Legal professionals chastised former president Donald Trump over the weekend for allegedly inventing a law that he claimed had permitted him to take national security classified documents to his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.
Trump lamented his prosecution for having secret records during an address at the Turning Point Action conference on Saturday in West Palm Beach. He asserted, “Whatever documents a president decides to take with him, he has the absolute and unquestioned right to do so.”
“This was a law that was passed and signed,” he added. “And it couldn’t be clearer.”
Legal authorities swiftly disregarded Trump’s assertion.
What law experts say
“Nope. No such law exists. Period.” Longtime Harvard legal scholar Laurence Tribe said.
According to a tweet from national security attorney Bradley Moss, Trump’s assertion is “not a legitimate legal argument,” but rather a “political talking point.”
“It’ll fail in court,” Moss said.
More objections and reactions
In a tweet, journalist Jeff Sharlett said, “No such law exists. Generally, laws granting rulers ‘absolute’ power aren’t a thing in the U.S.”
Trump’s most recent claim, according to HuffPost, is just the most recent in a string of false claims made in the past about the authority of a sitting president. For instance, this month, about the National Archives and Records Administration, he said that he still had an “absolute right to keep [documents] or he can give them back to NARA if he wants.”
The ex-president’s assertion was swiftly rejected by legal professionals, who called his defense “ludicrous.”
Right charge, wrong defense?
To refute accusations that he broke the Espionage Act by improperly handling national security secrets, Trump has attempted to use the Presidential Records Act, which regulates the management of presidential records.
But according to former Assistant U.S. Attorney William “Widge” Devaney, “Trump isn’t charged with any violations of the Presidential Records Act.”
“Trump is charged with possessing secret and top secret information, refusing to turn it over, obstructing the government’s attempts to turn it over, and instigating people to fabricate records.”
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