Blasterbot
Well-known member
it would require the non-left wing members of the court to have balls and be willing to be seen as partisan. they already are but they value what the new graduates from their alumni think.
Trump Investigations Thread
- Thread starter Rocinante
- Start date
DarthOne
☦️
Assuming the Supreme Court doesn’t turn cowardly again.
Bigking321
Well-known member
The only way this works is in DC with a leftist jury. We've already seen over and over again they declare people on the left innocent and people on the right guilty, evidence, the trial, and reality be damned.
Remember that one jurist from the Steve Bannon trial? Something like "I don't care about any of this. It's Steve Bannon, he's guilty."
Remember that one jurist from the Steve Bannon trial? Something like "I don't care about any of this. It's Steve Bannon, he's guilty."
mspence
Well-known member
I guess we know how far their loyalty goes:
www.politico.com
Trump loses two lawyers just hours after being indicted
Jim Trusty and John Rowley announced they’d resigned. Meanwhile, a Trump aide also has been indicted, according to Trump.
www.politico.com
Cowards..
Sobek
Disgusting Scalie
In a way I don't blame them.
They are lawyers. This isn't a judicial matter anymore, it's a inquisition against Trump. No matter the defense they put up it won't matter because they are not equiped to argue theology.
The courts have already beed stacked. You would have as good a chance trying to mount a defense from a charge of "Trotskyist 5th Columism" to Stalin's NKVD as you do defending Trump from Federal charges.
They are lawyers. This isn't a judicial matter anymore, it's a inquisition against Trump. No matter the defense they put up it won't matter because they are not equiped to argue theology.
The courts have already beed stacked. You would have as good a chance trying to mount a defense from a charge of "Trotskyist 5th Columism" to Stalin's NKVD as you do defending Trump from Federal charges.
DarthOne
☦️
And the worst part is that I have my doubts that people will take action if Trump is convicted and jailed. Which the Deep State will just take as a sign of weakness and step on the accelerator panel…
Blasterbot
Well-known member
If trump gets hit my #1 issue is his pardon. I will not vote for anyone who says anything other than they will sit down and pardon him day 1.
Here is the situation laid out plainly. Just the facts and what he's being charged with. Its rather interesting.
Airedale260
Well-known member
-This is a PDF of the actual indictment. It’s item #52 on page 21 (I am on a phone and can’t copy text from the PDF itself).
https://www.dcd.uscourts.gov/sites/dcd/files/22gj37 Emergency Application for Order.pdf -this is a PDF of a request to be able for the government to engage in a limited discussion of the grand jury probe into the documents. Again, PDF so I can’t copy, it it’s discussed on page 3, halfway down; specifically, what they requested.
Trump received subpoena in spring for documents not turned over: Sources -and this was one of many news stories discussing it at the time as well.
Well, a lot of the constant communication was “sure, we are totally handing everything over as soon as we get through it,” since there were more than just the 15 boxes that had been turned over. Basically, in terms of communication after that, it was “yeah, we need time to go through some more stuff we just found (even though it hadn’t been ‘just found’), but NARA and the DOJ -who are required by law to be involved any time documents bearing classified markings are found- gave the okay (deadline was extended from April 11th to April 29th). Then, when the Trump team asked for another deadline and it became clear this was Trump trying to get indefinite delays (something he and his lawyers are notorious for doing in the various civil cases he’s been involved in over the years), the DOJ’s response was “No, we aren’t playing this game” and issued the subpoena. Trump then had discussions with Nauta (his personal aide), two other staffers, and his attorneys on what to do, whether he could ignore it, or only partly comply, etc. (There are things listed in the actual indictment, which, again, is actually quite straightforward as a read, just written in a different format than normal; I’ve handled a few of these as part of my work duties so I’m used to seeing them. Also gotten subpoenas for records as well over the years, again as part of work duties).
From everything we’ve learned so far, a bunch of stuff was moved before the attorney (Evan Corcoran, according to news reports) searched the boxes and found an additional 38 documents that the subpoena required. Thinking that was all that was left, he handed those over two senior FBI officials, and one of the other attorneys, Christina Bobb, handed over an affidavit (a sworn declaration) that these were the only documents that were required to be handed over that had been in Trump’s possession. The FBI officials left, but, knowing Trump’s pattern of past behavior, spoke with a couple of staffers who worked at Mar-a-Lago and then subpoenaed video surveillance of the areas where additional boxes were reportedly located. After going through all that and determining that it was very likely Trump had retained some documents in violation of the subpoena (establishing probable cause, in legal terms), they applied for and received a search warrant, executed it on August 8th, and lo and behold, found over 100 documents that fit the description of documents requested, and hauled them away.
Then Trump tried pulling civil litigation to run out the clock on the probe (the special master request he made in August & September); however, he isn’t the first person who’s tried to pull that and it promptly got rejected by the circuit court, and the Supreme Court declined to review the circuit decision.
It really comes down to Trump taking the stuff, then intentionally failing to comply when legally required to do so, and since this is a criminal rather than civil matter, it’s not something where he can just ignore any consequences. Ironically, for all that he complains about the kid glove treatment Clinton got over her server, Clinton at least was smart enough to destroy any evidence that could have been used against her.
And yes, it’s quite obvious that DOJ wants to make an example of Trump, but had he not been an asshole over the whole thing and just done what he was ordered to, he wouldn’t have been charged (since Biden and Pence had clearly done the same thing; however, once they found the stuff, they were both savvy enough to let the FBI go through everything they had in case anything else turned up).
Partisan hit job on Trump? Sure. Unfair and politically dangerous? Possibly. Did he do it, though? Based on what we know so far, also yes. Trump fucked around and now he’s finding out.
The only source who insists he totally cooperated is Trump himself, and all other reports who agree on that are ultimately taking him at his word, which with his history isn’t exactly credible.
Whether this convinces you or anyone else (shrug). I don’t particularly care; I just thought it would be better to have context on this, because just hearing from one side is never healthy, and because there’s a lot more to it.
Whether those documents were declassified or not is completely irrevelant, for a couple of reasons. Yes, Trump originally made a big deal of it because he apparently thought it would help his case, but it doesn’t.
1) The subpoena (which is a legal order and can result in jail time if ignored) demanded that Trump or his office turn over all documents “bearing classification markings, including but not limited to” and then lists various markings as examples.
2) The legal wording in the Espionage Act involves “national defense information,” which is exactly what it says: Information vital to the national defense, i.e. national security. “Classified” means information that requires specific permission and a need to know such information. Declassified means it no longer requires that specific permission, but it does not mean it’s no longer relevant to the national defense (an example being the identity of a top agent in North Korea, for example). That could be declassified, but if the wrong people found out, U.S. security is compromised because that would mean the agent would be executed and the U.S. loses an important intelligence source and hamstrings its ability to gather useful information on North Korea.
LordsFire
Internet Wizard
This isn't just a blatant attempt to split hairs, it's also functionally attempting to re-classify what the President lawfully de-classified.
Trying to treat it like it's still classified, after it has been de-classified.
This is not Trump 'effing around,' this is the democrat activist bureaucracy effing around to try to ruin him.
Put another way, it is saying 'that stuff that you declassified, isn't actually for real declassified.'
They don't have the authority to do that, especially retroactively.
Further, legal precedent established in court by a lawsuit against Bill Clinton trying to compel him to turn over public records he'd taken, have already established that sole and total authority to decide what records a president wishes to take when he leaves, lies with the president.
Airedale260
Well-known member
If you’d read the post where Cherico brought up the classification argument, I explained why that doesn’t fly. But for the hell of it, I’ll go into it one more time.
1) The subpoena required that he turn over all documents “bearing classification markings” not “classified documents.” The DOJ knew there was a possibility Trump would advance the argument that he’d declassified everything (more on that in a second), so they deliberately wrote it in such a way that whether the documents were declassified or not didn’t matter; they still bore the markings, ergo, he’s legally required to turn them over or be hit with an obstruction of justice charge.
2) When it comes to access to classified documents and declassification procedures (including for the president), there are executive orders in place to deal with this, even if the president blurts something out he shouldn’t and has to formalize it. That way there’s a written record of what was said, so that the agencies can make whatever adjustments they need to. Since Trump never signed an executive order declaring those null and void (which he could have, controversial though it would have been), they are still in force and still apply to him.
Since those procedures weren’t followed, and nobody seems to know anything about the alleged “standing order” Trump claims existed, it’s very dicey as to whether that was actually done (and in the subpoena, it recounts at least one writer who testified that during an interview where Trump showed him one of these documents, Trump said “If I was president I could declassify it, but I can’t.” So it appears that argument was just a lie to try and get out of a jam.
BUT
Even supposing Trump was taken at his word, declassification means only that one is not required to have a security clearance to view such information. It doesn’t change the potential sensitivity of the document, and it sure as hell doesn’t mean it goes from being property of the U.S. government to Trump’s personal property (disposal of government property to a private entity has to be done by Congress, since they control all spending. Note that this is also why Biden’s student loan forgiveness attempt has fizzled; only Congress can make such decisions).
And finally
3) The lawsuit with Clinton you’re referring to (Judicial Watch v. Clinton) was over a series of audio recordings Clinton himself had made to keep a personal record of his time in office. They were personal notes produced by Clinton the individual; they were not records produced by government agencies at his best or in his official capacity. That was why he wasn’t compelled to turn them over.
Not quite, that’s why they framed it as an obstruction case (flouting the subpoena) rather than retaining the documents.
Personally? I’d also throw Biden and Clinton (and Berger and Petraeus) in jail, just like any rank and file employee gets treated if they try to pull this crap. But just because they all got a pass doesn’t mean Trump should, either. It just means we need to enforce the law.
So no, I don’t think “give him a pass too” is an excuse.
How to spot a member of the social class that's fucked our entire society up in two incredibly uniparty-esque quotes..
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@Airedale260 I appreciate you giving us a well thought out counter argument with citations to back it up. Thank you for that. However, I'm skeptical of virtually everything coming out of the justice department as of late and will take it with a grain of salt. Despite how legit it might look. I'm still adopting a wait and see approach.
Tiamat
I've seen the future...
Alan Dershowitz on Megyn Kelly with his observations on the indictment. He notes it's more serious than the New York indictment, which was "mickey mouse laughable." The indictment in his opinion is much more serious and damning, although he notes the irony the Dems are now embracing the Espionage Act when in the past they utterly reviled it, at least publicly. He also states the biggest loss is for the American people as BOTH SIDES are now trying to weaponize the DOJ for political purposes, especially heading into the 2024 election.
IndyFront
Well-known member
Bottom line, until they start going after "left" leaning politicians (I'm left-leaning myself but I don't like being lumped in with such pieces of shit like Biden and Clinton) aka liberal, this stinks to high heaven and while I don't doubt Trump did fuck shit up, he's Trump after all the dude is like from another planet Istg, the idea that these are unbiased, nonpartisan "centrist" establishment agents just flies in the face of how virtually all politics in America is done