Photo: Alamy
Since President Trump’s second arraignment, public speculation has increased regarding the Presidential Records Act. President Trump maintains that the documents kept in his possession were declassified and belonged to him.
Now, he is demanding that the DOJ “immediately withdraw” the indictment. He posted this to Truth Social with a Judicial Watch article that appears to debunk the indictment.
The article was featured in the Wall Street Journal and written by senior attorney Michael Bekesha. He wrote, “The Presidential Records Act allows the president to decide what records to return and what records to keep at the end of his presidency. And the National Archives and Records Administration can’t do anything about it.”
Bekesha also noted, “I know because I’m the lawyer who lost the ‘Clinton sock drawer’ case.”
Also known as Judicial Watch v. National Archives and Records Administration case, this refers to the lawsuit implicating former President Bill Clinton for taking classified material stored on audio-recorded tapes with him when he left office and keeping them in his sock drawer, per One America News.
The judge presiding over the case, Amy Berman Jackson, ruled against Judicial Watch, stating, “the President enjoys unconstrained authority to make decisions regarding the disposal of documents: ‘[a]lthough the President must notify the Archivist before disposing of records . . . neither the Archivist nor Congress has the authority to veto the President’s disposal decision.”
This set a precedent to protect future presidents from legal repercussions when taking government documents upon exiting the White House.
The current charges against President Trump are being criticized on these grounds. If convicted, this will only further prove the existence of a two-tiered justice system where certain political entities are exempt from punishments and others are prosecuted unfairly.
President Trump has maintained his innocence and even requested that in addition to dropping the charges, the DOJ should do so “with apology!”
