The espionage law, a law that has often been used in criminal cases that involve the leakage or mistreatment of the classified information, contains a ruling that makes the crime of revealing the secrets of national defense “through serious neglect.”
The law does not require the classification of information, because it was written before the classification system. The law simply refers to “national defense information”.
The specified judgment reads: “(e) from, or is assigned, possessed, legal control, or controlling any document, book, symbol, icon, lyric, drawing, images, photography, blue printing, planning, map, model, observation, information, destruction, destruction, destruction, destruction, destruction, destruction, destruction, destruction, or destroy 10,000 dollars, or by imprisonment for no more than two years, or both. “
“The most applied judgment is the most reasonably of the spying law both in relation to Minister Higseth and National Security Adviser Walz,” said Brad Moss, the lawyer, who devotes his practice of security permits and the classified information. Onyemen Strike plans This unintentionally included the editor -in -chief of the Atlantic Ocean.
This ruling was martyred by the Critics of the FBI’s decision not to recommend a criminal charge against Hillary Clinton regarding the secret information she and her assistants have discussed on an unsafe special email system.
“In order to give Mrs. Clinton a pass, the FBI rewrite the basic system, and to include an element that was not requested by Congress,” Legal researcher Andrew McCarthy books For national review, including the bold type of concentration. Moreover, no meaning Sullen negligence It is to emphasize that government officials have a special commitment to protecting the secrets of national defense; When they fail to implement this commitment due to serious neglect, they are guilty of serious violations. “
Moss said that another law seems to be applied here 18 USC 1924Which makes the crime of removing information classified to keep it “in an unauthorized location.” While the law requires the classification of the materials concerned, Moss said that there can be no doubt that the material that was revealed in the Trump administration group chat was classified.
He said: “There is no way that a reasonable person believes that military operational details or intelligence in the actual time about military strikes are not classified, and if they do so, they are not eligible to hold high positions in the American government.”
Under the normal circumstances, Moss said, DNI will conduct an evaluation of the damage to find out the exactly shared information in these chats on a non -governmental platform and to determine the information that has reached the reporter, and it is likely to be followed by a criminal referral to the Ministry of Justice.
Moss said he does not think this will happen according to this administration.
Trump officials have repeatedly said that the messages in the sign chat chat did not include any secret information, and in a testimony before the Intelligence Committee in the House of Representatives this morning, Toulcy Gabbard, director of national intelligence, continued to insist on this point. Gabbard also said that the National Security Council was conducting a review of the accident.
There is a precedent for high -level officials who have a problem with leaks or ill -treatment secrets. When the US CIA officer was leaked during the George W. Bush administration, a special prosecutor was appointed to criminal charges against the Chief Vice President, Scotter Libyan. Recently, the former director of the CIA John Deutsche and former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger was among those who were disciplined to obtain ill -treatment incidents. David Petraius, former CIA director, was tried a decade ago after he presented laptops containing military secrets to a person who writes a book about him.
