In July 1916, German agents blew up the Black Tom munitions dump in New York harbor, with an explosion loud enough to be heard in Connecticut and Maryland. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY) explained in his 1998 book 'Secrecy,' to pre-1917 sabotage. President Woodrow Wilson and Congress were responding, as former Sen. The Espionage Act of 1917 passed two months after the United States, with 56 dissenting votes, had declared war against Germany. These reports surely have some folks gleefully contemplating the prospect of the 45th president being consigned to the 10 years in the slammer that is the maximum penalty for violations of the Espionage Act.īut as the left-wing Substacker Matt Taibbi pointed out, 'Anyone thrilled at the prospect of trying to prosecute a former president under the Espionage Act has blacked out the recent history of this law.' It's a history of liberal Democrats invoking a notoriously overbroad statute to curb freedom of the press and penalize criticism of government policy.

When federal agents removed top-secret documents from former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence last week, they carried with them a search warrant citing possible violations of the Espionage Act.Īh, the Espionage Act! How that must have sounded comfortingly confirmatory to those leftists who still believe, despite the total lack of evidence, that Trump was elected and governed in collusion with Vladimir Putin's Russia.

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