(01-13-2023 10:32 AM)Was SoMs Eagle Wrote:  

(01-13-2023 10:23 AM)tanqtonic Wrote:  

(01-13-2023 10:06 AM)Was SoMs Eagle Wrote:  

(01-13-2023 09:36 AM)tanqtonic Wrote:  

(01-13-2023 09:34 AM)UofMstateU Wrote:  Only if you arent or werent the president the president when you did it.

You are still confused I see. Not surprised. Private individual == private individual.

You are wrong. A president keeps his top-secret clearance for life. A private citizen does not. They are not equal.

A top secret clearance gives no right to possess or control the documents. Any documents for that matter. In that sense they are absolutely equal.

If my neighbor has top secret clearance, it gives him no right to steal government property. It gives him no right to possess government documents to the exclusion of the government.

What we have here then is a matter of semantics? Are the documents classified or not? Are they the property of the US government or not?
If all of this is as clear as you protest so vehemently here, why haven’t they arrested him? Could it be that he is not just an ordinary citizen after all?

Whether they are classified or declassified is irrelevant to issues of the Espionage Act.

And the question of US property is an independent issue apart from the issue of classified or not, and independent from the issue of being covered by the Espionage Act.

And, under the law, Trump is simply a private citizen for anything occurring after his term ended. Full Stop.