Former US president Donald Trump has been charged under the Espionage Act for retaining classified records. The FBI located about 13,000 government records, about 100 of which were marked as secret or top secret at his Florida estate.
Former president Donald Trump faces 37 criminal charges, 31 of which relate to secret or top secret classified documents. He is also charged with obstructing justice, conspiracy, concealment and false statements.Former US president Donald Trump has become the most high-profile person to ever face criminal charges under the Espionage Act for the unlawful retention of sensitive national defence records.
Over the years, the law has been used as a legal tool by the Justice Department to prosecute people ranging from suspected Soviet spies to famous whistle-blowers like Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers, and Edward Snowden, a former intelligence consultant who leaked classified National Security Agency records to reveal the existence of a domestic surveillance program.
Mr Trump has previously denied breaking the law, arguing that he declassified the records in question and that his broad presidential powers gave him the authority to disclose or declassify materials. This section of the law makes it a crime to wilfully retain the information and fail to deliver it back to the proper US government official.To obtain a conviction against Mr Trump, the government will need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he wilfully retained the material and failed to turn it over to the government.
While Mr Trump finally agreed to send the Archives 15 boxes of material a year after leaving the White House, some of those records were marked as classified, and the boxes did not include all of the records in his possession.
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