p0rtia wrote: ↑Thu Mar 21, 2024 6:14 pm
So which lawyers here would (or would not) write a proposed jury instruction about Canon's second issue: "A president has sole authority under the PRA to categorize records as personal or presidential during his/her presidency. Neither a court nor a jury is permitted to make or review such a categorization decision."
Which, as I understand it, is 1) not true, and 2) irrelevant to the charges.
IANAL but I do like logic. DOJ did argue your 2), that even IF you believe the PRA allowed him to transmute them into personal records under the PRA, tfg would still not be authorized to possess them per the Espionage Act.
From this point of view, it looks to me like Smith could submit the exact same jury instructions on Cannon's second assumption as he would without it and not violate her order. Ballsy perhaps, but could do it. The briefing would reiterate their argument on irrelevance.
A hypothetical: what if during some meeting prez grabs some undeniably personal record and scribbles some defense secret on the back of it? I think Smith's position must be that pres is no longer authorized to possess it after leaving office.