BREAKING: ANOTHER LEAK: Washington DC Grand Jury to Indict Trump on Espionage Act, Obstruction Charges | The Gateway Pundit | by Cristina Laila
ANOTHER LEAK!
The Washington DC grand jury hearing evidence in Jack Smith’s classified documents case against Trump is going to indict the former president on the Espionage Act and obstruction, according to a leak to The Independent.
The Florida grand jury on Thursday indicted Trump on at least 7 charges.
Shocking news of a Florida grand jury was revealed this week through leaks to the media.
The charges from the Florida grand jury range from conspiracy to willful retention of national defense information to a scheme to conceal to false statements, ABC reported.
Bloomberg noted evidence collected from the grand jury in Florida may be used in the DC case against Trump.
And that is exactly what is happening.
Separately, a grand jury in Washington DC hearing evidence in Jack Smith’s classified documents case is going to indict Trump on Espionage Act and obstruction charges.
The use of section 793 is a workaround since Trump declassified the documents.
According to The Independent, the grand jurors may have already voted on the indictment Thursday or the vote could be delayed until next week.
The Independent reported (emphasis ours):
The Department of Justice is preparing to ask a Washington, DC grand jury to indict former president Donald Trump for violating the Espionage Act and for obstruction of justice as soon as Thursday, adding further weight to the legal baggage facing Mr Trump as he campaigns for his party’s nomination in next year’s presidential election.
The Independent has learned that prosecutors are ready to ask grand jurors to approve an indictment against Mr Trump for violating a portion of the US criminal code known as Section 793, which prohibits “gathering, transmitting or losing” any “information respecting the national defence”.
The use of Section 793, which does not make reference to classified information, is understood to be a strategic decision by prosecutors that has been made to short-circuit Mr Trump’s ability to claim that he used his authority as president to declassify documents he removed from the White House and kept at his Palm Beach, Florida property long after his term expired on 20 January 2021.
That section of US criminal law is written in a way that could encompass Mr Trump’s conduct even if he was authorised to possess the information as president because it states that anyone who “lawfully having possession of, access to, control over, or being entrusted with any document …relating to the national defence,” and “willfully communicates, delivers, transmits or causes to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted or attempts to communicate, deliver, transmit or cause to be communicated, delivered or transmitted the same to any person not entitled to receive it, or willfully retains the same and fails to deliver it on demand to the officer or employee of the United States entitled to receive it” can be punished by as many as ten years in prison.
