The Department of Justice is readying to ask a Washington D.C. grand jury to indict Donald Trump on obstruction and Espionage Act charges, which could happen as soon as Thursday, The Independent reports.
Prosecutors are prepared to ask the grand jury hearing evidence to approve an indictment that the former president violated a federal criminal code that prohibits “gathering, transmitting or losing” any “information respecting the national defense,” the report said.
The Independent’s Andrew Feinberg writes that “The use of Section 793, which does not make reference to classified information, is understood to be a strategic decision by prosecutors that has been made to short-circuit Mr Trump’s ability to claim that he used his authority as president to declassify documents he removed from the White House and kept at his Palm Beach, Florida property long after his term expired on 20 January 2021.”
