How can someone be charged with obstruction when no crime was committed?

Truth Detector

Truth Detector

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Presidential Records Act (PRA) of 1978 | National Archives

Places the responsibility for the custody and management of incumbent Presidential records with the President.

Requires that the President and his staff take all practical steps to file personal records separately from Presidential records.

Allows the incumbent President to dispose of records that no longer have administrative, historical, informational, or evidentiary value, once the views of the Archivist of the United States on the proposed disposal have been obtained in writing.

Establishes in law that any incumbent Presidential records (whether textual or electronic) held on courtesy storage by the Archivist remain in the exclusive legal custody of the President and that any request or order for access to such records must be made to the President, not NARA.

https://www.archives.gov/presidential-libraries/laws/1978-act.html
 
Justice is hardly blind in the federal case going against Donald Trump

The indictment of Donald Trump is a detailed recounting of his decisions to keep classified documents and to involve others in his alleged refusal to come clean about everything he had.

Based on a grand jury search warrant, federal agents raided Mar-a-Lago and the evidence they gathered was bolstered with FBI interviews of Trump aides, employees and even his lawyers.

Weaving in seized texts and emails from key moments, prosecutors have created a compelling picture of their case, with Trump’s personality and habits of deception coming through loud and clear in the 49-page charging document.

However, I believe that if federal prosecutors had empaneled a grand jury and obtained a search warrant for Joe Biden’s properties and if FBI agents had put his aides, employees and lawyers under oath, scoured their phones and emails and confronted them with evidence to get them to talk, agents would have found that Biden knowingly kept classified documents for many years in his homes and offices, including in the four years between his being vice president and president.

Honest agents unencumbered by any political bias of their own or their bosses’ might also have discovered that Hunter Biden and other family members and associates had access to the supposedly secret documents and possibly used them in drawing up their lucrative business schemes with foreign officials and businesses.

https://nypost.com/2023/06/10/justi...-the-federal-case-going-against-donald-trump/
 
There is no need for a Special Prosecutor in Trumps case as well. There is no conflict of interest in this case. So why did Merrick assign one?

Why didn't the Feds immediately enforce the law and take them from Trump. Instead, the Justice Dept seems to have employed a policy of prolonged patience and an acceptance of negotiations, discussions and requests.

Then suddenly there is a raid and now criminal charges. If Trump's lawyers were cooperating all along and were never notified in writing by the Justice Dept about a specific end date to all document negotiations and requests, there could be a problem. The Justice Dept could be accused of entrapment.

Perhaps they plotted to have no immediate enforcement of the law, plotted to employ a perceived acceptance of negotiations, and plotted not to issue a written warning about a specific end date for all negotiations. Therefore, they plotted to entrap Trump.

The Trump lawyers could say it was a setup/entrapment by a corrupt Justice Dept and corrupt FBI once again interfering in a Trump presidential election and once again guilty of selective treatment and enforcement. Enforcement and treatment not given to their political friends, and there seems to be ample evidence of that behavior.

In addition, there was a direct violation on specious claims the violated the attorney-client privilege of confidentiality. The indictment lists those conversations and are impermissible in a court.

Trumps 4th amendment rights were violated.
Fourth Amendment
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
 
Absurd charge Number 1:

18 U.S. Code § 793 - Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information
(a)Whoever, for the purpose of obtaining information respecting the national defense with intent or reason to believe that the information is to be used to the injury of the United States, or to the advantage of any foreign nation.....

Trump neither gathered, nor did he lose, nor did he transmit defense information. He didn't sell it or disseminate it to a foreign adversary. Hillary certainly did.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/793
 
This one will depend on the evidence. I doubt there is proof of any tampering. But it is Trump. Who cares right? This also requires a crime which Trump hasn't committed.

18 U.S. Code § 1512 - Tampering with a witness, victim, or an informant

(1)Whoever kills or attempts to kill another person, with intent to—
(A)prevent the attendance or testimony of any person in an official proceeding;
(B)prevent the production of a record, document, or other object, in an official proceeding; or
(C)prevent the communication by any person to a law enforcement officer or judge of the United States of information relating to the commission or possible commission of a Federal offense or a violation of conditions of probation, parole, or release pending judicial proceedings;
shall be punished as provided in paragraph (3).
(2)Whoever uses physical force or the threat of physical force against any person, or attempts to do so, with intent to—
(A)influence, delay, or prevent the testimony of any person in an official proceeding;
(B)cause or induce any person to—
(i)withhold testimony, or withhold a record, document, or other object, from an official proceeding;
(ii)alter, destroy, mutilate, or conceal an object with intent to impair the integrity or availability of the object for use in an official proceeding;
(iii)evade legal process summoning that person to appear as a witness, or to produce a record, document, or other object, in an official proceeding; or
(iv)be absent from an official proceeding to which that person has been summoned by legal process; or
(C)hinder, delay, or prevent the communication to a law enforcement officer or judge of the United States of information relating to the commission or possible commission of a Federal offense or a violation of conditions of probation, supervised release, parole, or release pending judicial proceedings;
shall be punished as provided in paragraph (3).
 
18 U.S. Code § 1519 - Destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in Federal investigations and bankruptcy

You won't find one word in the indictment suggesting that any of the documents were destroyed, altered or falsified. It is silent on this one.
 
18 U.S. Code § 1001 - Statements or entries generally

(a)Except as otherwise provided in this section, whoever, in any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of the Government of the United States, knowingly and willfully—
(1)falsifies, conceals, or covers up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact;
(2)makes any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation; or
(3)makes or uses any false writing or document knowing the same to contain any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or entry;
shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 5 years or, if the offense involves international or domestic terrorism (as defined in section 2331), imprisoned not more than 8 years, or both. If the matter relates to an offense under chapter 109A, 109B, 110, or 117, or section 1591, then the term of imprisonment imposed under this section shall be not more than 8 years.

I don't see a case for this one because there as there was no crime in the first place.
 
Truth Detector said:
Presidential Records Act (PRA) of 1978 | National Archives

Places the responsibility for the custody and management of incumbent Presidential records with the President.

Requires that the President and his staff take all practical steps to file personal records separately from Presidential records.

Allows the incumbent President to dispose of records that no longer have administrative, historical, informational, or evidentiary value, once the views of the Archivist of the United States on the proposed disposal have been obtained in writing.

Establishes in law that any incumbent Presidential records (whether textual or electronic) held on courtesy storage by the Archivist remain in the exclusive legal custody of the President and that any request or order for access to such records must be made to the President, not NARA.

https://www.archives.gov/presidential-libraries/laws/1978-act.html
Click to expand...

Ah, Trump didn’t “file separately,” nor did the Archivist offer anything “in writing,” and the Archivist wanted them “to view” and determine if they needed to be held in “courtesy storage”

And above everything else, Trump lied about having the files, tried to hide the files, and resisted returning them, all about intent, and Trump displayed full intent on stealing and keeping the documents

But it is asinine talking to you about it, you think Trump is above the law, that as he himself said, he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue in broad daylight and you would still vote for him
 
18 U.S. Code § 2 - Principals

(a)Whoever commits an offense against the United States or aids, abets, counsels, commands, induces or procures its commission, is punishable as a principal.
(b)Whoever willfully causes an act to be done which if directly performed by him or another would be an offense against the United States, is punishable as a principal.

More absurdity.
 
archives said:
Ah, Trump didn’t “file separately,” nor did the Archivist offer anything “in writing,” and the Archivist wanted them “to view” and determine if they needed to be held in “courtesy storage”
Click to expand...

You'll need to read the Presidential Records Act before we engage halfwit. Why aren't they prosecuting Biden?

archives said:
And above everything else, Trump lied about having the files, tried to hide the files, and resisted returning them, all about intent, and Trump displayed full intent on stealing and keeping the documents
Click to expand...

There is nothing but lies in your post. I assume that was the loony narrative MSNBC gave you, right halfwit?

Read the PRA halfwit.

archives said:
But it is asinine talking to you about it, you think Trump is above the law,
Click to expand...

What's asinine are your moronic lies and whiny flailing halfwit. Is Biden above the law halfwit? Should he be indicted?

archives said:
...that as he himself said, he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue in broad daylight and you would still vote for him
Click to expand...

Yeah halfwit, Trump really believed he could shoot someone. Do you know what exaggeration and satire is halfwit?

It's kind of like when Trump sarcastically asked in a speech if Trump had Hillary's e-mails. Then triggered morons like you on the left had conniptions.

Trust me when I say this, you give halfwits and morons a bad name. It's an insult to them calling you one.
 
Thread title poses The Dumb Question of The Day.

Public policy requires designated agencies of government to have authority to investigate suspected criminal conduct. So it is necessarily a violation of law to obstruct those investigations. Otherwise, every suspected person would feel free to obstruct in every way he could without risk, short of committing some other crime, unless his obstruction didn't succeed.
 
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