As you all know, Donald Trump took reams of classified documents with him when he left the White House and then repeatedly refused to turn them over when asked. Eventually the FBI searched his home and carted away boxes of stuff.
But guess what? Even after that, Trump still managed to hold on to several classified documents. This was disclosed last year in a ruling by judge Beryl Howell, but was kept under seal until today:
Throughout the opinion, Howell — who was chief judge of the Washington, D.C. federal district court at the time — described with varying degrees of incredulity how four documents with classification markings could have been discovered in Trump’s private quarters.... “Notably, no excuse is provided as to how the former president could miss the classified-marked documents found in his own bedroom at Mar-a-Lago.”
But if you think that's bad, hold on to your hat:
In a footnote, Howell also noted that another Trump adviser connected to his Save America PAC had acknowledged scanning the contents of the box that contained the classified materials in 2021 and storing them on a personal laptop provided by the PAC.
What. The. Fuck? Trump not only kept classified documents, but turned them over to some PAC flunky to scan into her personal laptop?
This case gets more bizarre every time we hear something about it. And yet somehow Trump's pal, judge Aileen Cannon, keeps finding reasons to pretend that it's tortuously complex and requires endless months of preparation. The reality is that I'm not sure I've ever seen a more open-and-shut case in my life. As near as I can tell, it could be tried tomorrow and be finished by Memorial Day without missing anything important.
Trump should be locked up in a basement cell with the late, great Hannibal Lecter.
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You can join them, Sharell - folie à trois.
You fail to understand both a crucial point of fact and a governing point of law.
The point of fact is, Trump declassified the documents with the Power Of His Mind. Therefore they were not classified when they were found, therefore no crime. (We'll just ignore the silly detail that the charges are under the Espionage Act, which does not mention classification status because it predates the classification system by a generation.)
And the point of law is, The King May Do As He Pleases, aka the Führerprinzip. Therefore even if there was some technical violation of some law or other, He cannot be found guilty because He can never be guilty.
Judge Cannon is doing the Lord's work, so you should not question it. And also you'd better stop writing posts like this if you know what's good for you. The Loyal are watching...
Donald screwed up, he needed to unclassify them in his mind and then further use his mental powers to remove the classified label in the documents. As long as the documents are marked classified they are classified. Typical half assed job by TFG.
So you're saying he didn't do those things? Did you see the documents yourself? No! No you didn't! Liar! Also disloyal! And an enemy of the
FührerPresident is an enemy of the people! Burn him at the stake! For glory in the eyes of theFührerLord!(Draft of minutes from Republican Platform Committee meeting, subsequently redacted.)
i'll have a double of what bbleh's having
with a twist
it's twisted enough, just sayin'
Not that much more ridiculous than what those trying out for Trump's veepstakes are saying.
I don't think that's accurate. I can take a file folder and stamp "CLASSIFIED" on the front of it, but that doesn't make it a classified document or put me or anyone else in legal jeopardy for possessing it (I suspect there's a law somewhere that makes it a crime to falsely mark a document classified, but that's another matter). The classified marking creates a presumption that the document actually is classified, but it's a rebuttable presumption.
Well, no. An uncancelled classification marking requires that the document be treated as classified, even if in fact it has been declassified or was marked mistakenly. If it's stamped SECRET, you have to treat it as such. Moreover, classification status, while perhaps relevant to finders of fact, is NOT dispositive with respect to charges under the Espionage Act, because the Espionage Act doesn't mention classification at all (having been drafted around 30 years prior to the creation of the classification system).
Trump is pretty much slam-dunk guilty of violations of BOTH the Espionage Act AND the regulations concerning handling of documents marked as classified.
so you think the only requirement for a classified document is a fucking cover sheet?
and you think the DoJ didn't look at the rest of the document for the required markings and revision history to verify that it was a classified document?
do you realize that every printed classified document is inventoried and can be traced to the printer and date it was printed, and also who printed them? and that they knew trump had them because those people knew who they gave copies to?
trump sure as fuck didn't because he thought the DoD is as sloppy with their documents and chain of custody as trumpco is with theirs. because trump is a motherufucking idiot and understands absolutely nothing about the organizations and processes he was pretending to be in charge of
?? DoJ what? If it's MARKED classified -- and every page is stamped, and when classified and non-classified information is commingled on a single page, every PARAGRAPH is marked -- then you are required by regulation to treat it as classified, full stop. It may indeed be that the wrong cover sheet was affixed, or that something was improperly marked, or even that it was subsequently declassified but the markings were not properly cancelled, but that's irrelevant to how you're supposed to treat it, full stop.
And I'm sure the histories of various documents were properly traced as far as possible -- although if they were copied without following regulation (which is far from unknown in environments like the WH), they wouldn't necessarily have been logged -- and I agree that Trump doesn't know and if he did wouldn't care. But both are irrelevant to his violations of both law and regulation. If it's so stamped, you must treat it as such (at least by regulation; I don't know whether it's also by law). And if it WAS correctly classified, then it's a reasonable presumption that it was sensitive NDI, which would make handling it improperly a violation of the Espionage Act.
All the chatter about "classification" is a bit of a red herring. It makes for great evidence photos, but the legal meat of the matter is whether it's sensitive NDI, and as noted while classification status &/or markings likely would be relevant to a jury deciding whether indeed the information was sensitive NDI, it's not dispositive.
i was replying to lawnorder's statement implying that classified docs only need an identifier on a cover sheet/folder
anyone who's gone through dc training knows goddamn well that isn't the case
oops sorry. yes true dat. (and I don't think document handling IS statutory as well as regulatory cuz it seems like they also would have charged him under the relevant statutes but IANAL.)
np 😉
also, i think the copies were actually logged, and that's why the DoJ was able to get a subpoena to get into trump's private residence
if i was the person responsible for originating those copies and i had also seen on numerous occasions how cavalier trump was in handling them, i'd make sure i wasn't the one sitting in prison for things that turn up missing (or found somewhere they shouldn't be)
lol if I were a staffer in that WH (dog forbid) I would have prepared notes every night and had them notarized and deposited with an attorney the next day, and I likely would have been a REALLY good buddy of Dr. Ronny Jackson, he of the Open Dispensary, to avoid dying of alcohol poisoning. what a fking cesspit, even for DC.
In the old days, the Defendant would be lined up against a wall and shot. He always pines for those "good old days" (hint, hint).
Now, if wikileaks were still in business, we know they'd have gotten the files off that laptop ASAP -- from the Russians, if need be -- and they'd now be public. Because what good is a laptop, if it isn't connected to the internets, amirite?
Why does Jack Smith need more to arrest Donald Trump in some jurisdiction other than Aileen Cannon's and demand that he be remanded to custody as a threat to National Security? Render him to Gitmo out of the reach of howling domestic mouthpieces --- er, ah "lawyers".
And is that laptop in the possession of the United States government? If not, why not, and why is the "adviser" not in prison him or herself for mishandling secret documents? Whether of not Trump "declassified" them DURING HIS PRESIDENCY, I'm confident that President Biden can and probably did "reclassify" them immediately when this became known.
I'm with Kevin. WHY is this not a Four Alarm Fire?
if the docs are truly declassified he could just release them to the public
but that might put him in prison until old nick calls in his numerous debts, so the old twaddle farkler demurs
Find out for yourself; file a Freedom of Information request. If the documents were declassified, they were declassified for all, so you should be able get access to them!
Well-founded or not, fear that doing so would end up with something which makes January 6, 2021 look like a garden party.
Ah yes. We cannot enforce our laws because it would make the criminals mad.
This one goes hand in hand with what's the point of making a law against [whatever] because the criminals would just break it.
In his bedroom? Ew.
Clearly, he couldn't tell that the documents were classified because the pages were stuck together.
Ew. Can't get that picture out of my head.
It's the only explanation.
“Would you like to come into my bedroom and see my secret classifieds?”
"You can scan them anytime you'd like"
I will never understand why the prosecution did not immediately request Cannon's recusal. How can a judge who was literally appointed by the defendant not be biased? I've never heard an answer as to why that did not happen.
I'm not sure that that's a basis for recusal. I recall that some of the judges who heard election fraud lawsuits from the Trump team were also Trump appointees. They didn't recuse themselves - and, incidentally, they all ruled against Trump.
At least from what I've read, that's a VERY high bar. According to some comments, even her obvious incompetence and manifold delays in handling issues that are basic and common to Espionage Act prosecutions simply aren't enough, despite the manifest unfairness to the People ("justice delayed is justice denied").
The upshot seems to be that, unless and until she issues a ruling that is both significant and egregiously wrong -- again -- there just isn't a basis to request that she be removed from the case. And the speculation is that (1) this is why she's not issuing rulings much at all, ever, and (2) she's being advised by people (eg FedSoc types) how to do just enough to avoid mandamus.
If you have some time to visit Marcy Wheeler's EmptyWheel site, she leads a major drill-down into the specifics of why things are happening legally the way they are. Highly illuminating.
Agreed. Actual bias does not have to be shown.
28 USC §455(a) provides that a federal judge "shall disqualify [her]self in any proceeding in which [her] impartiality might reasonably be questioned." After her shenanigans with the special master appointment, which was shut down by the Court of Appeals, everyone who is not a Trumpster has reason to question her impartiality. The motion should have been filed.
Also, adverse rulings in a case are rarely a basis for a motion for disqualification.
Bbbut Kevin! He didn’t store them on an email server…
Can the staffer who scanned these documents onto her laptop now be prosecuted? Apologies if this was already answered.
This is so blatant that even our resident MAGA troll doesn’t show up to refute it, guess the talking points haven’t been distributed yet
Yah, the absence of MF and Leo in this thread makes me think the issue is exactly what you speculate: MAGA land has not yet decided on talking points for this particular issue.
What talking points could they have, 'information wants to be free'?
Or at least available for the right price --who are we to argue, he made money off it, is that a crime?--, the mob boss defense.
If Trump wasn't charged for the newly found documents couldn't there be charges in a non-Florida court?
Blame the system/judges who are content, for a **major** case with national security aspects, with random assignment, even if it means getting someone totally unfamiliar with classified document issues, has very little time on the bench, and was appointed by the defendant.
I am sick and tired of the judicial clerisy who think so highly of themselves that they deny corruption exists within their ranks.
Also, blame Jack Smith for not limiting the prosecution to obstruction, which sidesteps all the classified/nat-security issues. That approach was favored by Chris Christie who opined that the case could have been wrapped up by December of last year.
not charging for crimes committed doesn't fix the identified problem. it only makes it worse.
The problem with "just Obstruction of Justice" is that there has to be an "underlying" crime prosecution for which the defendant attempted to obstruct.
it's the same chicken-egg problem New York has.
Remember when Comey finding nothing on Huma Abadien's laptop doomed Clinton's candidacy?
Please let there be a Hell for Coney to bake in.
This is just one example of a world descending into chaos. There are so many examples it's not worth counting.
Question: How does Trump, Judge Aileen, Justice Sam, Justice Clarence, etc., get away with it?
Premise: There are two sides in this fight. Wise people believe that every human being is no more and no less important than every other human being. People who are not wise believe some people are more important than others.
Answer: Too many people are not, and not enough people are, wise.
Fixing this is easy. Be wise. Then it gets hard.
Alternatively, don't be wise. Then you're helping to make it impossible.
Because the frontline method of getting them out of office is impeachment, and the Constitution in its naive 18th century "wisdom" underestimated the power of politics and set the bar far too high for conviction.
Also, we Libz have built in so many outs, delays, opportunities for appeal, procedural traps, etc that a savvy defendant with lots of legal representation need never even go to trial.
You're describing a symptom. It's important to describe the symptom, but anyone can describe the symptom, and the description doesn't tell you how to cure the disease.
I'm describing the disease, and my description tells you how to cure the disease.
Cure: Stop thinking that some people are more important than other people. That is not only a conspiracy theory, it is also the mother of all conspiracy theories. Instead, start thinking that every person on the planet is no more and no less important than you (aka love your neighbor as yourself). In other words, stop believing in conspiracy theories.
The more people that do that, the better things will get. The fewer people that do that, the worse things will get.