Thread by @AshaRangappa_

THREAD. Will Trump be charged with a crime, following the search at Mar-a-Lago? Ehhhh...if you look at it through a national security lens, maybe not. A quick explainer to manage expectations:

2. I learned something new from @petestrzok today: That typically, the government does not use subpoenas to recover classified info from those not authorized to receive it. I'll let him explain why, but it has implications for potential criminal charges moving forward

3. As I've mentioned repeatedly today, unauthorized possession or storage of classified documents are, by definition, a threat to national security. And the government must neutralize that threat. If a subpoena is not an option, then the government has a dilemma

4. Either 1) Trump voluntarily returns the docs, or 2) they get a search warrant to retrieve them. It seems like they tried, for over a year, to do #1. What if that fails? One imagines that then they have to keep threatening his lawyers that they will have to come and take them

5. So basically in this scenario this becomes a game of chicken. Gov sends folks from DOJ. Trump still has the docs (as they say, possession is 9/10s of the law!). At some point, DOJ decides to bite the bullet bc it is too risky to allow sensitive documents to remain at MAL

6. One imagines a SW application which lists, e.g., 18 U.S.C. 793(e) -- willful failure to return national defense information. Discussed with @renato_mariotti, who pointed out that then the PC consists of all the exchanges between DOJ and Trump's lawyers playing chicken

7. Search warrant gets signed off, they go in, comb the place, remove all of the documents which may pose a threat to national security. Now what? The threat has been neutralized. In other words, the GOAL -- eliminate the threat -- has been achieved, through the means -- a SW

8. So -- mischief managed. Now, does DOJ *also* need to PUNISH Trump? That's a whole different ballgame. As many have pointed out, PC for a search warrant is lower than beyond a reasonable doubt to convict -- not to mention the hurdle of indicting and prosecuting a former POTUS

9. Counterpoint: It looks really bad to go into Trump's home (even if he was warned repeatedly that this is what would happen), execute a search, and then not charge him. I think public would need to know more about the nature of the documents taken to be satisfied

10.This isn't to say there wouldn't be a *basis* to prosecute (could be same crime listed in SW application or something else). But the *need* to do that is less pressing if impetus for the SW in the first place is to eliminate threat to nat sec and there was no other option /END