The search warrant for former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property identifies three federal crimes that the Justice Department is investigating as part of its investigation.
The first is espionage and is part of the Espionage Act, according to analysis by DailyExpertNews’s legal analyst Elie Honig. He said the spy portion of the warrant applies to anyone who has collected, lost or destroyed defense information.
But the key to making this legal is the idea of intent, he said, adding that the person had to have the “intent or reason to believe, or reckless of the likelihood, that that information could be used to the national interests of the United States.”
The second crime in the warrant is obstruction, Honig said, defining it as essentially obstruction of justice or “destroying, moving or concealing a document to disrupt some ongoing investigation,” he said.
The destruction of a federal document is the third crime in the order, said Honig, identifying the document as criminal handling of government documents.
Keep in mind: The prosecutors who wrote the search warrant only needed to have a probable reason to record the crimes. This means they realized a particular document was missing, took that information to a judge, and the judge agreed there was likely reason to include it in the warrant, Honig said.
“It’s a lower standard of evidence. It’s probable cause, not evidence beyond a reasonable doubt,” Honig said. This means that if there is ultimately no evidence for any of the criminal charges, prosecutors “don’t have to and won’t charge it,” he said.
In addition, “if prosecutors find enough evidence to charge other crimes, they can do that too. This is a starting point. This is just for the search warrant,” he added.
Watch more in the video below:
