More from Joyce Vance on Judge Cannon’s jury-instructions monstrosity:
So Judge Cannon, who didn’t rule for Trump on the specious Presidential Records Act motion last week, essentially acknowledged she intends to do so today. She’s wrong about the law, offering two options, one that is really bad and one that is worse. Under option one, if only one juror thought a record had been designated by Trump as personal, he’d be acquitted. But under option two, as long as Trump says they’re personal records, the government is entirely out of business. Presumably, the Judge would take the case away from the jury and dismiss the charges. And that’s nuts, because, I’ll say it again, it means Trump (and any future president) can take documents clearly marked as Top Secret and containing information about matters like nuclear codes, U.S. battle plans, or information that identifies highly placed human sources putting their lives at risk, declare them to be his personal papers and walk out of the White House with them.
The government can’t play ball here with Judge Cannon’s bad interpretation of the law. Expect their response to be hard-hitting. The bottom line is that the Presidential Records Act doesn’t forgive Trump for violating criminal laws regarding handling of national secrets.