Sen. Rand Paul Aims To Repeal Espionage Act To Save Trump

Paul wants to protect the First Amendment rights of spies.
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Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has called for the Espionage Act to be repealed just days after the Justice Department revealed that Donald Trump is under investigation for possibly violating the law.

“The Espionage Act was abused from the beginning to jail dissenters of WWI. It is long past time to repeal this egregious affront to the 1st Amendment,” tweeted Paul:

His tweet featured a photo of a young Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder who leaked a trove of Hillary Clinton and Democratic Party emails — with the help of Russian intelligence — shortly before the 2016 election, which was then won by Trump. (Trump offered to pardon Assange if he denied Kremlin help with the leak, Assange’s lawyer said in 2020 in a London court.)

Twitter critics were amused by Paul’s strategy of exonerating someone like Trump by simply eliminating the law they’re suspected of breaking, especially given that Trump himself signed a law in 2018 making it a felony to mishandle classified documents.

FBI agents last Monday collected around 20 boxes of items from Mar-a-Lago, including 11 sets of classified information, according to the search warrant. The material was supposed to go to the National Archives when he left office.

The former president is now being investigated for possibly violating the Espionage Act, obstruction and removing or destroying records.

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