The New American by Steve Byas
The Biden Justice Department evidently wants to send former President Donald Trump to prison, with the revelation on Friday that the unprecedented raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate earlier this week was personally approved by Attorney General Merrick Garland in an effort to secure evidence that Trump had violated the Espionage Act. Violation of the Espionage Act is a felony that is punishable by imprisonment or a fine, or both.
Not since former Vice President Aaron Burr was unsuccessfully prosecuted by the administration of President Thomas Jefferson has such a formerly high-ranking public official faced such legal jeopardy. While it is almost routine in some other countries for a government to hound a defeated foe with the criminal justice system, this has not been the case in America — thankfully.
With the release of the warrant, we know that the FBI claimed to be looking for evidence of removing or destroying records; obstruction of justice; and violating the Espionage Act. Failure to return national security documents can constitute a violation of the law. There does not have to be any act of delivering to, or intending to turn those documents over to, a foreign power, as was the case with State Department official Alger Hiss, who was a spy for the Soviet Union during the early years of the Cold War. Hiss had been a close advisor to President Franklin Roosevelt, was a key player in the establishment of the United Nations in 1945, and gave Soviet agents secret government documents…
