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Donald Trump can’t stop being wrong about the “Clinton socks case” and the Presidential Records Act, so we’ll keep setting the record straight.
The bottom line: Neither that case nor that law are relevant to the federal indictment charging Trump with violating the Espionage Act and other criminal statutes. And to the extent they’re relevant, it’s in a bad way for the former president.
For background on the latest lunacy from Trump, here’s a Truth Social post of his from Thursday:
Deranged Jack Smith purposefully omitted the Presidential Records Act from his sham Indictment, even though he knows that the PRA is the only law that applies to this subject. Nor does he mention the Clinton Socks Case, or any of the many others cases that are exactly on point, and completely vindicate me. He should be ashamed of himself but, more importantly, he, the DOJ, and the FBI, should be sanctioned for PROSECUTORIAL MISCONDUCT and Grand Jury Abuse. ELECTION INTERFERENCE!!!
Even if you had no context for the post, you could probably sense it’s off base from the characteristically unhinged rhythm. And here’s why.
The “socks” case reference seems to be to Judicial Watch v. National Archives and Records Administration. That was a civil suit brought in 2010 by a conservative legal group seeking tapes of Bill Clinton’s interviews with a historian who would use them to write a book. The tapes were recorded during Clinton’s presidency, and he apparently kept them in his sock drawer, hence the catchier moniker than “Judicial Watch v. National Archives and Records Administration.”
Judicial Watch wanted the tapes declared “presidential” under the Presidential Records Act — as opposed to “personal” records that Clinton could have kept — and to order the National Archives to seize the records and put them in Clinton’s presidential library.
But U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson dismissed the case. She said that the National Archives didn’t even have authority to deem records “presidential” and that the agency lacked the authority to seize them, so the judge couldn’t do anything about it even if she wanted to.
If you are now wondering: What does this have to do with Trump’s criminal indictment for allegedly hoarding classified information and obstructing justice to cover it up? Exactly.
When Trump complained that special counsel Jack Smith “purposefully omitted the Presidential Records Act” from Trump’s indictment, he’s correct that it was omitted on purpose.
But the reason is because it’s not relevant. Trump isn’t charged with violating that law, which governs how records are categorized. He’s charged with violating actual criminal laws. Therefore, as his federal indictment reflects, the Presidential Records Act is not, as Trump argued in his post, “the only law that applies to this subject.”
So, too, for Trump’s complaint that Smith didn’t “mention the Clinton Socks Case, or any of the many others cases that are exactly on point, and completely vindicate me.” The case is simply not relevant to Trump’s indictment. Also, if Trump is complaining that a particular case isn’t in the indictment, that makes even less sense, because the charging document isn’t a forum to list relevant precedents.
The case is simply not relevant to Trump’s indictment.
And to the extent Trump wants to raise the distinction between presidential records and personal ones, all that does is underscore how he had no right to the classified materials at issue in his case, as compared with the more obviously personal materials at issue in the Clinton case, which, it bears repeating, was not a criminal matter.
So, again, Trump’s lament is either irrelevant or hurtful to his case.
The former president is free to continue with these inaccurate or irrelevant claims, but they don’t become truer or more relevant with repetition. If he wants to put these adventurous legal ideas to the test, he should raise them in a motion to dismiss his indictment.
Even Judge Aileen Cannon should be able to make quick work of such claims.