I call it “causal Friday.”
FBI Search and Seizure at Trump's Mar-A-Lago Residence, August 8, 2022, Case Dismissed July 15, 2024
And much to Trump’s dismay, saying “This is off the record” doesn’t make it off the record any more than thinking “This is declassified” makes it declassified.
Also, AIUI, the recording was the work of one of Trump’s two staffers present at the meeting, so even if “off the record” had been acknowledged and honored by the Meadows’ (auto)biographers, it wasn’t going to be ignored by the recording that he de facto sanctioned.
Uh. Whoops!
Pro tip: if you are about to say something that you want off the record, you should probably reach over and turn off the tape recorder.
Or better still…
Did I say I had plans? I meant that I had…um…building plans? Yeah, building plans! That’s the ticket!
The problem with, “I was lying”, as a defense is of course that it just makes the jury ask why he shouldn’t be lying now, to them, if it’s his habit to lie about things.
I think the defence is, ‘Yeah, I waved “classified” documents around. But I wouldn’t have done that if they were really classified. So my waving classified documents around, and saying explicitly that they were classified, proves that I didn’t do anything wrong!’
It’s all in how you syllabize it. He was off the rec-cord, but not off the re-cord. D’oh!
One of my favorite all time scenes from my favorite all time show.
Fantastic show. What it looks like when people who care about the government run the government. I couldn’t watch it again these days. Too painful. I’d cry through every episode. (I did during a few the first time-- like when Toby arranges the burial of the homeless veteran… )
He’s getting closer and closer to the Big Lebowski defense.
Uh, papers. You know, just papers. Uh, you know, uh, my papers. Business papers.
Maybe in trump’s mind (BWA-ha-ha-ha, excuse the expression) when he “waved” the papers around, that served to “waive” the confidentiality of those papers?
He didn’t want to waive confidentiality, he was “bidden” to
“Damn! That President Bid(d)en sticks his nose in everywhere it’s not wanted!”
“Biden waves papers all the time! Ok, he really just holds them up after signing them, but it’s the same thing!”
“The FBI took my boxes! They tied the whole bathroom together!”
Theoretically speaking, if I didn’t show up for my own arraignment, what might the judge do to me? This is completely theoretical of course.
In most cases he would issue a bench warrant.
Although one time I didn’t show up and the judge actually called me and asked why I wasn’t there. I told him that my lawyer said I didn’t need to appear. He told me to get to the court right away or he would issue an arrest warrant. I of course complied. He called my lawyer as well and I can only imagine what he said to them, but he was there when I got there and sweating.
Trump doesn’t do things wrong. He does things right. He’s a legitimate person.