Grifters gotta grift (I note with interest/amusement the source of the tweet): https://twitter.com/WhiteHouse/status/1562916200866267138
The sooner they get Barr out of the DOJ the better. Oh. He left in December 2019? Someone should have told us.
Monumentally. But he’s nothing compared to the Democrats, and racist Joe Biden the child sniffing (you’ve seen the videos) President who is described as taking inappropriate showers with his teenage daughter, by his teenage daughter, and who’s own son refers to him as paedo Pete, not to mention the kick backs from China, and his cahoots with corporate America. Anyone who votes for Trump sees a mad man, no racist, and unimpeachable or prosecutable despite six years of the most determined and blinkered investigation, who is willing to take on the establishment. People who voted for Biden just couldn’t give a damn who or what the guy is, and dread the idea of him being investigated because there is more and worse dirt on him in the public domain already than shaky Nancy (great song) has dug up in six years on Trump. Remember, “if you don’t vote for me, then you ain’t [insert racial identity here]. Democrat supporters must be very proud.
If they can find any connection with the loss of "confidential informants worldwide", reported by the CIA, and the stolen documents, he is absolutely screwed. https://thehill.com/policy/national...ng-dozens-of-informants-around-the-world-nyt/ I normally have very little interest in US politics. I don't "support" the Republicans or Democrats. But I do take notice of who is President as they do seem to shape the direction of US policy, both domestically and internationally. Trump was/is a populist fool. But he is also morally bankrupt and that makes him dangerous and totally unfit for public office. I honestly don't care who the next POTUS is, or which party they represent, as long as it's not Trump or one of his disciples.
If they can find any connection with the assasination of John F Kennedy he is absolutely screwed. But which will they get to first?
Yep. If it works, use it mate. What is wrong with saying "if your justification for hating Trump is this, how on Earth do you justify not hating Biden?" I don't like Trump, other than that he is anti-establishment. I just think he is a far better option than Biden or any of the current Democrat leaders and front runners who are acting, in my opinion, like authritarian fascists and, without doubt, are consumed with racism. I know you guys don't see it. But that doesn't make me wrong.
Yeah. The White House is getting some heat now for comparing PPE loans that the legislation forgave as a way of supporting businesses the Government shut down due to COVID (in other words, acting responsibly) with student loans. How would you feel if you or your kids had paid off their student loans as soon as they could, only for the governement to then pay off £20,000 on behalf of people who had not been paying theirs off? Not matter who they were. Effectively making you pay off their debts as well. And how would you feel if the Government closed down your business, expecting you to pay off your employees and deal with unused assets and no income, and then said F you, you aren't getting any financial support from us? Detachment from reality is bliss.
Trump’s plaything Truth Social is reportedly about to collapse. Why am I not surprised? From Boris Johnson to Ghislaine Maxwell, there’s one thing rich people seem to have in common – they hate paying bills
From the article… “Can I say with 100% certainty that Truth Social is stiffing its business partners? No.“ Can I say with 100% certainty that the Guardian is a wasted shell of a news source hijacked by political activists? I certainly can.
Oh dear. Trump's archivist signs a sworn statement to say she's personally carried out a 'diligent search' of all the storage areas at Mar-A-Lago (including the '45 office') for documents pertaining to the supeona that preceeded the warrant. Then the FBI only went and found stuff like this in the boxes and even in drawers. I mean, they're probably all just empty envelopes, right?
It's damning. Just remind me who the sole decider is on what is a confidential or classified document, or who it is that decides what is a Presidential (clue there) document and what is not, much of it established under long standing precedent from Clinton and Obama appointees. Trump must be filling his pants. Or perhaps not. The issue here is of precedent, such as Clinton posessing and then destroying top secret information, much of which it is assumed was compromised or supplied to third party countries, which led to no full investigation and a complete let off by the FBI, compared to Trump preserving documents, allowing access to them, and complying with National archive requests to have them made more secure, only to have his home raided and his own unrelated confidential documents taken. Demsplain that, someone.
Are people aware that Zuckerburg told America that the FBI warned Facebook the Hunter Biden laptop was a Russian hoax, despite the Feds having possession of said laptop in full awareness it was genuine? Nice one. Dems can ignore it, but it does make them look like the fascistic scum they are (colluding with Government law agencies, mega tech corporations and the media to cover it up - 101 fascism). If the Republicans take the house (and I am not convinced they will, because Democrats are proving they have no bottom limit) then what can be waved away today has the potential to become the serious topic it would have been ten years ago. Anyone here support that kind of behaviour? Or just think its clever? Anyone wonder if they might be doing a bit of 1930s style sleep walking?
I suspect the Dems are concerned that the actions they have taken so far have not stirred Republicans up into revolt. Biden's current rhetoric, for some time, has been that of a President facing open insurrection from a racist bigoted opposition. If the current behaviour doesn't affect the desired revolt, I believe we can expect them to up the anti with an arrest of Trump, in the most public manner, on trumped up charges, the less convincing reason the better to infuriate, or (Gretchen Widmer styled) kidnap or even assassination attempts, possibly even on Biden himself. The Democrats have shown they are capable of all these things. They are desperate for Republicans to rise up so they can declare a state of emergency. They will keep on pushing, even to the extent that they go down in a blaze of glory if they fail. It's not conspiracy. Widmer shows they are doing it already. The fact that they have nothing on Trump after six years shows there is no logic or due process to their mania.
Happy to remind you. The President is a ultimate declassification authority. But there's no reputable person who thinks that's a process that just happens verbally, ad hoc and without a record of it being held somewhere. It's certainly curious how none of Trump's lawyers or other staff mentioned Trump having declassified any of this stuff in their previous interactions with the FBI or NARA on this matter. It didn't come up once, at least according to the Feds. But I'm sure if it's suddenly popped back into the Trump team's collective memories now there will be a contemporaneous record of it somewhere, right? And as the DOJ has rightly pointed out in its latest court filing in response to Trump's motion, while he can certainly determine whether something is a 'Presidential record', every such document (a) remains the sole legal property of the United States government according to the law and (b) if he wanted to claim executive privilege over any of them the Presidential Records Act specifically lays out a process for him to do so, but only once they're handed over to NARA. They're not his. Despite his tantrums or grandiose claims he doesn't own any of them. I imagine he can keep his framed Time magazine covers though. This is damning not because this will lead to criminal charges for him - I doubt it will - but because it shows the man who made his name by decrying the actions of his political rival in her handling of classified documents is no better. What it probably will lead to is his lackies doing time for lying to the Feds about having handed over everything. As always, his closest followers take the fall on his behalf, which is the most damning thing of all.
Er, he stored the documents, made them safe at the request of the National Archive per their instructions and had, at least at some point in time (and arguably, in his opinion, maintains that right) the supreme right to hold them or declare their status, and they were there for the FBI to grab, unobstructed, along with his confidential client attorney douments, which they are not permitted to take in any circumstances. And you are comparing that to Clinton "bleaching" hard drives and smashing up servers with hammers following a massive security breach, caused by her personally storing documents she never had a right to declassify or hold in her private possession, and being let off without even a proper investigation. Right. The same thing. OK.
Apparently the yellow documents are marked SCI which stands for Sensitive Compartmented Information. Even people with Top Secret clearance can't read them unless the have specific clearance for each document.
Correct on the latter. The process does not resemble this: It requires a paper trail and proper filing. On the former point, the President is not able to declassify certain material, the prime example being anything relating to US nuclear technology. Some reports have stated that nuclear intelligence is among the documents targeted for retrieval by the Feds, so even if Trump is being honest in saying he declassified everything (and he's not, that's a clear lie given the lack of paper trail), he didn't have the power to unilaterally declassify nuclear secrets so he'd still be up the creek without a boat.
So who gets to tell the President he did or didn't do something he was entitled to do? How material to the case is it if Trump says, as has been mentioned, there was a standing order on declassification of all documents taken to Mar a Lago as a matter of course? Are these things the topic of the negotiations that were on going at the time of the raid? And are the documents being revealed genuine? None of them are mentioned or described in the inventory, so why should anyone ignore the possibility that they were planted? The laws around subpoenas exist to ensure transparency, and if the FBI did not allow oversight by Trump's team, or provide a detailed list of what was taken, what is the imperative to take them at their word? They are the ones to blame if they cannot prove the claims they will be making. If he has seriously done something wrong, he should pay for it. But if, like all the other BS unproven charges laid at his door, it turns out to be a load of rubbish, then what should be the response? Particularly if Republicans win the house. I would like to see the Republicans, for once, grow a pair of balls and start treating Democrats and their supporters the way they have been treating their political enemies. Not a particularly good thing, but a taste of reality and Karma may be the thing to return America back to something a little more normal.
What? Like the Presidents personnel residence surrounded by Secret Service agents? Sounds reasonable.
It's like Clintom (W) never had a sock drawer, and no judge made a favourable ruling on that. Or like the US has given up on the presumption of innocence. In fact its very like that. The DOJ is making an argument, not a judgement, and the way in which it has gone about its prosecutions of Trump may not be favourable to its overall objective.
It's completely immaterial to the case. Trump has made 3 legal filings now - the latest one overnight - and in not one of them have his lawyers claimed the materials were declassified. Indeed his submissions in support of his request for a special master specifically say that person should have adequate (and high) security clearance in order to review the documents. No need to worry about the idea Trump magically declassified everything anymore, it's a dead end.
Er, why should he even mention whether the documents were declassified or not? How absurd. He is innocent until proven guilty. The DOJ must prove they were classified and shouldn't have been at Mar a Lago. Trump is treating the documents as things he has a right of access to, everything else is implicit. Do you really not understand that? Can you answer that, rather than just ignore it as you usually do?
It's a nonsense. If a President could just declassify whole swaths of documents by some undocumented "verbal standing order" then Biden could just reclassify them by saying it too. Of course a sitting President can declassify documents, with some exceptions, but there is a process to do so beyond just retrospectively saying it after they have left office! I assumed that Trump wouldn't actually be prosecuted. That others, as you have previously said, would take the fall. But I'm starting to think he will be indicted now. Of course the core cultists will cry foul but even Fox News are turning against him now.
That same Government motion that states vociferously that Trump NEVER claimed executive privilege actually quotes a letter from Trump, in May 2022, stating, and I quote from the motion itself... "the letter should be construed as protective assertion of executive privilege made by counsel for the former President" NARA rejected the validity, but Trump maintained his claim, and the wrongs and the rights are yet to be established, I hope you will agree. So yes, according to the Feds, Trump NEVER asserted executive privilege, but they also confirm that he DID assert such privilege. In the same motion.
Answer what? There's one question in your post. "Er, why should he even mention whether the documents were declassified or not?" I've answered this. He's already accepted by the arguments advanced on his behalf by his own lawyers in this motion as part of a case he brought (read: all self-inflicted) the documents were and remain classified. He's done that since the outset. What the old bullsh1t artist says outside of court, on Truth social or at campaign rallies, about blanket declassifications or whatever is completely detached from (and often the opposite of what) his lawyers are prepared to put on the record in a federal court. I'm simply suggesting you shouldn't place any weight on what the bloke says. That's all.
It is implicit in his claim that the documents are his that they are therefore declassified, and he has evidence from NARA that he has cooperated with returning documents they are entitled to. In terms of his guilt, he doesn't have to prove this, the DOJ must prove their case against him. All they have done so far is make the argument. Unless you are assuming Trump is guilty until proven innocent, which I think is likely to be the case. That is what the question boiled down to. As far as I can see from the motion, it appears the classification issue is being set aside by the Government anyway, so this is just issues of document ownership. Clinton's sock drawer is still full of Presidential records, Presidential discussions on who knows what privileged subjects, that the courts decided he had a right to make claim to. Trump has a precedented argument to make, which can stand or fall on its merrits in court. Clinton had some success with it.
