Donald Trump at a rally in 2016.
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In a federal indictment, prosecutors displayed Trump’s own campaign promises about handling classified information.
“In my administration I’m going to enforce all laws concerning the protection of classified information,” he said in August 2016.
Now Trump himself is accused of the “willful retention” of classified government records.
In a federal indictment unsealed on Friday, prosecutors highlighted former President Donald Trump’s own campaign promises about handling classified information — painting in stark relief the reality of how prosecutors allege he actually went about doing so.
Trump publicly and repeatedly attacked Hillary Clinton for her handling of government records, with chants of “Lock her up” becoming a rallying cry during campaign stops.
According to the federal indictment, Trump said on August 18, 2016: “In my administration, I’m going to enforce all laws concerning the protection of classified information. No one will be above the law.”
Less than a month later, on September 6, he followed up by saying: “We can’t have someone in the Oval Office who doesn’t understand the meaning of the word confidential or classified.”
A screenshot of a federal indictment unsealed on Friday features Trump’s own public statements about how classified information should be handled under the law.
Department of Justice
As president, in July 2018, Trump also declared that “any access granted to our Nation’s secrets should be in furtherance of national, not personal, interests,” the indictment lays out.
“As the head of the executive branch and Commander in Chief, I have a unique, Constitutional responsibility to protect the Nation’s classified information, including by controlling access to it,” he said at the time, per the indictment. “More broadly, the issue of [a former executive branch official’s] security clearance raises larger questions about the practice of former officials maintaining access to our Nation’s most sensitive secrets long after their time in Government has ended. Such access is particularly inappropriate when former officials have transitioned into highly partisan positions and seek to use real or perceived access to sensitive information to validate their political attacks.”
Now, in a stunning turn of events, Trump himself stands accused of improperly handling classified records, which prosecutors said he took from the White House to his private residences at Mar-a-Lago and stored “in a ballroom, a bathroom and shower, and office space, his bedroom, and a storage room.”
He faces 37 felony charges, including conspiracy to obstruct justice and violating the Espionage Act. The damning indictment also says Trump praised Clinton’s lawyers for deleting some of her emails and helping to keep her out of trouble.
Trump, for his part, remains undeterred on Friday, insisting on Truth Social: “Under the Presidential Records Act, I’m allowed to do all this.”