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Trump Indictment Not So Unprecedented [1]

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Date: 2023-06-21

After Donald Trump pleaded not guilty in federal court to charges that he violated the Espionage Act by taking classified documents when he left office and obstruction of justice by refusing to return them, he claimed he had "every right to have these documents" under the Presidential Records Act because outgoing presidents have a right to take any records that they like. At other points, Trump claimed the records were his personal property or that he didn’t have time to remove his golf shirts and shoes from the document boxes so he couldn’t surrender them to the FBI.

Representative Elise Stefanik (Rep.-NY), the fourth ranking Republican in the House of Representatives, dismissed the federal indictment of former President Trump as an “illegal and unprecedented weaponization of the federal government.” She accused the “radical Far Left” of using the indictment into interfere with the 2024 election.

Trump is accused of over thirty counts of violating the Espionage Act by taking classified documents when he left office and then hiding and refusing to turn them over to federal law enforcement officials. Associated Press, PBS, the Washington Post, ABC and NBC News, all used “unprecedented” to describe the Trump indictment. But there are legal precedents in United States history for putting Trump on trial.

After he resigned the Presidency, Richard Nixon faced criminal charges until his self-chosen successor, Gerald Ford, granted him a total and unconditional pardon in September 1974. Nixon resigned from office prior to charges being issued. In the National Archives there is the draft of charges being prepared by federal prosecutors to present to a Grand Jury. They accuse Nixon of “unlawfully, willfully, and knowingly” conspiring to “commit offenses against the United States.” Nixon’s criminal acts included bribery, conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and obstruction of a criminal investigation.

In 1807, former Vice President Aaron Burr was tried and acquitted of treason charges. Burr was accused of conspiring to seize Texas and West Florida from Spain and combine them with U.S. territories west of the Mississippi River that were part of the Louisiana Purchase into a new country governed by him. Thomas Jefferson, who Burr challenged for the U.S. Presidency in 1800, ordered Burr arrested and tried. Burr escaped the noose when Supreme Court Justice John Marshall, who presided at the trial, argued that conspiracy itself did not constitute treason, so Burr had not actually broken any laws.

Nixon’s offenses were committed while in office. Burr’s offenses, like the one Trump is charged with in the federal indictment, were committed after he left office. Unlike Burr, Confederate General Robert E. Lee, who prior to the Civil War was superintendent of the West Point Military Academy and a colonel in the United States Army, and Confederate President Jefferson Davis, who had been a United States Senator and Cabinet member, clearly committed treason against the United States.

In April 1865, Andrew Johnson, who became President of the United States when Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, issued pardons to thousands of former Confederate officials and soldiers, but not including Lee and Davis. In February 1869, Jefferson Davis was scheduled to begin trial for treason against the United States, but federal prosecutors entered a “nolle prosequi” petition announcing a decision not to prosecute Davis. The pending prosecution of Robert E. Lee and other Confederate military personnel and government officials not already pardoned were also dropped. However, it was not until the Carter administration in the late 1970s that the citizenship rights of Lee and Davis were restored.

Donald Trump and his supporters can scream about injustice all that they want, but there clearly are legal precedents to indict, put on trial, and convict the former President. Some commentators have suggested charges against Trump be dropped so the country is able to heal its divisions. But there is no healing with Donald Trump. Whether he is put on trial or not, whether he is convicted or not, his strategy is always to deny and attack and he will rip the country apart in his bid to regain the Presidency no matter the consequences for democracy and the nation.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/6/21/2176774/-Trump-Indictment-Not-So-Unprecedented

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