I guess I was off on my timeline. For whatever reason, I thought we all heard about it from Trump first.
FBI Search and Seizure at Trump's Mar-A-Lago Residence, August 8, 2022, Case Dismissed July 15, 2024
It’s not your fault. It has been widely reported almost from the start that Trump broke the story because that’s such a better narrative, and it’s still often reported that way today.
Peter Schorsch was completely unknown before he broke this story and he’s essentially completely unknown still. People just prefer the Trump broke it version because it’s more fun. Why bother checking the facts when you have a narrative that’s so perfect?
To me, it seems more like printing out a customer bank statement to fax to someone. On the way back you set it down by your purse/coat while you go to the bathroom and forget about it. At 5 when you’re leaving you pick it up with the rest of your stuff and it ends up in a drawer at home until you find it again a few years later. You shouldn’t have done it, but you didn’t do it on purpose.
I went back to look at some of the news stories when it first discovered Trump had retained classified documents, before he refused to cooperate and give them back, and it really didn’t seem like anyone thought it was that big of a deal.
Mostly they were accusing him of hypocrisy for criticizing Hillary’s handling of classified material. There weren’t any widespread suggestions of criminality at that point.
The rhetoric regarding Biden is much different, which is why I think the media went way easier on trump than they did on Biden
I take this back somewhat. I was thinking of Trump’s fight with NARA over whether or not they were able to share information with the January 6 investigation, citing executive privilege. (He lost.) That happened before this other fight over the documents he stole.
I believe the earliest we heard about Trump taking the documents was in February of last year, Ann_Hedonia’s cite above is one of the earliest I can find.
So it has been almost a year, but it didn’t go all the way back to 2021 as I had thought.
The National Archives were made aware of the missing Trump documents in May 2021 and first contacted the Trump team then. This wasn’t made public, however, until early 2022 (by CNN IIRC).
Slight aside, but here’s Chuck Todd repeating the false idea that Trump broke the Mar-a-lago search warrant story. Today.
No one even mentions Peter Schorsch.
I heard most of that Todd interview of Gym, and for once (as the Twitter post claims) Todd actually didn’t just roll over and play dead while giving Republican bloviation a platform. Hard to believe as it is, he pushed back a bit. Jordan looked acutely uncomfortable–as he richly deserves to do.
That said: yes, Todd DID repeat the easily-proven-false talking point that Trump was the one who broke the Mar-a-lago search warrant story.
Guess Chuck Todd isn’t quite capable of getting it fully right–but at least he made a little effort, today.
Agreed.
He’s usually a total embarrassment, but he didn’t allow Gym Jordan to just outright lie with impunity this morning.
He also pushed back on the weaponization of the DOJ, which is something Jordan claims to care about, in light of the Barr/Durham story this week.
Pretty low bar for Chuckles but he should still get a little credit for clearing it.
Yeah, Twitter was being fairly kind to him today–the way you are to a three-year old who’s been utterly failing at toilet training, then finally gets it right. Well, mostly, anyway (with some aiming difficulties and almost-certain backsliding to come).
And the beat goes on…
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. officials have offered to brief congressional leaders on their investigation into the classified documents found at former President Donald Trump’s Florida residence as well as President Joe Biden’s Delaware home and former private office, people familiar with the matter said Sunday.
A briefing could come as soon as this week. But it may not meet demands from lawmakers who want to review the documents taken not just from Mar-a-Lago but also from the locations belonging to Biden and the Indiana home of former Vice President Mike Pence.
…
I have to assume, at least for some of these documents, that’s not even (legally) possible based on their security clearances.
If I were pope of the world, any lawmaker who wants to review these documents would be required to approve an FBI search of their own residences to determine whether they also might have inadvertently boxed up something inappropriate.
This is indeed a current story.
Trump attorney James Trusty turned over the folder with classification markings to federal investigators, and also informed agents that it had been electronically copied to a laptop of a current Trump aide, the sources said.
ABC News has also learned that after the information was recovered, federal agents retrieved the laptop from the aide. The laptop was not retrieved on the Mar-a-Lago grounds, the sources said.
CNN’s Kaitlin Collins Tweeted but then deleted that the aide is Chamberlain Harris, former White House receptionist, and current employee of some Trump PAC. We’ll see is that id checks out.
This is… not great news for Trump.
Here’s a Tweet of a screen cap.
https://twitter.com/RetiredInLV2020/status/1624207592305332225
CNN story on same.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/10/politics/trump-classified-records-laptop
A Trump aide had previously copied those same documents onto a thumb drive and laptop, not realizing they were classified. The laptop, which belonged to an aide, who works for Save America PAC, and the thumb drive were also given to investigators in January.
From Lance Turbo’s quoted link…
GTFO. That’s his name? That’s his FREAKING name??
It is.
Not even close to the funniest name in Trump’s orbit.
It’s a kaleidoscopic freakout with Trump and his show. Your lawyer is named Trusty. (Trump, not Aspenglow.) Would you freaking stop already with the cartoonish implausible insanity?
(Now I heard Calamari. OK.)
((I searched for a “bad trip” smilie and didn’t find one.))
