The Daily Populous Thursday August 11st, 2022 morning edition
Authored by businessinsider.com and submitted by themimeofthemollies

Trump in 2018 signed a sweeping national-security bill into law.

The bill increased punishments for those who mishandle classified information.

The measure is of note after the raid at Mar-a-Lago connected to government documents.

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A bill which former President Donald Trump signed into law in 2018 could be used to punish him if he's found to have mishandled classified information after leaving office.

FBI agents on Monday raided Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida as part on an investigation into whether Trump wrongly kept hold of classified material after he left office.

Bradley P. Moss, a national-security attorney, told Insider that Trump could face five years in prison if he's found guilty under a national security bill which he signed as president.

The bill, which made changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was signed into law by Trump in January 2018.

It upgraded the seriousness of wrongly moving classified material, turning it from a misdemeanor into a felony — and increasing the maximum punishment from one year to five.

Moss noted that it was passed in the wake of Trump's relentless attacks during the 2016 presidential campaign on Hillary Clinton for allegedly mishandling classified information.

But now it is Trump who is under pressure.

"Trump certainly has legal exposure to Section 1924 given it was classified documents from his spaces in the White House that were removed to Mar-Lago," said Moss.

In a tweet Tuesday in the wake of the FBI raid on Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort, Jeff Yarbro, an attorney and Democratic state senator in Tennessee, pointed out it was Trump who had signed the bill now looming over him.

The National Archives and Records Administration in February said that classified material was found among boxes of things that had been taken from the White House to Mar-a-Lago when he left office.

Legal analyst Glenn Kirchner at the time told MSNBC that the former president was facing a potential "five year felony" in a seeming reference to the law Trump had strengthened in 2018.

At the time, the classified-information measures attracted little attention, with the focus of news coverage being the renewal of sweeping surveillance powers in the bill.

According to an analysis by Moss and other analysts at the Just Security blog, it is one of a number of laws Trump might have violated if he's found to have mishandled classified material.

There are some doubts about whether the bill Trump signed into law could be used to prosecute him, said Moss, as it's unclear whether it applies to former presidents.

Trump has vehemently denied any wrongdoing in relation, saying that he had fully cooperated with requests from the National Archives and characterizing the raid as a politically motivated.

His aide, Kash Patel, told Breitbart that Trump declassified the material before leaving office under the president's broad powers for deciding what should remain secret.

Moss said "efforts by Trump to declassify records before he left office" were another key issue that could impact whether the measures could be used to prosecute Trump.

Trump's office did not immediately reply to a request for comment from Insider.

BruceBanning on August 10th, 2022 at 17:19 UTC »

A law he signed, busted by an FBI director he installed, approved by a judge he appointed, and tipped off by one of his own people. It’s poetic.

Living-Chair5685 on August 10th, 2022 at 16:17 UTC »

If this Mo'fucker get's thrown in jail due to a law he, himself signed I will never stop laughing or posting about it in this subreddit.

themimeofthemollies on August 10th, 2022 at 16:03 UTC »

After all of his yelling “Lock her up!” is Trump now the one who will be locked up for mishandling confidential information??

Curiouser and curiouser every single day: especially now that the former President exercises his right not to incriminate himself:

“Former President Donald Trump declined to answer questions on Wednesday during a deposition with the office of New York Attorney General Tish James, asserting his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.”

“Trump, who has long accused James of conducting a politically motivated probe into his family’s real estate business, said in a statement Wednesday that he had “absolutely no choice” but to take the Fifth during his under-oath interview with the attorney general’s office.”

“I once asked, ‘If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?’ Now I know the answer to that question,” Trump said in a statement released by his post-presidential office.”

“When your family, your company, and all the people in your orbit have become the targets of an unfounded, politically motivated Witch Hunt supported by lawyers, prosecutors, and the Fake News Media, you have no choice.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/08/10/trump-to-be-deposed-by-new-york-attorney-general-on-wednesday-00050784

Even as a Saturday Night Live skit, I don’t think this could be funny.

As it stands in reality, the tragedy of Trump is sadly also a tragedy for Americans.

Truth and justice can never be sacrificed to the ego or delusions of any leader, not in any land of the free.

But if Trump’s own law now serves to punish him, the poetic justice would be stunning.