Donald Trump’s trial on charges that he retained classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago club and obstructed justice is running about four months behind schedule after the federal judge presiding in the case in Florida declined to set a crucial filing deadline until at least next March.
The US district judge Aileen Cannon put off setting a deadline for Trump to submit a notice about what classified information he intends to use at trial – currently set for May – until after a hearing next year that almost certainly precludes the pre-trial process from finishing in time.
Trump was indicted this summer with violating the Espionage Act when he illegally retained classified documents after he left office and conspiring to obstruct the government’s efforts to retrieve them from his Mar-a-Lago club, including defying a grand jury subpoena.
Will the espionage act ever be used to prosecute an actual act of espionage? The act is deliberately misnamed.
Trump had classified documents. He didn’t follow the proper procedures, but if he were accused of giving classified documents to an enemy government, that would be in the headline.
If this were actual espionage, and these classified documents were already in the hands of an enemy govermemt, there would be no reason to delay the trial to keep the documents out of the public record.
The espionage act has only ever been used against whistleblowers, journalists, and Trump. Treason already exists as a much better way to prosecute americans for actual espionage.
Okay, two things:
1 - if I take a pen, I might have forgotten I had the pen. If I take boxes of pens, I meant to take them.
2 - scanners and copy machines are a thing.
congratulations on being able to identify basic office tools.