The Intercept's James Risen on Trump's Charges and the Espionage Act

I really want to get to your book Jim a fascinating uh book called The Last honest man the CIA the FBI the mafia and the Kennedys and one Senators fight to save democracy but first want to turn to the new developments um in the charges that former president Trump violated the Espionage Act through the willful retention of classified records on Monday night CNN released an audio

recording of trump from a 2021 conversation at his Bedminster New Jersey Golf Club when he discussed holding classified documents knowing they were classified knowing he hadn't Declassified them showing them to a publisher and a writer and his aides in the tape Trump has heard shuffling through the papers as he describes a top-secret pentagon document that Joint Chiefs of Staff chair General Mark milley had written he

trying to overthrow your life well with Millie uh let me see that I'll show you an example he said that I wanted to attack Iran isn't it amazing I have a big pile of papers this thing just came out look this was him they presented me this is off the Record but they presented me this this was him this was the defense department in him wow

we looked at some this was him this wasn't done by me this was him all sorts of stuff it's Pages wrong wait a minute let's see here anyway [Applause] [Music] yeah I just found isn't that amazing this totally wins my case you know except it is like highly confidential secret there's a secret look look at this you attack and Hillary would print that out all the

time Anthony Weiner yeah the program by the way isn't that incredible yeah I was just saying because we're talking about it and you know he said he wanted to attack Iran and what yeah this was done by the military given to me [Applause] and you probably almost didn't believe me but now you believe me no I believe it's incredible right no they bring some bring some

goats in please so that audio aired on CNN of trump um uh it comes as he's charged with violating the Espionage Act through the willful retention of classified records he also faces six counts including obstruction of justice and false statements at a federal trial on Miami scheduled for August 14th for more on this we continue with James risen the Pulitzer prize-winning reporter now with the intercept

we're a senior National Security correspondent also director of first looks media media's press Freedom defense fund he was a target of the U.S government's Crackdown on journalists and whistleblowers himself and won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting the New York Times about warrantless wiretapping of Americans by the National Security Agency Jim waged a seven-year battle risking jail after the Bush Administration then the Obama Administration sought

to force him to testify and reveal his confidential sources in a leak investigation he never gave in the government finally backed down well now now he's written a piece for the intercept headline don't compare Donald Trump to reality winner he's no whistleblower he's just a thief can you elaborate on this Jim yeah sure I think one of the things that bothered me right after the Trump

indictment was that there were a lot of pundits starting to compare Trump to uh people who've been caught up in other Espionage cases including reality winner who was a whistleblower about Russian efforts to hack into American election systems in the 2016 uh presidential race and I just thought it was a it was a ridiculous comparison because uh Trump was just doing this for selfish uh reasons

he clearly came to believe that keeping classified information would was like keeping uh gold coins it was a way of keeping something of value and just stealing uh stealing something of value from the government on his way out the door uh I don't think he cared much about public service or about uh the public interest in this information he wanted to either sell it to the

highest bidder or to continue to use it to gain status somehow and so I think it was it's just a horrible comparison to talk in the same breath with people who have risked their lives in order to make the public aware of government abuses like you know so many whistleblowers have but Jim well I agree with you that there's a major difference between a whistleblowers and

what Trump did uh aren't some Skeptics of what's happening with this prosecution at least partially right that one there's a a major problem of over classification of documents by the government in this country and also that this whole issue of the Espionage Act and uh and the uh the dissemination of classified information has been weaponized by the government to go after people yeah sure well they

did it you know they've done it in uh in a million cases um including a case I was involved in so I am I am no fan of the Espionage Act I don't think that uh it should be on the books I think it should be repealed um but I just find that the uh irony is very thick here in this case where he was spending

most all of his presidency Prosecuting as many whistleblowers as possible and was trying to jail his opponents have have anybody who leaked investigated and now he's caught up in it so I'm not advocating this this is the right uh way to conduct government operations by having an Espionage Act I just find it very uh ironic and I to me it's kind of like Al Capone who

got uh after he on his murderous reign in Chicago ultimately I got caught up in a tax evasion case to me that's you know Trump is a criminal uh he's a pathological liar and this is the the irony is this is the kind of the uh Al Capone tax evasion case in my opinion and it's something that the government could get them on because they didn't

get them on other things and finally just 10 seconds uh wealth NADA is going to be rain today Jim ryzen you have another piece talking about how lackeys always take the fall for president Trump yeah I mean he is a classic uh Trump Lackey he's a low-level guy who probably had no idea what was going on he just followed orders and then Trump used him and

abused him and set him up in a situation where uh everything he was doing was illegal and I'm sure Trump tried to convince this poor guy from the Navy that uh you know he was the president and he could uh he could set the laws I'm sure it's somebody who had no idea what he was really doing and then finally got caught up because he agreed

to lie and obstruct Justice for Trump and so I think if he's smart he'll flip on Trump but the track record shows that very few of Trump's lackeys ever do to flip on him and a number go to jail James risen yeah we're gonna continue with you after break Pulitzer prize-winning reporter formerly with the New York Times now with the intersect