Disgraced former Fox “News” host Kimberly Guilfoyle, who is engaged to Donald Trump Jr., wants us all to know that Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith doesn’t understand federal law the way she does, and that means the criminal case against failed former president Donald Trump doesn’t have a chance of succeeding.
On her podcast, Guilfoyle went on for several minutes about the indictment of her future father-in-law, suggesting that presidential power always overrides the law, even after a president leaves the White House and returns to private life.
“You’ve heard a lot about the Espionage Act and all of the bluster from Special Counsel Jack Smith, but there’s another law called the Presidential Records Act that undercuts the entire argument. Any record the president or his staff creates or receives in their official duty or capacity is a presidential record,” Guilfoyle insisted.
Wow! Is that true? Nope. What Guilfoyle said is a complete crock of shit, as CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale explained in March.
The Presidential Records Act says that, the moment a president leaves office, NARA (National Archives and Records Administration) gets custody and control of all presidential records from his administration. Nothing in the act says there should be prolonged “talk” or a negotiated “agreement” between a former president and NARA over a former president’s return of presidential documents – much less that there should have been a months-long battle after NARA first contacted Trump’s team in 2021 to try to get some of the records that had not been handed over at the end of his presidency.
The Presidential Records Act could not possibly be clearer. It reads:
“Upon the conclusion of a President’s term of office, or if a President serves consecutive terms upon the conclusion of the last term, the Archivist of the United States shall assume responsibility for the custody, control, and preservation of, and access to, the Presidential records of that President.”
Reports are that Trump is looking for a good attorney to represent him in the upcoming documents case. Since Guilfoyle seems to be such an expert, why doesn’t he ask her to be his lawyer?
Probably because he knows she’s a clueless moron and he’d wind up getting a 500-year sentence.