According to a former Fox News analyst, former President Donald Trump could be charged with the same crimes that he suggested a National Security Agency whistleblower should be executed for.
"In a monumental irony," former New Jersey Superior Court judge Andrew Napolitano wrote in an op-ed in the New Jersey Herald, both Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and the NSA's Edward Snowden "stand charged with the very same crimes that are likely to be brought against Trump."
"On both Assange and Snowden, Trump argued that they should be executed. Fortunately for all three, these statutes do not provide for capital punishment."
The FBI searched Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence in August as part of a Department of Justice investigation into whether Trump broke federal laws, including the Espionage Act, when he took government records.
While the former president is yet to be charged with any crimes, Napolitano said that a federal grand jury could indict him for three alleged offenses. They include removing and concealing national defense information, giving the information to those not legally entitled to possess it, and obstruction of justice by failing to return the information.
Assange and Snowden face charges which include violations of the Espionage Act. Assange is currently in prison in the UK, fighting extradition to the US on espionage charges. Snowden, who leaked highly classified information on surveillance, is wanted in the US but remains in Russia, where he has been granted asylum.
Trump wrote on Twitter in 2013 that Snowden was "a spy who should be executed." Snowden, an American former computer intelligence consultant, leaked highly classified information from the National Security Agency.
He also said in 2010 that he thought there should be "a death penalty or something" for Wikileaks, although he did not mention Assange, who exposed secret US activities during the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, by name.
In his op-ed, Napolitano noted that Trump's claim that he declassified all of the documents he took is irrelevant, as the charges relating to handling national defense information do not require proof of classification.
He notes that Trump did the FBI "a favor" when he inadvertently admitted to knowing he had the documents when he made his claims about declassification.
"He committed a mortal sin in the criminal defense world by denying something for which he had not been accused," Napolitano said.
Former judge Napolitano was a legal analyst for Fox News for 24 years before parting ways in 2021.
He told friends in 2017 that he was on Trump's shortlist to be nominated as a Supreme Court justice, according to Politico. Trump ultimately chose Brett Kavanaugh. Napolitano's name did not appear on any public list of Trump's possible nominees.