or what tells us whether or not a document has or has not been declassified?
2. To whom did he share it with and to what extent did they know the contents of a document? He might have just waved a folder and said “it’s classified here”