The Kentucky Republican announced in a tweet connecting to an article from former Libertarian presidential candidate Jacob Hornberger, who claimed that the Espionage Act has been manipulated and should be repealed.
"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," Paul tweeted.
Paul has been a vocal critic of the FBI's Mar-a-Lago raid, calling it "an attack on the rule of law" in an appearance on Fox News. Search warrant documents unsealed on Friday showed Trump is being investigated for a potential Espionage Act violation and possible obstruction of justice.
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The Espionage Act was passed in June 1917, two months after the United States entered World War I. The act forbade the copying or relaying of information relating to national defense to cause injury to the U.S. or to benefit any foreign nation, according to the First Amendment Encyclopedia. It also forbade obstructing enlistment or causing insubordination in the armed forces. This included the military draft, which resulted in many charges against those opposing it.
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In his article, Hornberger used the examples of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and dissenters against U.S. intervention in WWI to argue that the Espionage Act is a means for the government to shut down any criticism of its foreign policy. He argued that the act could not be reconciled with the principles of a free society.
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"If the White Rose members had done the same thing they did in Germany here in the United States, U.S. officials would have gone after them with the same anger and vengeance as German officials did. And they would have used the Espionage Act to do it," he wrote, referencing the famous student resistance movement against Nazi Germany.
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The search warrant unsealed on Friday afternoon cited 18 U.S. Code 793, which is part of the Espionage Act, specifically referring to the “gathering, transmitting, or losing defense information.” If charged for that violation, Trump could face fines and up to 10 years in prison, according to the Espionage Act.
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The unsealed records seized by the FBI also described the 46 items the FBI said it had seized, accompanied by Trump lawyer Christina Bobb’s acknowledgment signature at 6:19 p.m. on Monday.
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The items seized included 27 boxes, “various classified / TS [top secret] / SCI [sensitive compartmented information] documents,” four items the FBI described as “miscellaneous top secret documents,” three dubbed “miscellaneous secret documents,” two labeled “miscellaneous confidential documents,” and one “confidential document.”
Other records the FBI seized were the “Executive Grant of Clemency re: Roger Jason Stone Jr.,” “Info re: President of France,” two binders of photos, and a “handwritten note.”
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