Trumps lawyers are telling us they have no defense in the secret document investigation.

[wnylib]

65. Your first paragraph argument does not

support Trump's position and is not really circular. The example is of a president publicly declasifying something, on air, for the entire world to see that he has done that. Kennedy did it again through Ambassador Stevenson at the UN, showing publicly the CIA photographs of Soviet missiles for all the world to see.

Not the same at all as a president claiming that he "secretly" declassified material, leaving no paper or electronic trail of having done so and no public indication like a broadcast. So we only have the word of a man who lies with every breath that he declassified the materials and they are therefore his personal documents and not the government's. Why and how in hell would declassified documents of over-the-top US nuclear secrets become "personal" documents of DJT, anyway? Not even if possible, his verbal claim is empty unless backed up with empirical evidence.

Trump made the claim, so he should substantiate it.

JFK. Of course he did not commit a crime. I never suggested or even hinted that he did.

I disagree with your statement that, if Kennedy had shared or sold top secret info with Soviets during the Missile Crisis that it would only have been an impeachable offense, but not a crime. It was a hostile situation with an enemy that involved the positioning of extremely deadly weapons. Giving aid to an enemy under such conditions could fit the constitutional definition of treason. Americans have been executed for selling secrets to hostile foreign governments.

Total disagreement with everything in your last paragraph. DJT has made a claim of declassifying extremely sensitive top secret documents in order to claim that they are his personal documents so he had a right to take them to MAL. Unless he can substantiate that claim, he was found in possession of highly classified documents and has therefore committed a crime. Even if he did declassify them, though, US law says that they are government documents that cannot be removed from the WH.

His refusal to provide substantiation of having declassified the documents because the information is part of a defense in case he gets indicted indicates 2 things to me. 1) He knows that his actions are probably indictable, and 2) He is telling DOJ, "So go ahead and indict me. I have my defense prepared." Kind of like somebody would say, offhandedly, "So sue me."