The Espionage Act has a specific provision that relates to gross negligence of handling of documents.
The full interview has a lot of interesting insights.
“There's a variety of different possible crimes, but I think the two that are probably worth focusing the most on are 18 USC 2071. This really applies to any federal government employee who, willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies or destroys public records, right? Records that are public records. Another potential crime is actually under the Espionage Act, which is 18 USC 793. And that actually has provisions that apply to essentially the mishandling through gross negligence, permitting documents to be removed from their proper place, or to be lost, stolen, or destroyed. There's also conspiracy provisions within that 18 USC 793. But certainly gross negligence could be proved by willfulness, because that would be even beyond gross negligence.”
One other important point she makes is that the FBI would have good reason to believe evidence is still there.
“It's a very overt step for the FBI to actually execute a search warrant that signals to the whole world that they had probable cause — that a federal judge agreed with — to believe that the evidence of a crime would be located in the premises to be searched at the time it was searched. So it couldn't be, "We thought the stuff was there a year ago, but not now." It would have to be probable cause to believe that evidence of a crime exists in that location at that time. And that means that the Department of Justice, probably at the highest levels, probably all the way up to the attorney general, agreed that this was a step that was not only legally supportable, but also important to take.”
The full interview has a lot of interesting insights.
“There's a variety of different possible crimes, but I think the two that are probably worth focusing the most on are 18 USC 2071. This really applies to any federal government employee who, willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies or destroys public records, right? Records that are public records. Another potential crime is actually under the Espionage Act, which is 18 USC 793. And that actually has provisions that apply to essentially the mishandling through gross negligence, permitting documents to be removed from their proper place, or to be lost, stolen, or destroyed. There's also conspiracy provisions within that 18 USC 793. But certainly gross negligence could be proved by willfulness, because that would be even beyond gross negligence.”
One other important point she makes is that the FBI would have good reason to believe evidence is still there.
“It's a very overt step for the FBI to actually execute a search warrant that signals to the whole world that they had probable cause — that a federal judge agreed with — to believe that the evidence of a crime would be located in the premises to be searched at the time it was searched. So it couldn't be, "We thought the stuff was there a year ago, but not now." It would have to be probable cause to believe that evidence of a crime exists in that location at that time. And that means that the Department of Justice, probably at the highest levels, probably all the way up to the attorney general, agreed that this was a step that was not only legally supportable, but also important to take.”
FBI warrant for search of Trump home may involve suspected violations of Espionage Act, former chief of DOJ national security says
The former chief of the Justice Department’s national security division said Tuesday that the FBI warrant for the search of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Fla., suggests prosecutors believe they have probable cause that there may have been violations of the World War I-era...
www.yahoo.com
Last edited: