Former President Donald Trump is leaning on the so-called "Clinton socks case" as a legal precedent to clear his name after he was indicted on 37 counts including "willful retention of national defense information."

After pleading not guilty to the charges in a Florida federal court Tuesday, the former president returned to his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club where he delivered a defiant, 32-minute speech, declaring, "This day will go down in infamy."

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Trump notably raised the "case of Bill Clinton's national security adviser" Sandy Berger, saying "he was caught stealing classified documents from the National Archives ... by stuffing them in his pants ... and putting them also in his socks.

"He destroyed them and cut the tape with scissors," Trump said, adding what Berger did was "highly illegal" despite facing no jail time.

The reference, which was repeated by Trump on Truth Social in the days before his arraignment and in Trump court filings, is derived from a 13-year-old case in which the conservative watchdog Judicial Watch sought access to 79 audio tape recordings of Clinton interviews conducted by the historian Taylor Branch while Clinton was president.

Clinton did not designate the recordings as official presidential records, but assigned them as personal records, thereby voiding the requirement to be turned over to the National Archives and Records Administration under the Presidential Records Act.

Judicial Watch sued over that designation in 2010 and claimed the tapes captured classified information such as Clinton's exchanges with foreign leaders.

In a 2012 opinion, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled that even if the tapes should have been designated to be presidential records, she could not order the National Archives to recategorize them.

“The [Presidential Records Act] does not confer any mandatory or even discretional authority on the archivist,” Jackson wrote. “Under the statute, this responsibility is left solely to the president.”

That opinion has emboldened Trump and some of his supporters to believe it could serve as exculpatory evidence to clear his name in the U.S. v. Trump case, where the government is seeking to prosecute Trump on 37 counts stemming from his handling of classified documents.

Michael Bekesha, the lawyer who lost the "Clinton socks case," penned an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal Tuesday contending he lost because Jackson "concluded the government's hands were tied."

Bekesha wrote that under that precedent, "whatever remains at the White House was presidential records" after Trump left in January 2021. "Whatever was taken by Mr. Trump wasn’t. That was the position of the Justice Department in 2010 and the ruling by Judge Jackson in 2012."

But key distinctions between the 2012 opinion and Trump's recent charges will matter as to whether the former president can successfully rely on such an opinion in his case. For one, that Judicial Watch case was a civil case, and Trump faces criminal charges related to documents allegedly in his possession.

And the Justice Department didn't cite the Presidential Records Act in its indictment of Trump; rather, it cited statutes in the Espionage Act regarding the possession of documents related to national defense.

Meanwhile, national security experts told the Washington Examiner that any interpretation that the 2012 opinion would exonerate Trump is a misreading of the decision.

National security lawyer Bradley P. Moss said that Jackson was being asked to "order" the archivist to reclassify what had always been designated as personal records rather than presidential records and bring an enforcement action to retrieve them.

"No part of the case would have prevented the Justice Department from seeking recovery of the audio tapes if it had concluded that they contained national defense information," Moss added.

While Trump didn't squarely acknowledge the specific charges he is facing Tuesday evening, he defended his actions of taking dozens of boxes containing sensitive national security information and his efforts to prevent the government from getting them back, saying "I had every right to have these documents.

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"These boxes were containing all sorts of personal belongings," Trump said Tuesday. "Whatever documents the president takes with him, he has a right to do so. It’s an absolute right. This is the law."

The Washington Examiner contacted attorneys for the former president.