Been a lot of talk about Trump and the Espionage Act of 1917, not so much talk about Edward Snowden. We’ve all seen/heard Putin’s Useful Imbeciles (Rand Paul & Lindsey Graham) spouting KG Used-to-Be propaganda.
Sen. Paul (R-Ky.)
Lindsey Graham
Putin’s oh-so-faithful propaganda network just can’t air enough of this stuff. Criminal prosecutors and the rest of the world has gotten wise to the “wink & a nod” method of activating Trump terror cells. Just about every one of Putin’s faithful servants has been trying to direct the conversation back to Hillary Clinton’s email server.
Espionage Act of 1917 and Hillary
I am no fan of Hillary or “the Clintons,” anyone who has read my blogs knows that. I’m also not a lawyer. Having said that, anyone calling Hillary on her personal cell to discuss classified government business knew damned well they didn’t call the government issued number.
While I’m certain Hillary did delete some emails that could have made her serve a bit of time, especially those about rigging the Democratic primary, here’s the reality:
- People don’t send TS-SCI documents as email attachments. Why? Email is never secure. Maybe the original recipient has very good IT security? God only knows about who and where it gets forwarded to. Email attachments are “information in the wild.”
- They did have someone who sets email servers up for one of the secure government agencies set their email server up.
- Some fool in a random security check should have identified the email address Hillary was using was not on a government server.
Should she have been bitch-slapped for her handling of security? Yes. Should she have done time for conspiring to rig the Democratic primary against Bernie Sanders? You betcha! There were a lot of security practices in place to stop her from becoming a big problem. There were also institutional failures.
Espionage Act of 1917 and Snowden
Did Edward Snowden take copies of thousands of classified documents in violation of the Espionage Act? You betcha! He’s been charged. The federal government has been sending arrest warrants out to every government that will accept them. Major newspapers actually published a bunch of the documents/information. That’s where the Snowden case for violation of the Espionage Act of 1917 begins to fall apart.
On September 2, 2020, a U.S. federal court ruled in United States v. Moalin that the U.S. intelligence‘s mass surveillance program exposed by Snowden was illegal and possibly unconstitutional.
The entire charge now runs afoul of the Whistleblower Protection Act. Prosecution will have a tough time convincing a jury of ordinary citizens that he didn’t sacrifice for the public good if they cannot physically prove he sold anything. Snowden has legal/historic precedent on his side as well. Read up on The Pentagon Papers. Pay particular attention to the part about Nixon’s Whitehouse engaging in unlawful efforts to discredit Ellsberg, then go back and look at all of the stuff the government was saying about Snowden.
Did he take the stuff? Yes. Was the stuff used to expose illegal government activity? Yes. Has anyone managed to find piles of cash he got for selling it? No. Right now his claims of “public good” seem pretty solid.
Espionage Act of 1917 and Trump
Little Donald is in deep. According to the documentation to get the warrant much of this news cycle, Trump had Top Secret documents in the original 15 boxes the National Archives and Records Administration had to send people to retrieve. That’s what lead to the referral and to the DOJ getting a warrant.
“If they needed any other documents, they could have just asked.”
Trump attorney Lindsey Halligan
For those who cannot find the above quote, you didn’t bother to look.
They did ask for them!
They asked for all of it when they came for the previous 15 boxes!
So, let’s just dispense with that bullshit answer. The fact they even tried that bullshit defense shines a glaring light on obstruction. They didn’t hand over the documents with the first batch and they tried to misdirect post-warrant.
Time
When Snowden rode off with his cache of classified material he very quickly got it into the hands of legitimate press (not Fox News.) Further supporting his claim of “public good,” the stuff got dumped onto Wikileaks. Adding to the credibility factor is the fact Wikileaks isn’t known to pay people for information, or at least wasn’t at that time.
Trump left office at 8am on Inauguration Day in 2021. It’s August of 2022. There has been no grand “public good” disclosure of said material. There has been nothing positive for the human species done with the stuff.
Kushner
A bigger “time” problem for Trump Jared Kushner’s investment firm and a $2 billion investment from a wealth fund controlled by the crown prince. The House Oversight Committee is looking in the wrong direction, or at the very least, not looking in the more horrific direction. Perhaps the committee cannot look in that direction and it must be the CIA or the FBI.
CIA? Yes.
LIV Golf was founded in 2021 and is also funded by the same sovereign wealth fund that gave Jared $2 billion. LIV Golf is playing at multiple Trump courses. This new golf league is a perfect cover for Trump to fly to foreign countries. If you are selling photocopied classified documents, the crown prince and his fund are the ultimate method of money laundering. The fund can then, invest $2 billion of the proceeds in Kushner’s investment firm, loan money to failed Trump properties, etc. All of this can pretty much happen out of the reach and view of the FBI.
Yes Trump is Mad
His retirement piggy bank just got raided by the FBI. When the new golf league fails like TRUTH Social and soooo many of his Realestate projects, that was his “keep me living the dream” fund.
Snowden at least tried to look out for the little guy. Trump just tries to screw everyone. Trump only cares about Trump.
