My immediate thought as well. Maybe some nuclear secrets are enough to get Vlad to finally tear up that promissory note?
FBI Search and Seizure at Trump's Mar-A-Lago Residence, August 8, 2022, Case Dismissed July 15, 2024
Something tells me the judge hearing the motion to unseal the warrant application documents is going to find that the public interest and need to know far outweighs Trump’s concerns about keeping the Sharpied weather map out of view.
Full House of Representatives Report:
Who was at that golf tournament the other week… ?
Alright, I’m not sure I buy it… these stupid anonymous sources. Until I see “Restricted Data” or “Formerly Restricted Data” on a document manifest of items recovered I can’t get to “former President retains US nuclear secrets in a box in his basement”. It’s just not comprehensible.
Maybe there was a long list of the types of material that was being looked for and one of the items listed was RD/FRD (along with the usual TS/SCI/etc).
What about his good buddy Orban from Hungary?
I’ve read at least one theory that this was all a move by conservatives to clear Trump out of the way for the next MAGA monster. Seems very farfetched.
Sorry, but after all we have seen, this is funny. Recover from the shock, but, yes, this is what The Washington Post is reporting. I trust them, tbh.
I do too, but here is the nut graph:
What does that really say? It says that among the list of things being looked for were documents related to nuclear weapons.
Which, of course. If the DOJ/NARA think Trump kept more documents than he has so far returned (either in January or in June), and that some of them are classified, you write the warrant to list all of the types of classified documents you think you might find, including RD/FRD.
Like I said, let me know when the reporting is that they found any nuclear documents.
Remember, with Trump it’s all about the moola.
He was planning to sell it.
What horrifies me is, we’re spoiled for choice. Putin, bin Salman, Orban, no problem. Republicans are fine with this.
Republicans may try to spin it this way, but as you say, it’s farfetched. I’ll add stupid.
I noticed McConnell’s only public-facing statement was to say that Garland should “immediately” release the basis for the warrant. I suspect he knew what was in it, at least generally.
I doubt Garland would have come out with such a strong statement or an offer to release the list of retrieved documents if he didn’t have the goods.
It also says the Washington Post double-verified this information. They don’t go to press with stories like this without corroboration. It’s how protecting your ass in American journalism works.
I trust their reporting. Their integrity is all they have.
You come at the King, you’d best not miss.
“Have you accidentally come into possession of classified documents related to nuclear weapons? And are worried about how to get rid of them?”
Yes, of course. I imagine their story is absolutely correct. And the story is: “among the list of the types of documents on the warrant were nuclear documents”.
But that is a far cry from “among the documents retrieved are nuclear documents” or “the primary documents they were after were nuclear documents”.
It’s the kind of reporting that makes noise, but also causes disappointment and even blow-back when the reality doesn’t align with the leaps made based on the reporting.
And believe me, I do not think it’s beyond the realm of possibility that Trump grabbed some nuclear documents to sell them to whomever. And that he was about to load them into his brand new safe and deliver them to Vlad/Saudis/whomever. But it could also be much more mundane (but also illegal) stuff, and WashPo could still be 100% correct in their reporting.
We will, hopefully, know soon. And hopefully, if nuclear information was involved, it was reclaimed before it could be copied or disseminated. But it has been a damn-long time…
Yep. I saw Barbara McQuade, a former prosecutor, on MSNBC who responded to an incredulous question about how incriminating evidence wouldn’t have been immediately destroyed. She said they had a saying in her office, “We don’t catch the smart ones.”
I’m no attorney, and I take it you aren’t either. But from what I’m reading, it sounds like the warrants aren’t fishing expeditions. They don’t list all the shit they think might plausibly be there. They list the shit that they have strong reason to believe are there.
Can folks with more experience wrt federal warrants weigh in on this?
That’s my read. They know these documents are missing. And who the last person to have them was.
Man, I’m telling you, it’s Donald Trump. You can go with your gut here.
Ask yourself this:
- Does ‘nuclear secrets’ answer all the reasonable questions which have been raised about this? The timeline, the urgency, ‘why is trump flipping out’, ‘why today’s presser’, even down to ‘why bother, what could they be seeking which is worth this’?
To me the answer is ‘yes’.
- What else would answer those questions?
To me the answer is ‘very little’.
As former military member with over 10 years working with special weapons, I’m grieving.
Turning to Bruce Hornsby:
Remember when the days were long
And rolled beneath a deep blue sky
Didn’t have a care in the world
With mommy and daddy standin’ by
But “happily ever after” fails
And we’ve been poisoned by these fairy tales
The lawyer dwell on small details
Since daddy had to fly
snipped as exceeded fair use; What Exit?
Ugh…
That’s fair. Perhaps I’m too broad in my thinking of what could possibly be put on a warrant that was searching for classified documents. We will see once it comes out, I guess (if it comes out).
I’m imagining that if I had a CI, for example, that signed an affidavit that said that they saw documents stamped Top Secret in a box in the basement at Mar a Lago, that I could also include documents marked “Secret” and possibly also “TS-SCI” or “TS/FRD” in my warrant. I think I would want to do that if I were the one making the request.
But I can also imagine that there are very specific documents that they are looking for, that include stuff related to nuclear power and/or weapons.
So I suppose both are equally possible. I think just based on what I’ve been reading the last few days about search warrants the more general “classified documents” is what would be listed on the actual warrant (although the affidavit is probably more specific). But maybe a real lawyer can correct me.
This is another great point, and one I’ve been struggling with since Monday.
Something happened that stepped up the urgency, and made them believe they needed to act. I suppose the revelation from a CI that a particular document or set of documents related to nuclear weapons were present is an answer that makes sense.
I’m still also open to the idea that he held on to a bunch of random Durham/“Russia Hoax” stuff that had some foreign intelligence assets in it and that the current administration really doesn’t trust him not to blab all over the place. And he’s been stonewalling and being non-responsive to subpoenas. Then they got word he bought a new safe and was planning to move some documents out of Mar-a-Lago because the FBI was going to take them from him so they decided to swoop in before he could do that.
Is the second story likely enough to trigger Garland to OK the raid? I would actually like to think no… but I’m not 100% sure. Having intelligence assets in the temperamental hands of DJT is pretty terrifying.