Pertaining to Trumps Tweets saying he has declassified, without redaction, all Muller/Russia documents. But the White House and Justice Department said this week those pronouncements didn’t declassify the records. Officials said they never received an order from the President or from Attorney General William Barr, who could also make public more information.
“It’s not the White House that declassifies information. It’s the President,” Judge Reggie Walton of the DC District Court in Washington said in a hearing Friday. Trump has been “unambiguous” in wanting declassification of more documents.
So, what’s going on here? Information in the docs that will make Trump and/or his cronies look even worse? This should be interesting.
I really don’t understand why the MSM isn’t making more of this
“Trump, who has called the Mueller investigation a hoax and witch hunt since day one, put the DOJ in the awkward position of having to tell Judge Walton that the president has no idea what he’s talking about and certainly didn’t mean what he said. That’s what DOJ did on Oct. 13.”
However,
“Judge Walton refused to take at face value the DOJ’s assertion that the president made false statements when he claimed to have declassified all Russia documents. The judge wants Trump himself to admit that or, in the alternative, to confirm that he wants all “Russia Hoax” documents unredacted—the latter of which would have sweeping implications for the above-described ongoing lawsuits.”
Walton gave the WH and DOJ five days to shit or get off the pot. I think they will get off the pot. If Trump is found to be lying in his Tweets about ordering the declassification, so what? Its just one more easily provable lie. On the other hand, if the material is released, the damage to Trump and his cronies could be significant. The interesting part is that Walton is ordering that someone goes on the record saying they conferred with Trump directly. He is forced into actually admitting that he lied (which I don’t think has ever happened) or releasing the material.
It’s nothing that interesting. Trump just said it to make his base happy.
The Trumpists now believe the documents were all declassified and that they prove Biden, Obama and Clinton all committed treason. I’m not stating this metaphorically; have a look at Trump Twitter. Tens of millions of Trumpists truly believe it happened. They don’t know any details, since there are none, but once Trump said he would do it, they accepted on faith that he had and that the documents said what they wanted them to say. It’s now truth to them.
It might have put his DOJ in an awkward spot but he doesn’t care, since he’s a sociopath.
Yep pretty much this. Along with building the wall, and bringing peace to the middle east, Trump said it, so it is. I’m kinda surprised he doesn’t state that he has locked up Hillary and Obama (all evidence to the contrary). His base would believe him.
The DOJ is in an awkward spot, but so is Trump. Judge Walton has ordered the DOJ to obtain a statement directly from Trump clarifying whether his tweets and his statements on Rush Limbaugh’s show were not truthful, or whether he has actually ordered the unredacted declassification of all Russia investigation materials.
The DOJ is to present this statement in court next Tuesday. There is currently a FOIA lawsuit for all of the Mueller materials in front of Judge Walton.
If the judge does rule that the documents need to be released in full, unredacted, how does that actually end up playing out?
I’m assuming that there will be appeals, which would end up in SCOTUS. And even if it does legally mandate that they need to be released, how would the courts actually enforce this?
When Trump is in a jail cell, he will tweet that everyone else in the world has finally been locked up in a very large room on the other side of the locked door.
Oh not at all. In his accustomed and expected form, he will throw his own WH counsel and DOJ professional staff under the bus with ease; he will point to them and the court and say that’s the “deep state” getting in his way.
As mentioned earlier, his worshippers already believe he has released the proof of treason on the part of everyone else. He does not care if it can be proven otherwise because he knows they will never believe otherwise.
If that’s the case, then the courts would have little choice but to take the President at his word over that of his lawyers, and release the full unredacted report.
Or he’ll deny he said he had declassified it and say he said he was declassifying it but did not say when, and there are legal technicalities that is their job not his to handle.
I’m sure that the courts would be happy to help with that.
They already have a FOI request sitting right there. If Trump gives his approval, seems everything should be pretty quick and straightforward from there.
It’s a beautiful plan. You’ll see it in about two weeks. Trump was explaining his big beautiful healthcare plan to a doctor the other day. Big man. Huge hands. The doctor was so amazed that he said to Trump (with tears in his eyes) “This is the bestest plan ever sir!” Then he nominated Trump for another noble prize.
Just spitballin’ but I would assume that the federal Freedom of Information statute would give the courts the power to order the department in question to disclose the documents requested in the FOI request. If the department fails to do so, I would assume there are statutory remedies, such as contempt orders. But I’d be interested to hear from someone familiar with the US process.