Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Edge-]

Yet another FOX News story is about lawmakers saying they've been approached by whistleblowers who say Wray must be removed for...uh...something something, I guess? Getting politics out of the FBI seems to be the go-to.

Weirdly convenient whistleblowers that Republicans suddenly love after hating for the past four years!

I mean by all means investigate this fully and openly. Let's get to the bottom of this. Though again, really super convenient timing on this. Doesn't mean it's not possibly true.

[Skulltaker]

Okay so, Trump seems to have given up on a lot of possible defenses. He is now all in on "I was allowed to have them" which seems directly contradicted by reality. For one, I don't think he can blame his lawyer anymore, since he's flat-out insisting that nothing else was to be turned over.

More importantly, the 1978 Presidential Records Act flat-out says what Trump is saying is false. Trump doesn't own those. The WH does.

I have a quick question, as a non-US citizen. I seem to recall that former US presidents keep some priviliges, like continued cover by the Secret Service (please correct me if I'm wrong), but I also seem to recall that presidents can, in theory, still access confidential information, even after their term(s), something Bush Senior did? Or do I have some wires crossconnected?

In any case I'd assume they'd get to take copies, and only under controlled circumstances, and not just have them in their filing cabinet because they took them.

[Dontrike]

It sounds like we're done here.

You may be done with that particular conversation, but you're definitely not done with the repeated whataboutism, not answering questions, lying, and more. I love how you didn't explain why Trump had those secrets, almost like "being done" is the only out you had.

This is you not answering a direct question - again.

They never will, if they answered it honestly their world view would collapse like a dying star.

[jonnysensible]

My guess is that he liked to look at them and pretend he was still President. That's based on the presumption that the two expired passports were his Official and Diplomatic passports from his term in office (here's a link to the different types of US passports). As to what the third one is (because you're right, keeping your actual passport in a desk drawer is foolish)... no idea. Maybe he just likes having them together. Maybe he's secretly got dual citizenship with Saudi Arabia or North Korea or something and kept that passport is with his "awesome official documents" collection.

keeping the passports next to the insurance in case he has to make a quick exit.

[Breccia]

3) If they did have the right to go into Trump's residence, then it doesn't matter because Trump had every right to have those documents

Let's see how that holds up in a court of law.

The purported justification for the initiation of this criminal probe was the alleged discovery of sensitive information contained within the 15 boxes of Presidential records. But this 'discovery' was to be fully anticipated given the very nature of Presidential records. Simply put, the notion that Presidential records would contain sensitive information should have never been cause for alarm.

-- seeing how it holds up in court

I'm a little stumped on this one. It'd be like saying, under oath, "well of COURSE you found a big pile of cash and some guns, I'm a drug lord, what did you expect?" The FBI knew they were dangerous, that's why they took them back.

- - - Updated - - -

Business Insider reports a story that matches with what I've been posting earlier: Trump is admitting under oath that he didn't declassify the documents (by virtue of saying the "special master" needs a clearance)

Okay, we all saw that coming, Fine. Why didn't he?

By not adhering to the official declassification process — and there is no evidence that Trump had done so — the former president showed that he wanted to keep the secrets in these documents valuable, suggested Rangappa, who is an assistant dean and a senior lecturer at Yale University's Jackson School of Global Affairs.

"Why would you do that? Only if you wanted the secrets to have value to someone," she wrote.

Rangappa added that Trump would have needed to inform the respective government agencies if he had wanted to declassify any documents formally. This would have led to them taking steps to protect their "methods and sources." She added that the protection or removal of such information from the documents would, in turn, have devalued them.

"If you really think something should be public, then you want to take steps to protect the sources of the intel before your release it," Rangappa wrote. "But Trump claims he did it secretly. That means he intentionally wanted to leave these sources and methods exposed."

She also appeared skeptical of Trump's claim that he had broadly declassified the documents, stating that such an act would have raised questions.

"You only secretly 'declassify' if you want secrets to remain valuable while giving yourself 'cover' if you get discovered," Rangappa wrote.

I'm not sure Trump is capable of all that, but, it's a good point.

Trump could have formally declassify everything he took, he had that ability, and publish it on CyberTrump 2077. He didn't. Therefore he didn't want to the world at large to know the information he took.

Trump could have left everything classified and with the WH, which you'd think he would do if he had nothing to gain from having them, and wanted them protected. He didn't do that, either.

By taking them in secret, and by not making their declassification public (or not declassifying them at all) he is showing the court he knew they were valuable to him,

Now, some Trump defenders might say "Well he just wanted them for--" and I'm going to pre-emptively stop them right there and say "Are you about to admit Trump is stupid, incompetent, or insane? Because if that's the only defense you have left, you're admitted you're following a criminal and possibly a traitor.

[bladeXcrasher]

I have a quick question, as a non-US citizen. I seem to recall that former US presidents keep some priviliges, like continued cover by the Secret Service (please correct me if I'm wrong), but I also seem to recall that presidents can, in theory, still access confidential information, even after their term(s), something Bush Senior did? Or do I have some wires crossconnected?

In any case I'd assume they'd get to take copies, and only under controlled circumstances, and not just have them in their filing cabinet because they took them.

Having a security clearance in the US, at any level, doesn't supercede the the requirement of "need to know". A former president has no need to know about any matters of the state.

[Breccia]

Having a security clearance in the US, at any level, doesn't supercede the the requirement of "need to know". A former president has no need to know about any matters of the state.

This is one of the many issues involved. For example, what if current US President Biden needed a file that was tossed casually in Trump's desk? How would he even know it was there? The National Archives spent months just figuring out what was missing, let alone where it got to.

- - - Updated - - -

This is an OP ED, but as many are, it's written by an expert and cites evidence supporting it.

"Oh, how good of an expert could he possibly be?"

In the Nixon Tapes case, which I argued many years ago--

"Fuck!"

Yeah. He's also the President of the DC Bar Association. You will not find a more informed, experienced person speaking on the tooic.

Anyhow, a lot of it is stuff we already know, such as "it didn't matter if it was classified or not" and "riots in the streets". Here's what looks both important and new to me:

It should be no surprise that the processes for both classifying and declassifying national defense information are elaborately regulated. A 1994 amendment to the National Security Act directed that “the President shall, by Executive order or regulation, establish procedures to govern access to classified information which shall be binding upon all departments, agencies, and offices of the executive branch of Government.”

The current Executive Order implementing this statutory command was issued by Barrack Obama in 2009.

"Ah, so it was just an Executive Order! Trump could easily have destroyed that with a flick of the pen!"

Did he?

"Uh...(checks news)...oh, shit."

There are numerous other statutory and regulatory restrictions that prohibited Trump from doing what he now claims to have done, including restricting the power to declassify any documents containing information relating to nuclear weapons and intelligence agents.

Significantly, some of the materials that the Justice Department just reported among those seized were identified as “human source” information, carefully regulated by statute.

The presidential executive order also specifies that no official leaving government service may “remove classified information” from the government’s control or “direct that information be declassified in order to remove it from agency control.” Thus, for obvious reasons, even an official who has the authority to declassify information may not do so in order to take it with him as a souvenir when he leaves office.

Of crucial importance, the Supreme Court has held that restrictions like these were effective to prevent a president from lawfully and effectively doing what Trump now purports to have done.

In the Nixon Tapes case, which I argued many years ago, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that a president is bound by otherwise valid regulations so long as they remain in force, as all of the declassification restrictions did throughout the Trump presidency.

Boom. Headshot.

"I mean...that was fifty years ago! That's old news, it doesn't matter anymore. Surely since then it was challenged by some mighty patriot, who had it overthrown!"

Again, I'm might be quoting the most directly experienced person on the planet at this point, so any attempt to dismiss that will take more than a handwave.

"Well hold on let's see...ah yes, Trump challenged it in 2020 and OH FUCK ME he lost."

Yeah, the expert was way ahead of you. The 2020 case he cited here was about Trump accidentally just blurting out information about a classified program. It was an honest mistake, any idiot could have done it. SCOTUS ruled that just blurting out classified info in public doesn't magically make it declassified. There are rules, there are laws, and even Trump has to follow them. This meant the accidentally blurted-out info was immune to FOIA requests.

During Trump's single term in office, none of the relevant laws were removed or changed, and he never thought to undo Obama's Executive Orders, either.

No-one is above the law. Trump cannot magically or telepathically removed classification just because he feels like it. And, of course, that's still not the only factor involved.

[ringpriest]

I have a quick question, as a non-US citizen. I seem to recall that former US presidents keep some priviliges, like continued cover by the Secret Service (please correct me if I'm wrong), but I also seem to recall that presidents can, in theory, still access confidential information, even after their term(s), something Bush Senior did? Or do I have some wires crossconnected?

In any case I'd assume they'd get to take copies, and only under controlled circumstances, and not just have them in their filing cabinet because they took them.

(Disclaimer: I'm quite a few years away from current on any of this, but I doubt its changed much.)

US Presidents have practically unlimited authority to grant access to classified information. For example, if Biden wanted to get Obama's opinion on something classified (say, having to do with Iran), he can just say "I'm talking to Obama about this" and that's that. Obama doesn't need to get a security clearance, but neither is the information declassified. Meaning, among other things, that Obama can't blab about it to the NYT, and you or I can't file a Freedom of Information Act request and demand "whatever Biden told Obama about Iran". This, by the way, is what saved Trump's bacon back when he was disclosing classified info to Russians in the White House; the information was still classified, but he as President could share it with them.

If a President thinks they're likely to want their predecessor's opinion, or sometimes even as a courtesy or gesture of respect, they can arrange it so that the former President gets regular briefings on classified information. These are solely at the discretion of the President, and don't directly relate to any security clearance the former President. Note that with all of this, the information in question is not declassified. It's not released to the public, and it is still a crime to mishandle it.


Now, the President of the United States also has very broad authority to order materials declassified - but he doesn't get to just wave a magic wand and say "this is declassified, and that is declassified, everything is declassified!" There are laws (passed by Congress), executive orders (issued by various Presidents), and a whole host of regulations. For most classified information, the President can say, "declassify this" and direct his various subordinates in the executive branch to make it happen according to established processes. If they refuse ("I'm refuse to declassify the location of all our spy satellites, Mister President!") then he theoretically can fire them and replace them with someone who will (as long as such replacement is done according to the law as established by Congress - there are limits on who can be Acting Secretary of Defence, for example - limits that Donald Trump was pushing hard at the end of is time in office). There are a couple exceptions to this; for example, most nuclear secrets are classified by act of Congress, and if the President tries to do an end run around that, it's something of a constitutional crisis.


All the above is about classified information. The crimes Donald Trump appears to have committed go well beyond abusing classified information. He's also violating the Presidential Records Act (which was passed after Nixon, to, among other things, make sure former presidents didn't abscond with records of their crimes...), and he's near-certainly in violation of the Espionage Act, which is, among other things, about proper handling of National Defense Information. NDI is anything that impacts the security of the United States. Classified information certainly can be NDI, and vice-versa, but even if Trump had declassified (which he almost certainly didn't, because there would be a paper trail) lists of spies, nuclear secrets, military programs or anything along those lines, they would still be NDI, and it would be a crime to do what he's done with them (a whole laundry list of crimes, really).

[Skulltaker]

(Disclaimer: I'm quite a few years away from current on any of this, but I doubt its changed much.)

US Presidents have practically unlimited authority to grant access to classified information. For example, if Biden wanted to get Obama's opinion on something classified (say, having to do with Iran), he can just say "I'm talking to Obama about this" and that's that. Obama doesn't need to get a security clearance, but neither is the information declassified. Meaning, among other things, that Obama can't blab about it to the NYT, and you or I can't file a Freedom of Information Act request and demand "whatever Biden told Obama about Iran". This, by the way, is what saved Trump's bacon back when he was disclosing classified info to Russians in the White House; the information was still classified, but he as President could share it with them.

If a President thinks they're likely to want their predecessor's opinion, or sometimes even as a courtesy or gesture of respect, they can arrange it so that the former President gets regular briefings on classified information. These are solely at the discretion of the President, and don't directly relate to any security clearance the former President. Note that with all of this, the information in question is not declassified. It's not released to the public, and it is still a crime to mishandle it.


Now, the President of the United States also has very broad authority to order materials declassified - but he doesn't get to just wave a magic wand and say "this is declassified, and that is declassified, everything is declassified!" There are laws (passed by Congress), executive orders (issued by various Presidents), and a whole host of regulations. For most classified information, the President can say, "declassify this" and direct his various subordinates in the executive branch to make it happen according to established processes. If they refuse ("I'm refuse to declassify the location of all our spy satellites, Mister President!") then he theoretically can fire them and replace them with someone who will (as long as such replacement is done according to the law as established by Congress - there are limits on who can be Acting Secretary of Defence, for example - limits that Donald Trump was pushing hard at the end of is time in office). There are a couple exceptions to this; for example, most nuclear secrets are classified by act of Congress, and if the President tries to do an end run around that, it's something of a constitutional crisis.


All the above is about classified information. The crimes Donald Trump appears to have committed go well beyond abusing classified information. He's also violating the Presidential Records Act (which was passed after Nixon, to, among other things, make sure former presidents didn't abscond with records of their crimes...), and he's near-certainly in violation of the Espionage Act, which is, among other things, about proper handling of National Defense Information. NDI is anything that impacts the security of the United States. Classified information certainly can be NDI, and vice-versa, but even if Trump had declassified (which he almost certainly didn't, because there would be a paper trail) lists of spies, nuclear secrets, military programs or anything along those lines, they would still be NDI, and it would be a crime to do what he's done with them (a whole laundry list of crimes, really).

Thank you!

[Edge-]

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/0...probe-00054527

Graham loses in court again -

A federal judge has for the second time rejected Sen. Lindsey Graham’s effort to block a grand jury subpoena issued by the Atlanta-area district attorney investigating former President Donald Trump and his allies’ effort to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia.

In a 23-page order, U.S. District Court Judge Leigh Martin May ruled that the South Carolina Republican’s claim to be immune from such questioning — thanks to the protections of the so-called speech or debate clause of the Constitution — is not as sweeping as Graham claimed it to be.

[Breccia]

Lindsey Graham, having lost his lawsuit to get out of testifying to a grand jury, is now seeking to prevent the grand jury from asking him any questions relating to "all the topics" the Fulton County AG Fani Willis subpoena'd him about. Also, "other topics" as well. So...he doesn't want them to be able to ask him anything, even his name I guess.

Odds are he will lose this lawsuit as well.

UPDATE: Oh no, he lost that lawsuit as well!

Well...kind of.

A federal judge on Thursday denied Sen. Lindsey Graham’s latest effort to fully quash a subpoena for his testimony before a special grand jury in Georgia as part of its probe into possible criminal election interference by Trump and his allies in 2020.

But the judge also limited the scope of the subpoena by ordering that Graham, a South Carolina Republican and close Trump ally, cannot be asked about his “investigatory fact-finding on telephone calls to Georgia election officials” during his testimony.

She was referring to phone calls Graham made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and his staff in the weeks after the November 2020 election between Trump and President Joe Biden.

That off-limits topic includes how the information he gathered “related to his decision to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election,” the judge ruled.

“The Court finds that this area of inquiry falls under the protection of the Speech or Debate Clause, which prohibits questions on legislative activity,” Judge Leigh Martin May wrote in Thursday’s order in U.S. District Court in Atlanta.

But May rejected Graham’s other arguments to either throw out the subpoena or sharply limit the questions that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ office can ask him.

“As to the other categories, the Court finds that they are not legislative, and the Speech or Debate Clause does not apply to them,” May wrote.

This is going to lead to a problem. GA is going to ask about Graham's direct threats, Graham will claim he doesn't have to answer because they were fact-finding threats. As such, I really hope the call was recorded, so the judge lets most of it play out, and Graham is then asked about his statements one at a time.

[DarkTZeratul]

Thank you!

As an additional note, while the president is considered to have clearance to look at everything, that clearance is tied to the office, not the person, and expires along with their term. This is why, to continue using ringpriest's example, even though Obama was president for 8 years Biden would still need to give him access to talk about national security issues with Iran.

[Breccia]

Graham loses in court again -

Fuck! I got Edge-ninja'd!

- - - Updated - - -

Once again, it's time for Guess the Speaker!

The response that the Justice Department gave was perfectly appropriate. The Trump people just basically asked to be punched in the face and they were punched in the face by the response

"That direct language with the mocking tone, that could only be George Conway."

Correct.

We've heard the reports about the RNC not backing Trump on legal bills and such, but at this point, Trump is not only out of defenses that have a chance of working, he's out of chances that just don't make things worse. Everything he's done is either an own goal or shoving the referee.

Which leads to the question: why hasn't he declared he's running yet?

"I mean, he's under investigation, he's kinda busy. Wouldn't this be a bad time?"

Well, for a sane person, yes. But this is Trump we're talking about.

1) His declaration would change the headlines to something more positive to his self-worth.

2) His declaration would immediately force everyone who has an R next to their name to draw battle lines...and the GOP isn't ready to ditch Trump yet. He would force people to publicly defend him.

3) Trump running would get his rabid fanbase out to the polls and vote for his backed candidates more than they have been -- a fair number of them are losing. See also: Sarah Palin.

4) We've recently heard rumors the feds are waiting until after the election to press charges. True or not, it'd be a lot trickier to indict someone running for office than someone sitting on the couch covered in Cheeto crumbs.

5) He would immediately get donations, and we know full well campaign donations can be spent on legal fees. Trump would be able to pay decent lawyers up-front legally.

Can anyone give me a good reason why Trump hasn't declared yet? Other than "a reasonable person wouldn't" because that ship has sailed to Jyna and come back with ill-fitting suits already.

- - - Updated - - -

I'll burn a CNN point: The House has Trump's financial records.

A recently-struck deal means Mazars will hand them over.

After numerous court victories, I am pleased that my Committee has now reached an agreement to obtain key financial documents that former President Trump fought for years to hide from Congress.

After facing years of delay tactics, the Committee has now reached an agreement with the former President and his accounting firm, Mazars USA, to obtain critical documents. These documents will inform the Committee’s efforts to get to the bottom of former President Trump’s egregious conduct and ensure that future presidents do not abuse their position of power for personal gain.

Under the agreement reached by the Committee, former President Trump has agreed not to further appeal the D.C. Circuit’s ruling, and Mazars USA has agreed to comply with the court’s order and produce responsive documents to the Committee as expeditiously as possible

-- House Oversight Chair

[cubby]

I have a quick question, as a non-US citizen. I seem to recall that former US presidents keep some priviliges, like continued cover by the Secret Service (please correct me if I'm wrong), but I also seem to recall that presidents can, in theory, still access confidential information, even after their term(s), something Bush Senior did? Or do I have some wires crossconnected?

In any case I'd assume they'd get to take copies, and only under controlled circumstances, and not just have them in their filing cabinet because they took them.

Former Presidents do typically keep some privileges, and are afforded others as an outgoing President. As you said, they maintain Secret Service protection, the are given an office budget, and in the past continue to receive security briefings. They can't keep classified documents, or have access to any previous material. The Presidential Briefings are more of a courtesy (and perhaps in case the previous President can help out the new president, confidentially, with the new one).

But access information, like request documents from the CIA/etc? No.

Not sure I answered your question though - shout if I can elaborate, or other.

[DarkTZeratul]

The Presidential Briefings are more of a courtesy (and perhaps in case the previous President can help out the new president, confidentially, with the new one).

It's one of those courtesies that most presidents traditionally extend to their predecessors, but are under no obligation to do so. I'm not sure if Trump did for Obama (but probably not), and Biden definitely didn't do it for Trump for reasons that are both obvious and now extremely relevant.

[shimerra]

I've described the context and record well enough in depth for any unbiased reader. I'll leave it at that.

An unbiased reader that can think critically doubts your ability to zip your pants without outside help based on your posts.

[gondrin]

Well, in a not-so-stunning reversal, Team Trump has decided they don't want people to actually see a more detailed list of what Trump had when the DoJ had called their bluff and stated "Sure, why not? We don't have anything to lose here."

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...3cb065b3002082

Trump Team Reverses Course, Tries to Keep Mar-a-Lago Document List Secret

Lawyers for former President Donald Trump reversed course Thursday, opposing the unsealing of a more detailed list of the items seized during the FBI's Mar-a-Lago search.

In its court filing this week, the Department of Justice (DOJ) said it would be OK with the court releasing its more comprehensive list detailing exactly what was found during the August 8 raid by federal investigators. However, Trump's team objected to the document being unsealed, according to former Prosecutor Andrew Weissmann.

Thursday's hearing marked the first time Trump's lawyers appeared in court for a proceeding related to the Mar-a-Lago search. While the hearing was not open to the public, several reporters were present in the Florida courtroom.

The debate over whether Trump should be granted his request for a special master in the Mar-a-Lago matter is expected to reach a conclusion now that both sides have delivered their arguments to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon.

On Thursday, Cannon held a closed-door hearing to consider Trump's bid for an outsider to be assigned over the review of documents seized. The judge did not make a ruling from the bench. It is unclear when her written order will come.

Legal scholars noted that Trump's team had asked for the detailed inventory to be unsealed in its original motion.

"It's hard to make sense of their legal strategy, which contradicts their public statements about transparency," former federal Prosecutor Renato Mariotti tweeted.

The court agreed it would not unseal the longer list since Trump opposed, which is in line with legal theory that the privacy of a person under investigation should be protected.

"We're not going to learn what's in the more detailed inventory of items seized at Mar-a-Lago despite DOJ's offer to unseal it, because, Trump doesn't want you to know," former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama Joyce White Vance tweeted on Thursday. "DOJ called his bluff. The evidence uncovered in the search must be highly incriminating."

Cannon previously signaled her "preliminary intent" to grant the request for a special master last weekend, although the DOJ has since argued in a lengthy filing that it had already used a "filter team" over the evidence.

In its Tuesday court filing, the DOJ wrote that a special master would be "unnecessary" and argued that appointing one "would significantly harm important governmental interests, including national security interests."

In response to the federal government, Trump's team maintained there was no "cause for alarm" and that the DOJ "significantly mischaracterized" previous meetings between Trump attorneys and prosecutors over the handling of presidential records.

[Edge-]

Well, in a not-so-stunning reversal, Team Trump has decided they don't want people to actually see a more detailed list of what Trump had when the DoJ had called their bluff and stated "Sure, why not? We don't have anything to lose here."

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...3cb065b3002082

Man, it's almost like they know that such a list would be disastrous to their efforts to win this fight in the court of public opinion.

[Breccia]

"It's hard to make sense of their legal strategy, which contradicts their public statements about transparency"

No, it isn't.

They're guilty and lying.

[Gorsameth]

There is no sense of legal strategy because there is not a whole lot you can do when your caught red handed with top secret documents that you made a sworn statement of not having.