BUFFALO, N.Y. (WBEN) "Today, with certainty, this is on the path for a trial. The wildcard is that Donald Trump is a former President and a candidate for the office of President, so those considerations will come into play," said former U.S. Attorney for Western New York, Dennis Vacco, a Partner with Lippes, Mathias LLC.
Regarding the possibility of a plea in the federal classified documents case,
Vacco said on WBEN Wednesday, "If I were a betting man, I would say that a plea is not likely in this case."
The Justice Department is, and has, investigated the handling of documents by former President Trump, President Joe Biden, former Vice President Mike Pence, and Hillary Clinton, who used a private email server as Secretary of State.
Pence was cleared of wrongdoing last week.
While the indictment against Trump alleges he violated the Espionage Act through "willful retention of national defense information," prosecutors in Clinton's case determined they couldn't show she was "willful" in her intent.
"This is another manifestation of the genie being let out of the bottle," said Vacco. "You only have to go back to 2016 to remember the Director of the FBI, James Comey, essentially saying that Hillary Clinton, by "washing" 33-thousand emails, was wrong, but there wasn't enough evidence to prosecute her. We are in uncharted territory in my estimation," he said.
As for Biden, the special counsel investigating Biden's retention of classified documents from his time as vice president in the Obama administration has yet to announce his findings.
One thought keeps running through Vacco's head. Why didn't they simply sue Trump for a return of the documents?
"Obviously, Trump believed that he had some entitlement to possess those documents. A simple civil lawsuit, demanding return of the documents, would have allowed him to air his position as to why he should lawfully possess those documents. They took the most extreme path and that causes a lot of people to be wondering what the Department of Justice is doing here."
Is this weaponization by the DOJ?
"I know that is a characterization that a lot of people are using," noted Vacco. "I will stick with my characterization. It's the genie out of the bottle. We are now in a whole new world of how prosecutions are employed against political opponents. Right now it's the democrats who control the Department of Justice. I'm not advocating this, but, what's good for the goose is good for the gander because the genie has been let out of the bottle."
