We still don’t know a lot of important facts about President Joe Biden’s retention of classified documents at his Penn-Biden center office and Delaware home. For that matter, there’s a lot we still don’t know about former president Donald Trump’s retention of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. What is certain is the legal concept that prosecutors will have to use to determine whether to prosecute either president: intent.
The relevant provision of the Espionage Act is fairly clear. It’s a crime if you both “willfully” retain classified documents and also “fail” to deliver them “on demand” to the government official “entitled” to receive them.
