In a column for the conservative Bulwark, attorney Chris Truax makes the case that -- regardless of all the criminal investigations Donald Trump is facing at both the state and federal level -- the latest revelations that he destroyed government documents could be the one that actually leads to him being indicted.
Noting that the Presidential Records Act has little in the way of punishing violations, Truax pointed out that Trump's well-documented history of document destruction gives prosecutors more than a "one-off" criminal violation that would allow them to use 18 U.S.C. § 2071 which carries a penalty of up to three years in jail if found guilty.
Writing "Trump’s habit of hand-shredding federal documents places him in his greatest legal danger yet," the attorney suggested that -- if the Department of Justice is willing -- they already have in hand a solid case to bring against the former president.
"First, this behavior was extensive and extremely well documented. It apparently went on throughout his entire presidency. And hundreds, probably thousands, of documents were destroyed this way. Some of the documents provided to the January 6 Commission had been taped back together and the National Archives apparently has bags full of hand-shredded documents that still need to be reassembled," he wrote. "Even if all these shredded documents were recovered by White House staff attempting to comply with the Presidential Records Act—a generous assumption—18 U.S.C. § 2071 prohibits both mutilation and destruction of federal records."
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According to Truax, the biggest hurdle prosecutors would face is proving that Trump was well aware he was breaking the law, however, as he notes, "Trump was repeatedly warned that tearing up documents was illegal, both by White House counsel Don McGahn and by his first two chiefs of staff, Reince Priebus and John Kelly. So there is no question whatsoever that Trump knew his behavior violated the law," adding, "In fact, we have Donald Trump’s own word for it" after he accused House Minority Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) of a criminal act when she tore up his State of the Union speech on national TV in 2020.
"Trump repeatedly violated a simple, clear-cut legal duty despite being repeatedly warned that what he was doing was illegal. His willful, calculated, open, and notorious refusal to follow the law is exactly the kind of thing that prosecutors most want to prosecute because failing to do so sends a message," he wrote before adding, "While this hasn’t really sunk in, either with Donald Trump or the public at large, Trump’s habit of hand-shredding federal documents places him in his greatest legal danger yet."
"It’s a flagrant, long-term, habitual violation that Trump knew was wrong even as he continued to engage in it. The only possible excuse for his behavior is that he believed that laws like the one he violated were for little people and not for him," he continued before concluding, "Now it’s up to Merrick Garland to show Trump that he was wrong."
You can read the entire piece here.
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