Attorney for Donald Trump: Records of His Administration Were ‘De-classified’

The defense plan for the arrested former president in the case involving the secret information was alluded to on Sunday by Donald Trump’s attorney, who said that the claims are politically motivated and that the files in question were declassified or personal souvenirs from his time in office.

Trump is scheduled to appear in federal court in Miami on Tuesday to answer to 37 accusations, including violating the Espionage Act, making false statements, and conspiring to handle secret information improperly. This is the latest legal trouble for the dissident Republican.

Alina Habba, one of his attorneys, said Trump had done “nothing wrong” and would not accept a plea bargain in order to lessen the impact of the case when he pursues his party’s candidacy for the 2024 election.

“He would never admit guilt, because there was nothing wrong with declassifying documents,” Habba said on the discussion program “Fox News Sunday.”

“This is purely political in nature. At its finest, it is electoral meddling.

Trump’s resistance to federal authorities searching his boxes during a search of his Mar-a-Lago residence was also presented by Habba as anger about the officers looking through his personal belongings.

He is entirely entitled to the declassified confidential materials he holds, as well as any memories that are his to keep.

Do I want people looking through my personal belongings if I have records that I have a right to keep as the president who departed the White House? No, she continued.

However, Bill Barr, the US attorney general during the last year of Trump’s administration, said that his former employer confronts “solid counts” brought by the Department of Justice and that, contrary to what the former president has often claimed, Trump is not the target of a witch hunt.

Barr told Fox, “The notion that the president has the discretion to label any document personal is… absurd.

Barr said, “If even half of the indictment is true, then he’s toast.” It’s really damning.

Each of the accusations, made by Department of Justice Special Counsel Jack Smith, carries a potential 20-year sentence.

The Justice Department described evidence in its indictment that included an audio recording from a July 2021 meeting that Trump had with an author, a publisher, and two of his employees. None of these individuals had a US security clearance, and Trump showed them what he called a “secret” and “highly confidential” document in that meeting.

“This is classified data… According to the accusation, Trump added on the tape, “See, as President, I could have declassified it. “Now that I can’t, you know, but this is still a secret.”