Seymour Flops
Diamond Member
The point is that once the documents are determined to be personal, it makes sense to send them to his personal home. They don't cease to be personal just because his term in the White House ends.
You put the phrase "while in office," in quotes, but I don't see that phrasse in the snippet you presented. What part of that ruling says that the documents the president deems personal change to presidential when he leaves office?And of course, once the snippet is examined in context, the rest of the story is that "while in office". FPOTUS#45 isn't in office and is not charged under the Espionage Act for any actions while in office.
That is the prosecutions claim. To support that claim, they would have to place the alleged national defense documents in evidence, and to give the defense a fair chance to refute that claim, they would have to provide copies of the alleged national defense documents to the defendant's attorneys.All of FPOTUS#45's charges in the documents case stem from after leaving office for his failure to return US Government owned national defense information.
WW
But . . . Smith claims that the jury and Trump's legal team are not trustworthy enough to see classified information. They're gonna pick twelve people and give them the power to over-rule the wishes of the majority of voters as to who should be the next president. But also claim that those twelve people cannot be give security clearances in order to be able to see the evidence? Members of the Bar, Officers of the Court, but they also are not to be trusted?
That's what prompted Judge Cannon to ask for a draft of jury instructions. She was trying to accommodate Smith's rather absurd request not to show evidence central to the case to the jury, by exploring whether it is possible that jury instructions could be crafted that would make it a fair trial, in spite of the defendant not being shown the evidence in order to refute it.
I think she was using a little socratic irony on Smith. She knows that such an evidence-free, but fair, trial is not really possible, and hoped that her challenge to Smith would prompt him to see that for himself. But Smith is an incredibly stubborn person, who can never admit that he is wrong. That's why he has gotten spanked by the courts so many times when going after politicians.