Donald Trump himself, as president, signed a law in 2018 stiffening the penalty for mishandling classified information.
Politico reported Wednesday on the law Trump signed — making mishandling a felony — in the wake of his 2016 campaign against Hillary Clinton:
“Notably, Trump — after a fierce campaign against Clinton in which he called for her to be jailed for her handling of classified material — signed a law in 2018 that stiffened the penalty for the unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents from one year to five years, turning it into a felony offense.”
The penalty for doing so under Section 1924(a) of title 18 of the United States Code, which deals with the unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material, was changed from one year to five years in prison.
Left-wing journalist Matthew Yglesias posted a screenshot of the law on Twitter with the caption, “You’ll never guess who signed this into law.”
The post comes in the aftermath of Monday’s FBI raid of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
Little is known about the circumstances of the raid. According to the New York Times, the search concerned classified documents that Trump took from the White House after he left office. Trump had previously turned over some of those documents to the National Archives.
The issue of mishandling classified information was a point of contention during the 2016 presidential election in which former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Democrats’ nominee, was accused of mishandling classified documents during her tenure, including using a private email address as opposed to her work email. Trump won that election. Clinton was not charged in the FBI probe of her emails and whether she mishandled classified information.
