OAN’s Daniel Baldwin
12:27 PM – Tuesday, June 6, 2023
A decade old legal case that could exonerate former President Donald Trump has been buried by legacy media.
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“[Special counsel] Jack Smith is terrified of the only standing legal case decision from a court concerning the Presidential Records Act,” said Chris Farrell, Director of Investigations at Judicial Watch.
The case Farrell is referring to is titled Judicial Watch v. National Archives and Records Administration – also known as the “Clinton sock drawer” case. Former President Bill Clinton created White House audio tapes with historian Taylor Branch and stored them in his sock drawer. Judicial Watch sued to obtain access to the tapes and lost.
“He took them from the White House with him into private life,” said Farrell. “There’s classified material on those tapes and arguably it’s the sort of running stream of consciousness record of Bill Clinton’s presidency. Pretty important stuff.”
Special counsel Jack Smith is currently investigating the 45th president for his handling of classified documents since departing the White House. But Farrell says the ruling in this specific case from 2012 exonerates Trump from any alleged wrongdoing.
“Amy Berman Jackson, the judge presiding on that case, said a couple of very important things,” said Farrell. “That the president had an absolute, unreviewable right to take any records or documents that he wants when he leaves office. “
“No one can come back and second guess or double think or ask questions about what the president elects to take with him,” Farrell continued.
In her ruling, Jackson wrote that “the President enjoys unconstrained authority to make decisions regarding the disposal of documents: ‘[a]lthough the President must notify the Archivist before disposing of records . . . neither the Archivist nor Congress has the authority to veto the President’s disposal decision.’”
Farrell points out that this ruling has existed without challenge or question for ten years.
“And that has been the standing law unchallenged for the United States for something like 10 or 11 years,” said Farrell. “No one challenged it – unreviewable absolute authority to take whatever [the president] wants and no one can second guess it.”
Trump claimed Smith’s investigation into his documents was all about “election interference.”
“It’s all about ELECTION INTERFERENCE,” Trump said on Truth Social. “They don’t want to run against me. I ran twice, I did much better the second time, getting millions and millions more votes than the first, a record for a sitting President, and am leading Biden in the polls, by a lot. They are the Party of Disinformation! They are using the DOJ & FBI against me to Rigg the 2024 Election. They’ll hit Hunter with something small to make their strike on me look “fair.” Nothing about these Fascists is fair or honest. FIGHT!”
Farrell claims this classified documents investigation is yet another example of the double standard that exists in the U.S. justice system.
“That’s the legal standard,” Farrell said. “And that’s okay for Bill Clinton, but when you apply the same standard to Donald Trump, suddenly everybody develops amnesia. Nobody knows what you’re talking about.”
So that’s the hypocrisy and that’s the phony double talk that no one will go anywhere near or talk about,” Farrell continued.”
Trump’s defense regarding his conduct has been consistent with this legal precedent.
“I have the absolute right to do whatever I want with them,” Trump told CNN in its town hall in May 2023.
President Joe Biden is facing a separate investigation regarding classified documents from his days as vice president and senator. Biden’s documents were found in numerous locations, including his Wilmington, Delaware home and the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C.
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