I could easily see this. If he understood that these were the most top of the top secret, and nuclear to boot, those are just the sort of documents he’d want to show his friends for bragging rights.
His latest filing with the Special Master basically says, “As President I could designate anything as a personal document and that’s unappealable by anyone. I packed up those documents in the White House while I was still president and sent them to Mar-a-Lago. By doing so I called dibs on them being personal documents, and you can’t do anything about it.”
. https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/14/politics/trump-justice-department-white-house-personal/index.html
The PRA, then, is clear: a President determines whether a document constitutes a Presidential record or a personal record.
In this instance, President Trump exercised that authority. As an initial matter, the PRA recognizes the President’s authority to make this decision, and when that decision is made, it is not subject to challenge. There is no authority whatsoever for the notion that the Government can seize documents from a President, and simply declare that they are Presidential records.
Plaintiff was authorized to and did in fact-designate the seized materials as personal records while he served as President. President Trump was still serving his term in office when the documents at issue were packed, transported, and delivered to his residence in Palm Beach, Florida.3 Thus, when he made a designation decision, he was President of the United States; his decision to retain certain records as personal is entitled to deference, and the records in question are thus presumptively personal.
Sounds like a slightly more professionally stated: “I can declassify by thinking about it.”
But the “personal” reclassification only works with a Samantha Stephens Bewitched style blinking with a sound effect. I hope the more professionally stated claim didn’t fail to mention that Trump included that.
I wish judges would all crack down on his continual rephrasing of old, dismissed arguments. He may as well just hit replay each time. At least slap down the lawyers for wasting court time.
Bewitched was nose twitching, I think.
That’s Jeannie who did that.
Samantha did the tinkly nose wiggle.
Was it Jeannie who blinked?
I believe there is a whole constitutional amendment dealing with dibs. Or am I thinking of something else? Gummint is hard.
I do believe the Secret Service has a policy about calling shotgun.
Made a mistake. Must have forgotten where I was.
There’s definitely a section of the Bro Code that discusses it.
The DOJ’s response was a combination of “nuh uh!” and an exasperated “That’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works!”
The hypocrisy is astonishing, or would be if I were capable of being astonished by his arrant hypocrisy anymore. The thing he’s claiming falsely he could do as President is the exact thing he complained that Hillary should be sent to jail for, since Obama as President could have authorized her as his designee to steal top secret documents and wipe her ass with them, if he wanted her to do that.
So, like, are they ever gonna arrest Trump? Election’s over, tons of evidence, yadda yadda…
No? Ok then.
Election’s not quite over. There’s still Georgia, and that one is important. Walker is one of Trump’s anointed. Garland isn’t going to risk being accused of “costing” Republicans that election by indicting before December 6th.
Fair enough. Important to at least cancel Manchin’s power a bit. But I guess I’m not all that confident that it will even happen after December 6. To me, it’s “put up or shut up” time. Or else, I am going to assume that Trump broke no significant laws.
All indications are that they’re getting ready to indict. But the timing is important, and Garland’s team will be very mindful of that. It’s not every day we indict a former president.
I guess Garland should just indict him in the narrow window between when the Georgia runoff ends and when Trump announces his run for 2024 which is checks note negative 21 days.
The rules around elections are very specific. Running for president provides Trump no protection from prosecution at all. He’s only protected for the 60 days in the run-up to his own election.
However, Trump is an “ordinary” citizen in name only. Let’s be honest: In terms of proceeding with a prosecution, he’s not. Garland has more responsibilities in processing this one.
I don’t think Garland will wait long past the Georgia race. I expect he’ll indict sometime in December. Obviously I have no inside track, but I can understand why he’s waiting for now.
Now that Trump has announced, Garland can roll over and go back to sleep. Indictment is out of the question.
You have to sit on the part of the seat with the bump.