Donald Trump spoke to a crowd of Pennsylvania voters in support of Mehmet Oz, on Saturday where he railed against the Justice Department and the FBI for enforcing laws about stolen government documents and classified information. Instead of providing an excuse for why he had stolen government property and top secret information, including nuclear documents, Trump claimed they raided his wife's underwear drawer and his son's bedroom.
Former US Attorney and University of Michigan Law School Professor Barbara McQuade explained that there's no excuse for Trump's behavior because he has yet to provide one.
"If there was really some true, innocent explanation, I think we would have heard it by now," said McQuade.
"One of the key elements in these cases is a willful violation of the law and so although there is a crime for being grossly negligent in mishandling government documents. It shows up in your briefcase, you brought it home by mistake. Typically the consequences for that are not criminal prosecution. It is discipline, loss of a clearance, or even termination," she explained.
What is different in the Trump case is that nothing was accidental. It all began 18 months ago when Trump was asked by the National Archives to bring back the documents he took that should have been sent to them as part of the Presidential Records Act.
"When charges are filed criminally, it's because somebody acted willfully," said McQuade. "And so, not only do we have this long duration, 18 months of back and forth we have, now we know there were more than 10,000 government documents at Mar-a-Lago. You have shifting defenses. If there was really some true, innocent here I think we would've heard it right now. Instead, we have things like first, a denial, then the FBI planted them here. Then falsely said, 'Obama had documents on his home, then 'I'd classified them all.' Then another story, 'I was just retaining these for my library.' You know who actually develops presidential libraries? The [National] Archives. That's who wants them back. I think this long string of changing stories builds like willfullness against Donald Trump."
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