Trump is on the hook for several crimes — even if he did declassify the docs: legal analyst

Much of the debate over former President Donald Trump's classified document stash at his Mar-a-Lago country club has centered on whether the information was really classified, or whether Trump, as he argues, could simply declassify them just by thinking about it — an argument substantially weakened by new voice recordings that suggest he knew how sensitive the documents were.

But that may not be the right question to ask, argued former federal prosecutor and legal anaylst Elliot Williams on CNN Wednesday, because Trump's actions are potentially illegal even if all of the documents were declassified.

"It's interesting that he is telling these people in the room, according to the reporting, that, you know, there is this document and this is what it's about, possible attack, plan for a possible attack on Iran, but he can't tell them about it because it's classified," said anchor Anderson Cooper. "If he had magically declassified it, as he said, in his mind or however else he has in various explanations, that would not be the case. He would feel free to tell them about it."

"Well, it would still be a crime, Anderson," said Williams. "There's one crime in the federal code for sharing classified information, that's number one, possessing government documents is itself a federal offense. But more importantly, possessing defense-specific information is itself a federal offense that carries with it a ten-year penalty. So, the mere fact that this might have been revealing or containing military information or troop movement, that itself makes it a crime."

The upshot, said Williams, is that "we've got to get out of this framing of talking about classification versus declassification because it really, for most of the crimes that could be investigated here, based on information that we have, don't really have anything to do with classification at all."

"What he had said here, at least assuming this recording says what it says, is the acknowledgment he admitted to possess the document and knew they were in his possession and knew that they were sensitive," said Williams. "And that is — you know, there's no such thing as a smoking gun in the real world. But it is incredibly valuable evidence because it speaks to intent, it speaks to knowledge, it speaks to what he knew that he had. So it is, as far as evidence goes, very, very powerful."

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