Ah, okay. Yes, I understand. He’s a cornered orange rat.
FBI Search and Seizure at Trump's Mar-A-Lago Residence, August 8, 2022, Case Dismissed July 15, 2024
- Trump
stoleillegally absconded with a large amount of government documents, many of which were classified. - Many of these documents have not been recovered.
- Trump has established a pattern of taking things, specifically government property, that do not belong to him.
- there is video evidence of boxes like the ones recovered in the Mar-a-Lago search being moved from Mar-a-Lago to New Jersey.
The question is whether that is sufficient to establish probable cause. As far as I can tell, there is no evidence of the boxes’ contents. That is, there is no evidence, unless I missed it, that the boxes contain illegally-held documents. For all we know, they’re boxes of pictures of himself.
Side note to this point - this is the second reason I figure so few people turn on Trump: although some of the NDA’s have been ruled as unenforceable, if you turn on Trump, he’s going to turn his armies (now much reduced of course) of lawyers on you, and you’ll be burning through a fortune defending yourself.
The main reason, and back to this thread and recent events, is that if in nothing else, Trump is skilled at mafioso-style instructions, and once you’ve done pretty much anything, you’re likely more incriminated than Trump is - he has (legally, not from a profile POV) plausible deniability and you have none. So ride it down and hope he (ha!) / the Republicans / Crowdfunding can cover the bills for you as long as you stay loyal.
Looking at Ghouliani though, I think more people would be more careful to document and CYA these days - which is probably why a certain $3 million dollar lawyer was sidelined. He can be taught!
I enjoyed the talk show host take on events.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/14/politics/mar-a-lago-department-of-justice-appeal/index.html
The Justice Department officially appealed the appointment of the special master, who is overseeing the review of documents seized from former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, in a brief filed with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday.
The Justice Department centered their brief on sweeping criticism of lower court Judge Aileen Cannon’s actions, arguing she had no authority to interfere with their federal criminal investigation. The Justice Department is asking the federal appeals court to invalidate Cannon’s order and end the special master’s review of documents…
This is virtually certain the result of the Supreme Court denying the appeal of the previous Appeals Court order. Once the DoJ knows SCOTUS is not going to intervene on Trump’s behalf, they’re going for the whole thing.
And Trump said he didn’t give that order. So who are you going to believe some random flunky who already lied to the FBI about his role in moving said boxes, or the fricking president of the United States of America?
if that president’s number is 45, pick the flunky every time.
The Deep State Witch Hunt™ goes even deeper and witchier than we thought?
Trump shared classified Kim Jong Un letters with Bob Woodward.
The audio also shows how Trump decided to share with Woodward the letters Kim wrote to him – the letters that helped spark the DOJ investigation into classified documents Trump took to Mar-a-Lago.
“And don’t say I gave them to you, okay?” Trump told Woodward.
It would be hard to find a worse person to tell your government secrets too. It’s like asking Cookie Monster to hold your Oreos while you grab some milk.
Just to be clear here - Trump gave classified documents to a investigative journalist famous for helping bring down a president and actually, literally said “Don’t say I gave them to you, okay?”?
And then said world-famous investigative journalist sat on them for the better part of three years?
I don’t like this corner of the multiverse anymore. At least Kang makes the trains run on time.
I believe Woodward included these details in his book, Rage, from Sep '20. This latest release is an audiobook with the actual audio from the interviews with Trump. I haven’t read or listened to either though.
This “revelation” (which isn’t actually new, as far as I can tell) feeds into my pet narrative for what might actually be going on here, since the idea of keeping “highly classified nuclear secrets” at a resort to use for leverage or whatever doesn’t really make sense to me. I think Trump kept a bunch of stuff that he thought was cool, but happened to be marked classified, because he thought he could and should be able to. That’s why some of it appears to be boxes with framed Time covers and shit like that.
I could absolutely see the government marking a letter from Kim to Trump as Top Secret, especially if it made any sort of reference to nuclear capabilities (ours or North Korea’s). I could also see Trump thinking a fawning letter from a strong-man like Kim is really cool and wanting to show it to people to brag about what a great man he is. Hell, he showed it to Bob Woodward of all people.
I could also see Trump trying to claim that said letter was “personal correspondence” or somehow not covered under the PRA.
I highly doubt there was anything particularly dangerous to national security in those letters from Kim. But I could be wrong, and it’s certainly not Trump’s call to make anymore. He could have declassified them during his Presidency, but there seems to be no record he actually did so.
Trump doesn’t know dick about history. All he saw when he dealt with Woodward was “biographer,” which in his mind equals “guy who will write great things about me.”
Famous biographer.
Huh, I thought that was Kodos.
I hadn’t realized before now that the letters were considered classified. I thought they were just considered presidential records, which still means trump was supposed to hand them over, not keep them.
It does sound like he kept them for bragging rights, though the way he so stubbornly refused to return all the documents he stole still makes me think he wanted them for more than just the coolness factor. I don’t know. I’m sure he thinks all those nerdy record keepers are beneath him and have no right to order him to do anything.
Everyone is beneath him.
Well, except Vladimir.
Hey, he made Nixon famous.