types. the never-ending courtship of the far-right maga caucus. dan pfeiffer, claire mccaskill, thank you both for closing it out on this big, historic night of news. that does it for our show, we will see you again tomorrow. now, it is time for the last word with lawrence o donnell. good evening, lawrence. r good evening, alex. we re gonna continue covering what we re obviously gonna be covering for quite awhile. thank you, alex. i ll be watching. the criminal case of the united states of america, versus donald j trump, is underway tonight. in florida. where a sealed indictment has charged the former president the seven count indictment. the new york times is reporting tonight that the charges include willfully retaining national defense secrets and violations of the espionage act. making false statements, and an obstruction of justice conspiracy, according people familiar with the matter. donald trump has been ordered to surrender for arrest in processing an arraign
united states of america versus donald j trump, is underway tonight. in florida. where a sealed indictment has charged the former president the seven count indictment. the new york times is reporting tonight that the charges include willfully retaining national defense secrets and violations of the espionage act. making false statements, and an obstruction of justice conspiracy, according people familiar with the matter. donald trump has been ordered to surrender for arrest in processing an arraignment in the federal court in miami on tuesday at three pm. four months after donald trump left the white house, the national archives said their first letter to donald trump. on may 6th, 2021, asking, politely, for the return of documents that belong to the united states government. nothing was returned. on january 17th, 2022, an archive contract arrived at mar-a-lago to load 15 boxes into a truck and transport them 1000 miles north to the national facilities. on may 11th, of 2022 l
to that? i think i went something along the lines of this hill, basically. because, no! that s not how it works. the presidential records act is not the statute upon which he is being prosecuted. . but the decision of whether or not these are documents is gonna be governed by the federal records act. yeah, it s a copy of the original, it s a federal agency record. it s a national defense information? whether it was classified or declassified, my guess is for almost all of these records, yeah. it s gonna meet the standard for national defense information, they ll have to prove that as a matter of fact, to the jury. i don t think the governments ever lost when it came to bringing an espionage act case, proving that was national defense information. so, what are they gonna argue here? they re going to claim stuff was declassified, irrelevant.
it s a national defense information? whether it was classified or declassified, my guess is for almost all of these records, yeah. it s gonna meet the standard for national defense information, they ll have to prove that as a matter of fact, to the jury. i don t think the governments ever lost when it came to bringing an espionage act case, proving that was national defense information. so, what are they gonna argue here? they re going to claim stuff was declassified, irrelevant. that means nothing for the espionage act charges. they re gonna say trump didn t have the intent, he didn t realize what was going on, didn t know what was in the boxes. that s where this various testimony of all these other people s gonna come in, including how a document got in his desk that had the classification markings. they re gonna argue, they re gonna try to make as a scapegoat, they re going to say he went rogue. he misunderstood the importance of donald trump, he just went