05. The Mar-a-Lago Destabalisation Event
05. The Mar-a-Lago Destabalisation Event
Because everyone is talking about it.
‘Cry “Havoc!” and let slip the dogs of war,’ said Marc Antony, over the dead body of Julius Caesar, as he uttered his promise of vengeance.
Chaos ensues on Capitol Hill as former President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, had his home in Palm Beach, Florida raided by the FBI, who acted on a search warrant now released to the public. The search warrant included a variety of items taken from the residence when federal agents executed the warrant this week. Several items were listed as ‘Miscellaneous secret documents’ and ‘Miscellaneous top-secret documents’.
Also included in the release of the search warrant was the detail by the issuing magistrate judge, who deemed there was probable cause to believe that the FBI would uncover evidence of 3 crimes:
1. Violation of the Espionage Act, Section 793 of Title 18 of the US Code
This Act criminalises the unauthorised retention or disclosure of information related to national defence that could be used to harm the US or aid a foreign adversary. Each offence can carry a penalty of up to 10 years in prison. The Act is written in such a way that broadly covers the mishandling of security-related secrets, rather than the layperson’s understanding of espionage.
2. Violation of Section 1519, a part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act
This is an obstruction law, implemented in 2002 after multiple financial scandals, which sets a penalty of up to 20 years in prison per offence for the act of destroying or concealing documents or records, ‘with the intent to impede, obstruct or influence the investigation or proper administration of any matter’ within the jurisdiction of federal departments or agencies.
3. Violation of Section 2071
This law criminalises the theft or destruction of government documents. It makes it illegal for anyone with custody of any record of document from federal court or public office to willfully and unlawfully conceal, remove, mutilate, falsify or destroy it.
While agents involved in the execution of the search warrant were primarily instructed to retrieve, ‘documents with classification markings’, they also had a secondary instruction to retrieve, ‘any government and/or presidential records created between Jan. 20, 2017, and Jan. 20, 2021’ — the dates of Trump’s presidency — as well as ‘any evidence of the knowing alteration, destruction or concealment of any government and/or presidential records, or of any documents with classification markings.’
Interestingly, another penalty in Section 2071 for any conviction is that the defendant is barred from holding federal office. However, as many have already noted, any conviction under Section 2071 would be unlikely to block Trump from running again as Supreme Court rulings suggest that because the Constitution sets out criteria for who is eligible for the presidency, Congress cannot alter that standard.
A (fairly brief) timeline until now
January 2021
The day before he left office, Jan. 19, Trump sent a letter to the archivist of the United States, naming 7 senior officials as his representatives to handle future requests for presidential records.
The National Archives said it received a collection of documents at the end of the administration. It later said that many had been torn up and taped back together, and that some where handed over in scraps that officials had never reconstructed.
January 2022
The National Archives announces that it has been successful in retrieving 15 boxes of materials taken from the White House at the end of Trump’s term and were moved to his Mar-a-Lago residence. The agency negotiated with Trump’s lawyers throughout 2021 to have the materials returned.
In a statement, the National Archives said, ‘These records should have been transferred to NARA (the National Archives and Records Administration) from the White House at the end of the Trump administration in January 2021’.
February 2022
After receiving the boxes, the National Archives discovered what appeared to be classified information within the documents withheld but eventually disclosed to them by Trump and flagged the incident to the Justice Department for guidance. The agency confirmed on Feb. 18 that several documents within the boxes were marked as containing, ‘classified national security information’.
The announcement of this raised major concern among lawmakers, who started investigating through the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. In a letter on Feb. 24, Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, the committee’s chairwoman, requested a thorough accounting from the National Archives of all the contents of the boxes received from Mar-a-Lago, including any documents that seemed to have been tampered with (i.e. documents that had been attempted to be destroyed).
She wrote:
I am deeply concerned that former President Trump may have violated the law through his intentional efforts to remove and destroy records that belong to the American people.
April 2022
Federal Authorities apparently begin their investigations into how classified information ended up at Mar-a-Lago.
The Justice Department instructed the National Archives not to share any further details about the materials found at Mar-a-Lago with the House Oversight Committee, suggesting that the FBI was in the preliminary stages of a criminal investigation.
May 2022
The Justice Department issues a subpoena to the National Archives to retrieve the classified documents found in the boxes. Authorities also requested interviews with several White House officials present in the days before Trump left office. This indirectly confirmed that the Justice Department had begun a grand jury investigation into whether Trump had mishandled sensitive documents.
August 2022
FBI agents raid Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence, breaking open a safe to obtain information related to his handling of classified materials. 2 days later, during a deposition in New York, Trump refused to answer any questions from the state’s attorney general, citing the Fifth Amendment. Trump’s office soon made an announcement of the supposed conspiracy against him.
Soon after, Attorney General Merrick Garland moved to make public the warrant and supporting documents used in the search and announced he had personally approved the raid after trying a variety of, ‘less intrusive’ methods.
On Friday, 12th August, The Wall Street Journal reported that a list of documents removed from the residence include materials marked as top secret and meant to be viewed only in secure government facilities, of which the residence is not.
Thoughts
In all honesty, I cannot predict the electoral, political or social effects of a success or failure to prosecute Trump for the crimes he’s been accused of. A successful prosecution would likely mean that he will never hold office again, a good thing. However, this would motivate a large group of conservative radicals to protest agencies, politicians, judges, federal agents etc… more than it did with the outcome of the 2020 Presidential Election. In 2016, 63 million people voted for Trump. In 2020, 74 million. Of course, we cannot expect the masses to riot, but we certainly can’t expect none. It worries me whether there even is a net social benefit to the successful prosecution of Trump. This is obviously not to say that the prosecution should hold back by any stretch of the imagination, it is just a worry for the future to come.
I am anxious more than excited for how this story could play out. It threatens American democracy, security and prosperity. As much as I would like there to be one, there is no good case outcome that I can see. I hope we’re prepared.