I do too. I get kidded about it by the young staff. Some just work with docs on their compters. I’m a dinosaur that reads hard copies. I absorb the information better.
I guess that would be a security risk? I don’t work with anything classified. I shred anything HIPAA related.
Hard copies of classified have to be burned (or shredded with a GSA approved shredder that basically turns the paper into powder). They’re a security risk in the sense that they have to be dealt with but mostly they’re a pain in the ass that people actively avoid for that reason.
I can easily see older politicians wanting hard copies. That’s what we used throughout our educational and early career years.
It is a bit concerning that Trump had empty folders. Hopefully the docs were properly shredded by his staff.
Fair enough. As to the first reply there…
wasn’t directly addressing the chain of custody documentation required for transport.
Some of the stuff in question was brought from the white house, and some of it was likely left over from when the MAL SCIF was decommissioned. My contention is that these folders could very well be bog standard supply items from the latter and we shouldn’t read too much into them.
Well, my contention is to assume the worst about Donald Trump, dial it back about 5-10%, and there you go. It’s a strategy which has served me well. 
Whoops. Documents related to the national defense and any document related to nuclear power or nuclear weapons are classified by Federal law with a well-defined procedure for declassifying (and it’s not “neener, neener, they’re declassified”).
You mean including the stuff that wasn’t in the storage room, but in his actual desk drawer next to his passport(s)? Sure seems like something he had easy, daily access to.
In my experience as a human, desk drawers quickly fill up with random crap and then you stop using them. Open a drawer in an average desk and you’ll find two pounds of dust, a half dozen inkless pens, and the last remaining Neanderthal, for all you know.
I’m sure that there’s someone who keeps them clean, organized, and up-to-date but I wouldn’t put the presence of a document in a desk drawer as a clear sign that the owner was actively using that document on a regular basis.
Again. His actual, current passport was in there. And it’s not like these folders are a stray paperclip. They have GIANT bold markings saying “CLASSIFIED”. Honestly, I don’t think he was looking at them either (I question his ability to read past a 5th grade level), they were there as props so that he could open the drawer in front of guests and have them see the folders to impress them. Doesn’t make it right and it certainly IS a clear sign that he was cavalier (to put it mildly) in his treatment of the nation’s secrets.
The exact same drawer? And they were right up against each other? And the document was right there on the top/front, easily seen?
And are you sure that it was his main, current passport rather than some random, diplomatic, non-expired passport that he maybe doesn’t use?
Seriously - you are equating marked classified documents with your inkiess pen?
For a man who doesn’t understand why we don’t just nuke more places, shows classified Israeli intel to the Russian ambassador, and tweets spy satellite images of Iran out to the whole world?
No, I don’t think so. The DOJ’s initial filing in response to Trump’s motion for a special master noted:
The other documents included two official passports, one of which was expired, and one personal passport, which was expired. (footnote on page 12)
He wouldn’t be using the unexpired official passport unless he was traveling on US government business (e.g., Biden sent him somewhere to represent the US at the Olympics or somebody’s funeral), and I don’t think Biden has any intention of allowing Trump to represent the US anywhere. The personal passport was expired.
All this goes to show ‘improper storage of classified materials’ along with ‘retained thousands of documents that did not belong to him’.
Empty folders is the new battle cry to rebut the ‘but her emails’ - since we don’t know if they were simply ‘extra folders’ or ‘folders that are now missing the contents’ - which goes directly back to showing a careless regard for classified information and the storage thereof.
As others have said - declassifying anything has a process involved - part of that process is marking the documents un-classified. Since they were still marked as classified, they were still classified.
Not intending to whoosh you, but my whole list was a guess as to Trump’s explanation for this whole affair, and every item on it was (intentionally) complete bullshit.
Yeah. Maybe the empty folders were always empty and just some extra empty folders that got thrown in at the last minute, but since the trump administration was so cavalier (good term for it) with classified documents, who knows if they were always empty or used to have something in them? The “chain of custody” is completely lost, so IMO trump has no leg to stand on to claim that empty folders are a nothingburger. I’ve never had any experience with classified documents (though I did have a low-level security clearance as a government contractor at one point, no idea what it was called), so take that with a grain of salt. It’s just that with the disorganization and carelessness with which the documents were obviously treated, there’s no telling whether anything was ever in those empty folders. And that’s HIS fault.
Not to mention that the hurried, last-minute packing was ALSO trump’s fault since he wouldn’t cooperate with the orderly transition of power.
Miliary Aide
I encyst they be returned!
/end of miliary cyst tangent
Bill Barr in IDGAF mode on Fox News:
We could have him attend Gorbachev’s funerial and hope he decides not to come back.
I also don’t believe he needs anyones permission to use the diplomatic passport. If only because no one has ever thought that a former POTUS would be so embarrassing. Its a for life perk like SS protection.
And let him take all the state secrets he made copies of and what else he still keeps of classified docs to hand it to his buddy master Vlad?
That ship already has sailed. Might as well have the rat with it.