
Originally Posted by
Steely Glint
That's what the word 'criminal' means? Someone who breaks the law. Sorry, what's the issue here?
The espionage age act, which Trump is being charged under, is from 1917, i.e over a century old. So, not really sure how that is retroactive.
Yes, but, according to what actually happened, rather than whatever the fuck you think happened, when he stopped being president, he moved them out of the White House to Mar-a-Lago, which he was not allowed to do because after he stopped being president, he no longer has the right to have possession of the documents. When he did this, he stored the documents in non-secure locations where all kinds of random people could access them, including a bathroom, a ballroom, a shower and the floor.
He then showed the documents to at least two people not authorised to see them, which he's also not allowed to do.
He was then subpoenaed by the grand jury to return all classified documents. He then asked his attorney to lie to the grand jury and say he did not have the documents he in fact had and he also suggested to his attorney that he hide or destroy the classified documents he had. He directed an employee to hide documents from his lawyers attempting to comply with the subpoena, and eventually returned some of the documents (38 of ~200) in an attempt to make it seem as though he had complied with the subpoena even though he hadn't, all of which is very illegal. I would go as far as to say it's super-illegal, but I'll defer to people with more knowledge of the American legal system on that one.