Trump could land plea deal because evidence too secret to reveal at trial: report

Of the 37 counts the former president was arraigned on last week, 31 involved Espionage Act charges involving his alleged keeping of national security documents. Of those documents, 21 were marked “top secret.”

The New York Times reported that presents many problems, including lawyers needing security clearance to view them – and how to give a fair trial when information is too secret to share publicly and with a jury.

A lawyer who has dealt with classified evidence cases, Joshua L. Dratel, told the Times, “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.”

“The Constitution gives defendants a right to a public trial and the public a right to see trials,” the Times reported, adding that the government could choose to declassify information so that it could be presented publicly.

The decision to do that depends on what is in the files, and if security officials think it’s too risky to reveal.

The Times also reported that Trump, who has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges against him, is not expected to accept a plea deal. The report also suggested that Trump’s team could threaten to reveal the information at the trial as a way to pressure the government to drop charges completely.