Have his attorneys ever cited the PRA in a legal argument?
I think he says it because to his ignorant base it sounds like it could mean the opposite. Of course the all-powerful telepathic President is in charge of his own records, how could it be otherwise?
This seems unnecessarily speculative to me. First, as a mob boss, he knows never to put criminal plans in writing. Second, in the unlikely event he broke that rule, those papers would have gone into Mark Meadows’s fireplace.
Occam’s Razor is sufficient to explain his retention, in my mind. (“They’re mine, they make me feel important, you can’t tell me what to do.”)
You forgot “You’re not the boss of me!” with a hearty foot stomp.
Yes, last year when Judge Cannon appointed the Special Master to review the seized documents to separate out any that had attorney-client privilege. However since the whole thing with the Special Master was ditched with the appeals court ruled that Cannon shouldn’t have appointed one, Trump’s lawyers’ argument about the PRA was never ruled on.
What it argues is that in the case where Judicial Watch sued to get audio tapes of Bill Clinton interviews, the judge in that case commented that the designation of whether records are “official” or “personal” belongs to the President to make, not the Archives. I don’t understand that statement, since it would make the PRA completely meaningless if a President didn’t want to hand over anything at all to the Archives. Trump’s lawyers were arguing that all the papers he took were personal, including the classified documents.
Not to mention, Trump isn’t being charged with violating the Presidential Records Act, he’s being charged with (IIRC) unlawful retention of classified material.
So even if someone gives credence to his bogus argument that the PRA says he can call anything he wants “a personal record”, that doesn’t mean he’s not subject to other laws regarding the material he retained. If he wanted to call the child porn in his sock drawer a personal record, he could……but that doesn’t mean he can’t be arrested for it.
Not really. The classification of the documents has nothing to do with any charges. That’s why the whole argument about “I could have declassified them at any time and did” was a sideshow. They aren’t part of the charges.
Here are the charges, for everyone’s benefit (since it has been a while since the indictment).
31 counts of willful retention of national defense information. (Each count is a document.)
1 count of conspiracy to obstruct justice
1 count of withholding a document or a record.
1 count of corruptly concealing a document or record.
1 count of concealing a document in a federal investigation.
1 count of a scheme to conceal.
1 count of false statements and representations.
37 charges total against Trump in this case. Now, the classified nature of the documents may help prove the severity of these allegations, but it isn’t a necessary component of any of them.
Trump is using the PRA as an all-purpose Get Out of Jail Free card. It doesn’t matter to him that he wasn’t charged with a violation of it. Nor does it matter whether the documents were classified or not. He’s insisting that he could willfully retain anything he wanted because he was President.
Maybe no lawyer could get away with that argument in court but Trump’s audience is his base. To them that is a sound and viable defense. Only liberals would deny a President the right to do what he likes to his own documents. The technicalities of the charges are typical elite bullshit. Trump looks better for having the documents and the more that liberals carp about them the worse they look.
I don’t care about appearances. So long as he is convicted, sentenced and imprisoned, I will spot him the court of public opinion all day.
That’s the difference between Republicans and Democrats. When they say, “Lock her up!”, Republicans are not really trying to send her to jail, they’re using the threat of prison as a medium for jacking up the base and generating campaign contributions.
But Democrats are dead serious, and actually know how to put people in prison. I think Republicans are a little shocked that so many MAGA criminals are being tried, convicted and sent to prison, and it’s dawning on them that “Lock Her Up!”, in competent hands, is a lot more than a bumper sticker.
We all here - almost - want Trump convicted, sentenced, and imprisoned. That should not distract us from understanding what he does in the process and why and what effects it has. We will have to live with the consequences no matter what happens to Trump.
Cannon continues running interference for her bestest baby boy. I’m glad the other trials are moving despite her.
She really, really does not want that Garcia (conflict of interest) hearing to happen.
22 posts were merged into an existing topic: Trump – (lack of) intelligence/personality (disorders)
I am very trepidatious to discuss a word with the queen and I agree that he is a narcissist, but I don’t think that explains his success in life.
That’s why I like cunning.
Nitpick: 11 days before the election.
Had it been a few weeks, it might have blown over. Comey did this because he assumed Clinton would win the election.
Carry on.
Moderating:
Please take the discussion re Trump’s intelligence, Hillary Clinton, narcissism, and other concerns elsewhere. It’s really far afield for the narrow discussion intended in this one. You’ve all gone on for more than 20 posts with this discussion and yet no one appears to have cared that it’s a hijack. Please stop now.
Moderating:
Please see the mod note you missed when we simul-posted. Thanks.
Apologies. I took a wrong turn for sure.
You and many others, I’m afraid. But thanks for recognizing the issue.
Moved to the new thread started by DavidNRockies: Trump -- (lack of) intelligence/personality (disorders)
Looks good. Thanks. I got busy with morning things.