Suffice it to say, scandal-plagued former President Donald Trump has had a rough few weeks after Garland-appointed DOJ Special Counsel Jack Smith dropped a thundering 37 felony criminal indictment against him in the infamous Mar-a-Lago stolen document investigation.
Smith, on behalf of the Biden DOJ, has been investigating the former president for his role in inciting the January 6th Capitol insurrection, his attempt to overthrow the 2020 presidential election after his loss to Joe Biden, and the infamous stolen Mar-a-Lago document scandal, in which Donald Trump stole classified government documents at the end of his presidency, relocated the material to his Palm Beach compound, where he hid them, lied about his possession of the materials, and repeatedly refused to comply with government requests and subpoenas for their return.
That investigation came to a fever pitch this week when the disgraced former president was formally arrested and arraigned on those 37 felonies, all related to obstruction and violations of the Espionage Act, in a Miami court.
However, according to reporting from the New York Times, we may not get the satisfaction of a massive prison sentence for the corrupt former guy in the end, as Trump may very well be offered one hell of a plea deal, for the simple fact that the materials he stole, now in evidence in the case, are far too top secret for prosecutors to willing allow the information to go public at trial.
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Trump was ultimately indicted on 37 different charges from Special Counsel Jack Smith, 31 of which were directly related to violations of the Espionage Act, in connection to Trump’s repeated refusal to return the national security documents he had in his possession. We have since learned that at least 21 of those documents were clearly marked “top secret.”
The Times now reports that this presents a unique problem in the case of trying Donald Trump for his crimes. Even attorneys involved in the case will be required to have steep security clearance to view the evidence and a fair trial would be a serious challenge, given that so much of the evidence in the case is far too classified to share with the public, or even a jury of Trump’s peers.
Joshua L. Dratel, an attorney who has specifically dealt with classified evidence cases, spoke with the newspaper on the matter and explained, “It’s routine, if not invariable, that you’ll get a plea offer in a case in which the government says, ‘If we have to provide classified discovery to you, this offer is no longer on the table,’ and those can be very attractive plea offers.”
“That’s because there is a tremendous tension between intelligence agencies and prosecutors that defense lawyers can exploit.”
NYT goes on to add in the report, “The Constitution gives defendants a right to a public trial and the public a right to see trials,” noting that the US federal government does have the option and ability to declassify much of the information in evidence, to allow that evidence to be presented publicly for the trial.
Of course, that is not a decision that the federal government can or should make lightly, and much of their decision will hinge largely on what information is contained in the files and the expert opinions of risk vs. benefit from the nation’s national security officials.
The Times goes on to note that Donald Trump has, as expected, pleaded not guilty to all of the charges against him, as he continues to shout his so-called “innocence” from the rooftops in every public setting he can think of, indicating that the ex-president likely will not accept any plea deals presented to him, no matter how favorable they may be. Furthermore, NYT pointed out what we’ve all been thinking for some time now, noting that Trump and his people could very likely threaten to go public with the classified information the ex-president stole, as a means to essentially blackmail the US federal government into dropping all charges lodged against him.
Read the full report from the New York Times here.
Featured image via Flickr/Gage Skidmore, under Creative Commons license 2.0
