‘If you want to die in jail, keep talking’ – two national security law experts discuss the special treatment for Trump and offer him some advice

Former President Donald Trump on his airplane on June 10, 2023, two days after his federal indictment. Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images by Thomas A. Durkin, Loyola University Chicago and Joseph Ferguson, Loyola University Chicago Lawyer Thomas A. Durkin has spent much of his career working in national security law, representing clients in a variety of national security and domestic terrorism matters. Joseph Ferguson was a national security prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois, where Durkin was also a prosecutor. Both teach national security law at Loyola University, Chicago. The Conversation U.S.’s democracy editor, Naomi Schalit, spoke with the two attorneys about the federal indictment of former President Donald Trump on Espionage Act and other charges related to his retention of national security-related classified documents. The word “weaponized” has been used by Trump, his supporters and even his GOP rivals to describe the Department of Justice. Do you see the Trump prosecution as different in any notable way from other Espionage Act prosecutions that you’ve worked on or observed? Durkin: Obviously, it’s different because of who the defendant is. But I see it in kind of an opposite way: If Trump were...