Tornado Alley (PROG)

[blackhawks]

The gift that keeps on giving.....to Jack Smith. Everything the orange nitwit says between now and the trial date can be used against him. He's going to burn through a of of lawyers.

"That is not a defense": Ex-Mueller prosecutor says Trump's post-arrest speech was a "confession"

(Salon) Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday spoke to supporters at his Bedminster, N.J. golf club hours after he was fingerprinted, booked and pleaded not guilty to 37 federal criminal charges in Miami, declaring that he had "every right to take these documents."

Trump pleaded not guilty to charges that he illegally retrained national security information and sought to obstruct the investigation into the missing records.

"Whatever documents a president decides to take with him, he has the right to do so. It's an absolute right. This is the law," Trump declared in his speech.

That is not the law. While the Presidential Records Act allows Trump to retain "personal" records like family photos, it requires the National Archives to "assume responsibility for the custody, control, and preservation of, and access to, the Presidential records of that President."

"There is absolutely no legal authority that supports the idea that a president could assert, for example, that classified records are 'personal.' That would still be true even if such records were declassified," Jason Baron, former director of litigation for the National Archives and Records Administration, told CBS News, adding that Trump "simply is wrong in saying that he had an absolute right to take official documents with him when he left office." ..............(more)

https://www.salon.com/2023/06/14/that-is-not-a-defense-ex-mueller-prosecutor-says-trumps-post-arrest-speech-was-a-confession/