Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[unfilteredJW]

Holy whataboutism, batman.

It's equal parts hysterical and sad.

Imagine having your thoughts fed to you like this and then just vomiting them up everywhere you go.

[Gorsameth]

The FBI didn't raid Hillary because she cooperated.
The FBI did raid Trump because he didn't cooperate and lied that he returned everything.

A reminder, because it seems some Conservatives need it, that Trump was asked to return these documents 6 months ago!
They didn't decide to raid him from one day to the next.

[Kaleredar]

I'm aware the FBI treated the two alleged violations of classified records law differently. We'd be in a whole different place if the FBI raided Hillary Clinton's closet for the server and setup at dawn.

Clearly makes a ton of difference, lol.

We can thank Trump for that. But surely you don't think secretaries of state are above the law, while Presidents aren't.

Clinton’s responses to the inquiries for recovering the documents were different from trump’s.

For instance, she did not first say she didn’t have them, then lie about their contents, then claim they were hers and she deserves them back because an fbi witch hunt was going after her after they broke into her residence because she wouldn’t hand them over when asked.

You know who did do that?

Donald Trump. The person we’re talking about. The person currently under investigation by the FBI.

And you don’t have to ask me whether I think Clinton broke the law, because the FBI said she didn’t. There was no trial that she was found innocent in, because there was no trial.

You went on a long rant about how Republicans blamed everything on "women getting abortions or on minorities or on gay and trans people" and how people labeled "Trump defenders" "wont admit they saw or heard of any of this." Maybe you should do a better job following your own advice, and not wax long on unrelated subjects before requiring people responding to you to do the same.

My point is that you clearly do not see the evident problem in people like trump, his supporters, and his sycophant politicians, and instead look to lay the blame for said problems on entirely different and unrelated groups.

Well, either you don’t see it or you willfully ignore it. Both have the same end result.

I'm asking for a little perspective on blind Lady justice. She doesn't care who violated the law. She'll treat them just the same. I asked you which of the statements you leveled at Trump you'd willingly apply to another recent case of violation of the same statute. You have thus far refused to answer me.

Enumerated above

This is like looking at Trump's public statements and deciding, based on them, whether anything was amiss in his conduct.

Maybe I can look at his conduct itself.

The FBI knows its behavior reeks of partisan capture, so it tries to make a weak argument based on subjective criteria.

Ah, so we start to get an actual opinion on the one of four points I suggested.

Are you going with “the fbi is unfairly targeting trump because what trump did isn’t a big deal?”

You had a rant about how people like me would refuse to even "[see] or [hear] of any of this." And you ended on accusing Republicans of blaming everything on "women getting abortions or on minorities or on gay and trans people." This is indicative of a partisan zealot seeking to accuse others, rather than questioning them on their stances and beliefs.

Re-read your post, and ask yourself if you're asking posters their opinion on allegations against Trump, or concluding they could not possibly have an answer you'd accept, and pronouncing judgement.

I'm happy to let people so giddy at telling me what I'd happily do, and telling me what I care and don't care about, to live in their preconceptions of the world around them. I'm not getting paid to remove your prejudice or certainty in mind-reading people you've never met.

I asked you rather directly.

You’ve yet to actually answer. You got close to having an opinion, but veered away before committing.

[Breccia]

But Her Emails!

I'm see you're disappointed with Clinton actually following the directions of law enforcement while your man Trump did not. Perhaps if you're wondering why they were treated differently, you should ask why Trump not only took classified information he wasn't supposed to, but also refused to cooperate with law enforcement, as proven by the evidence now publicly available.

Don't blame us that you backed such a blatant criminal. That's on you.

Your post sounds awfully similar to Trump's most recent CyberTrump 2077 posts, which I won't link, but will point out mentions
1) Hoaxes, Scams, and Sleaze (yes, all capitalized)
2) the many crimes of Joe Biden (???)
3) Hunter Biden, yes again
4) the FISA court being lied to (which, if true, would be a crime)
5) the raid was illegal
6) PRESIDENTIAL RECORDS ACT! (yes, that one is an entire post, yes, it's all caps)

Trump does not once mention the issue with Barr himself obstructing justice by blocking a criminal investigtion into Trump for obstructing justice. Funny, based on what you said about Clinton, you should have mentioned that.

In fact, since this thread is about Trump, why don't we hear your opinion on the recent Barr revalations? Because unless you come down hard on Barr and Trump's DOJ the way you came down on Obama protecting Clinton, you don't have an opinion, you have hypocrisy.

[Xyonai]

I'm amazed there isn't more names, gotta wonder what some of those old permabanned ones are doing with this info or any of the recent Trump shit.

With that said they'll either use one of Trump's random ass excuses to hand wave it away, come up with their own bit of insanity, or you'll hear more from the crickets than you will them.

Yeah most of the biggest and loudest Pro-Trump folks at the start of his presidency either got themselves perma banned for being insufferable assholes, vanished off the face of the planet, got 'mysteriously deleted' when MMO Champ purged a lot of bot/spam accounts, or just moved into Gen-OT when Politics people got sick of their bullshit.

[Belize]

Ever think

No, he hasn't.

[Breccia]

WaPo releases a May 2021 email--

"Paywall."

Yeah, WaPo is pretty strict about theirs. Took me about 12 seconds.

About two dozen boxes of presidential records stored in then-President Donald Trump’s White House residence were not returned to the National Archives and Records Administration in the final days of his term even after Archives officials were told by a Trump lawyer that the documents should be given back, according to an email from the top lawyer at the record-keeping agency.

“It is also our understanding that roughly two dozen boxes of original presidential records were kept in the Residence of the White House over the course of President Trump’s last year in office and have not been transferred to NARA, despite a determination by Pat Cipollone in the final days of the administration that they need to be,” wrote Gary Stern, the agency’s chief counsel, in an email to Trump lawyers in May 2021, according to a copy reviewed by The Washington Post.

The email shows NARA officials were concerned about Trump keeping dozens of boxes of official records even before he left the White House — concerns that only grew in the coming months as Trump repeatedly declined to return the records. It also showed that Trump’s lawyers had concerns about Trump taking the documents and agreed that the boxes should be returned — at least according to the top Archives officials — while Trump kept the documents.

So anyone attempting the "Trump was cooperating" defense has been proven flat-out wrong. Already by May 2021, the National Archives had taken to begging. And Team Trump had already admitted through Cipollone...that's going to be a fun chat in the near future for him...that Trump shouldn't have taken them. It was a full year from that email to the April/May discussions we've talked about more frequently, when Trump not only didn't return everything, but lied about it.

The previously unreported email — sent about 100 days after the former president left office with the subject line “Need for Assistance re Presidential Records” — also illustrates the myriad efforts Archives officials made to have documents including classified material returned over an 18-month period, culminating with an FBI raid this month at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida.

Stern does not say in the email how he determined that the boxes were in Trump’s possession. He wrote that he also had consulted another Trump lawyer during the final days of Trump’s presidency — without any luck. “I had also raised this concern with Scott in the final weeks,” Stern writes in the email, referring to Trump lawyer Scott Gast, who is also copied on the email.

Stern cites at least two high-profile documents that the Archives knew at the time were missing — letters from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and a letter from former president Barack Obama at the beginning of Trump’s presidency.

“We know things are very chaotic, as they always are in the course of a one-term transition,”

Apply clean, dry dressings to any sick burn.

Stern wrote. “ … But it is absolutely necessary that we obtain and account for all presidential records.”

Stern did not state in the email what the Archives believed had been in the boxes kept in the White House residence. But he did cite the correspondence between Trump and Kim as an example of an item the former president requested “just prior to the end of the administration.”

Stern wrote, “it is our understanding that in January 2021, just prior to the end of the administration, the originals were put in a binder for the president, but were never returned to the office of Records Management for NARA.”

"Show me your boobies hon--"

Fuck, wrong Stern there.

You will note that Stern is not just asking for classified or top secret info. That defuses another Team Trump defense. And also, if Trump really thought he was allowed to keep them -- my previous post suggests he's at least pushing that narrative -- doing literally nothing in response to this May 2021 email was a fucking stupid move. He should have immediately challenged that using standard legal format, which we know he didn't, because I didn't post anything about the court hearing, because there wasn't one. @Kaleredar said something similar recently about a court date that never happened.

WaPo says they don't know how Stern knew Trump had the boxes. I have an easy answer. Trump left the WH with boxes full of stuff in public. NARA found things were missing. NARA then gave Trump every single possible credit, that he didn't lose, sell, or give away WH documents. Basically, if Trump didn't have them, it would be much worse. Which sounds a lot like favoritism being shown by law enforcement. I wonder if any posters will say "favoritism shouldn't happen, NARA should have raided Trump over a year ago" to prove they're not hypocrites.

I doubt it.

- - - TIME for an update! - - -

This is a TIME Magainze OP ED. It is a well informed one, and an OP I happen to think has merit after reading it.

In the two weeks since the FBI searched former President Donald Trump’s private club in Florida to retrieve classified documents, Trump and his team have trumpeted each move as further evidence of his victimization. The federal agents—with a court order—”broke into” his home, he insisted. They may have planted evidence, he alleged. They were a “political weaponization of law enforcement.”

The strategy is similar to how Trump handled the two investigations that led to his being impeached twice. Whereas Trump was able to count on the support of Republicans in the Senate to ensure his acquittal during his impeachment trials, he faces no such protection in the current investigation. The legal system has ways to punish misrepresentations and lies, actions that have often brought Trump rewards in the political arena. And as each new fact is made public on the court docket, Trump may be digging himself into deeper legal jeopardy.

So basically, Trump was impeached twice, once because he blackmailed Ukraine for aid to protect them from Russia...wow, isn't that topical...and once for starting a murderous insurrection. In both cases, there wasn't enough publicly known documentation or evidence to land a conviction. Trump locked the call transcript in a safe...funny, he didn't take it to Mar-a-Lago, or did he?...and we didn't have the Jan 6th emails and texts yet. By contrast, right now, every single time Trump lies, it's immediately revealed and he has to swap excuses.

And it's not working.

TIME goes on to point out that

1) Team Trump is having the absolute worst time trying to file anything legal that doesn't look like Grammarly threw up into Reddit.
2) The Russia investigation into Trump's proven connections with Russia to attack the election often ended with "we don't prosecute the WH resident". Trump isn't anymore.
3) There is nothing that proves Biden is doing this on a partisan whim. On the contrary, every law enforcement and Executive Branch action had every box checked, took forever to get going, and Biden gave them permission to do as the law said without pushing for Trump in tiny handcuffs.

And I'll also point out that that judge Trump begged for a "special master" gave him until Friday. It's (checks watch) lunch-o-clock on Thursday. I haven't seen any evidence Trump's filed anything new yet. Maybe he doesn't want to rush things? He's asking for a lifeboat off a burning, sinking ship, so I guess it makes sense to check if it has holes in it.

[Endus]

I'm aware the FBI treated the two alleged violations of classified records law differently. We'd be in a whole different place if the FBI raided Hillary Clinton's closet for the server and setup at dawn.

Clearly makes a ton of difference, lol.

Clinton's records;
1> were stored under legally permitted standards (at the time),
2> were turned over according to schedule with no resistance or dispute by Clinton, and
3> Clinton made no effort whatsoever to unlawfully retain copies of those records beyond the term in which she had to collate and turn them over.

Even on investigation, the worst they found were some sloppy handling of classified intelligence, and not even by Clinton, personally, but by others in e-mail chains on which Clinton was a recipient. Which, sure, wasn't great, but these were administrative concerns at best, not grounds for legal action, let alone criminal prosecution.

So yeah, that all makes the difference between the nothingburger that were Clinton's records scandal, and the clear crimes and potential treason Trump has, objectively, been committing. If you can't see that, it's because you're blinded by personal partisanship and extremism. The rest of us in the real world see the difference real clearly. Perhaps especially those of us who have no dog in the fight and aren't even American in the first place.

I'm asking for a little perspective on blind Lady justice. She doesn't care who violated the law. She'll treat them just the same. I asked you which of the statements you leveled at Trump you'd willingly apply to another recent case of violation of the same statute. You have thus far refused to answer me.

This is categorically false. If it had been some random black guy who'd broken in and stolen these boxes of records, his corpse would probably be cooling on a morgue slab awaiting autopsy after the police shot him while violently serving a no-knock warrant.

The fact that Trump isn't in a jail cell right now demonstrates that "Lady Justice" absolutely does play favorites, in the USA, and her favorites are those with money. Especially if they're white.

[Dontrike]

I'm aware the FBI treated the two alleged violations of classified records law differently.

And at no point during the last 6 years or the time it took you to type that pamphlet length "but what about Hillary" did you ever wonder why that is. Perhaps if you looked at context you might understand, but we both know you won't.

[fwc577]

Ever think that's because the circumstances and cooperation of the subject in both investigations was wildly different?

Roflmao, don’t use big words like think. You’re insulting him, mod.

[postman1782]

-snipped bullshit-

There is a big difference between what Clinton did and what Trump did. Clinton turned over everything that was relevant to the proper people, yes, she deleted 33,000 emails, but the FBI restored those emails and found out she deleted personal emails and didn't find any cause to charge her.

She also cooperated fully, testified for 11 hours with no pleading the 5th. Dozens of investigations cleared her.

Now lets look at what Trump did. In February, after the Archives found out that he hadn't turned over all of his documents, they took 15 boxes of materials from Mar-a-Lago. From that time, Trump has been obstructing and doing everything he could to keep what had left. In June he was subpoenaed to give more stuff up, they took 5 more boxes then. And then they found out they were missing a ton more, even tons of classified material. Trump told them in June that they got it all, his lawyer even signed a document saying they got it all. Which carries a huge penalty now that she might face disbarment for lying about it.

Then we find out in August that an informant snitched on Trump that lead to the Magistrate issuing a search warrant, and not just on a whim. They obviously had some sort of evidence to give them that warrant to the FBI. Be it pictures, video, or some sort of evidence to give that to the judge. Now, they went in and got 12 more boxes. Even boxes with classified above top secret stuff. Stuff that we will never know what it was about. Speculation is that it is Nuclear weapons or reactor info.

Now, since the 8th, we have seen a litany of excuses as to why it was there. The first day, it was excuses from Fox and Trump supporters that it was planted, then it was that Trump had a standing order to declassify anything he wants, even though he can't, especially the above top secret stuff, even though there was 18 of his appointees that said that didn't happen. Now he is saying that he wants them back, because they are personal. The problem is, they have found somewhere between 700-800 classified documents, all of which none of them have been declassified. We know this because the Archives and Adam Schiff has said as much. He can't just handwave them and deem them declassified without some sort of written records.

The big problem is, that he made the Presidential Records Act stricter in 2018 after he thought he got Clinton dead to rights. He made it a felony and that whoever was caught can never run for office again. And the big thing here, is that it doesn't even have to be classified documents that gets him in trouble. It can be any document that the Archives is supposed to have.

Trump is trying to do EVERYTHING HE FUCKING CAN to block and obstruct them from investigating. The Clinton and Trump differences are wider than the widest parts of the Grand Canyon.

[Breccia]

Yep, it's Breccia posting NYTimes. Wall of text incoming.

Justice Dept. Submits Redacted Affidavit Used in Trump Search Warrant

Now before getting into this, it's worth pointing out we've all seen the articles about this. Even the judge is expecting 50 pages of nothing but black bars and the word "bigly".

The filing, sent to a federal judge in Florida a few minutes before a noon deadline, is unlikely to lead to the immediate release of the affidavit. In its most complete form, the document would disclose important, and potentially revelatory, details about the government’s justification for taking the extraordinary step of searching Mar-a-Lago on Aug. 8.

The submission by the Justice Department — which contains proposed redactions and a supporting memo — is a significant legal milepost in an investigation that has swiftly emerged as a major threat to Mr. Trump, whose lawyers have offered a confused and at times stumbling response. But it is also an inflection point for Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, who is trying to balance protecting the prosecutorial process by keeping secret details of the investigation, and providing enough information to defend his decision to request a search unlike any other in history.

Last week, Bruce E. Reinhart, a federal magistrate judge in Florida, surprised prosecutors by saying he was inclined to release portions of the affidavit at the request of news organizations, including The New York Times, after the government proposed redactions.

Disclosing even a partial version of the affidavit would be highly unusual: Such documents, which typically include evidence gathered to justify the search, like information provided by witnesses, are almost never unsealed before the government files criminal charges. There is no indication the Justice Department plans to file charges anytime soon.

Judge Reinhart reiterated this week that he might agree to extensive redactions, acknowledging that they could be severe enough to render release of the final document meaningless.

“I cannot say at this point that partial redactions will be so extensive that they will result in a meaningless disclosure, but I may ultimately reach that conclusion after hearing further from the government,” he wrote in an order issued on Monday.

See above.

Anthony D. Coley, a Justice Department spokesman, confirmed that the government had “filed a submission under seal” on Thursday but declined to comment when asked to describe its contents.

Justice Department officials have suggested they will abide by his general guidance but push hard to scrub anything that could expose witnesses in the case to intimidation or retribution by Mr. Trump’s supporters. After the search at Mar-a-Lago, the F.B.I. reported a surge in threats against its agents; an armed man tried to breach the bureau’s Cincinnati field office, before being killed in a shootout with the local police.

And man was a known, admitted Trump cultist.

Now this next part gets into the legalese. I'm going to boldface the stuff that looks the most important.

Mr. Trump’s legal team has not yet seen the affidavit; the government is not required to show it to them. But they have not opposed efforts to unseal it nor taken a position in court that it should be released.

Trump's allies, who have also not seen the document, argue that its disclosure will prove Mr. Garland overreached and that Mr. Trump was in his rights to retain documents he believed he had informally, but legally, declassified in his final days as president.

“I think the document is likely to show there was no good-faith reason for the raid, despite the strained analysis of the Presidential Records Act,” said Tom Fitton, a frequent defender of Mr. Trump and the president of Judicial Watch, a conservative legal advocacy group that also sued to unseal the complete document.

There is little chance, however, that Judge Reinhart will go that far.

The full affidavit is likely to contain telling details about the Justice Department’s inquiry into whether Mr. Trump mishandled national defense documents and obstructed a federal investigation.

Typically, the courts have allowed redactions that protect “sources and methods” of current investigations. Judge Reinhart is unlikely to stray from that practice.

Legal experts say he is all but certain to permit redactions of portions that mention the government’s witnesses, or parts that explicitly describe the reasons prosecutors believe there was probable cause to find evidence of a crime at Mar-a-Lago, which could compromise the investigation.

But the affidavit is still likely to be the most comprehensive description of events to date and could provide, at the very least, a cogent timeline of the government’s efforts to retrieve the documents from Mr. Trump and his lawyers before the F.B.I. descended on Mar-a-Lago.

So if I'm reading all this correct, the judge will look at what wasn't redacted, is expected to agree that there was good cause -- which I'd argue is even more likely since the FBI did, in fact, find what they said they were looking for, exactly where they looked. While the search warrant was issued before that was proven, it's going to be hard to pretend the results don't exist.

I'd also like to point out the part where Trump's allies are saying this affadavit will prove Garland overreached. Bear in mind, we just now heard about Barr. He hid the memo about Trump obstructing justice for three years. The warrant to take back the stuff Trump stole was issued three weeks ago. That's hypocrisy. If anything, the Barr memo (dealing with Trump being impeached or arrested) should have come out sooner. Yes, Trump could have stolen nuclear secrets, which is bad, but blocking an investigation into how he worked with Russia is worse.

[tehdang]

Clinton’s responses to the inquiries for recovering the documents were different from trump’s.

For instance, she did not first say she didn’t have them, then lie about their contents, then claim they were hers and she deserves them back because an fbi witch hunt was going after her after they broke into her residence because she wouldn’t hand them over when asked.

You know who did do that?

Donald Trump. The person we’re talking about. The person currently under investigation by the FBI.

You're really stopping short of responses that actually address the key questions. But first, Hillary did claim ignorance about the C marking in her emails making them classified. She said that to federal investigators. Much like Trump, stupidity and ignorance is not much of an excuse.

But Trump would literally have had to actively shred the documentation to come close to Hillary. Her and her lawyers deleted emails under subpoena and active investigation, and scrubbed the servers afterwards. That's the cornerstone for knowing she violated the law, and attempting to cover up afterwards. Some emails were eventually recovered, but not all.

The starkness of her example is a useful tool to separate people with standards for these things, to people that just make up standards to help defend people they're favorable to, and prosecute those they want to attack. If you're dismissing Hillary lying about not knowing classified markings, and deleting emails under active subpoena, then I know just about the degree of effort I should use in answering your questions. Hillary's response to the inquiries was to delete the evidence and scrub the drives. Very nice use in your post of "responses to the inquiries," because they were different.

And you don’t have to ask me whether I think Clinton broke the law, because the FBI said she didn’t. There was no trial that she was found innocent in, because there was no trial.

You don't seriously expect me to believe you think that Clinton didn't break the law because the FBI said she didn't? I wasn't aware that you let federal agencies decide whether people violate the law based on their word alone. They didn't charge her for the crime. Remember back to when I said mishandling classified documents was a statute rife with prosecutorial discretion on whether to charge. Here in America, we don't call people guilty or innocent based on whether the department of justice charges, or whether they allege someone is guilty. You're in really dangerous territory giving federal agencies this power over your critical faculties ... like pre-J Edgar Hoover levels of ignorance.

My point is that you clearly do not see the evident problem in people like trump, his supporters, and his sycophant politicians, and instead look to lay the blame for said problems on entirely different and unrelated groups.

Well, either you don’t see it or you willfully ignore it. Both have the same end result.

Thanks for the retraction. I just have to go on what you posted, and after making broad accusations of sycophancy towards the former president, went on to connect it to the pattern of blaming "women getting abortions or on minorities or on gay and trans people." I'd say that establishes a bad pattern for you, especially if you want fruitful answers on what the other side thinks. Is this person a questioner, or just someone that knows his conclusions and is looking for some excuse to engage in another diatribe on the dastardly Republicans?

Maybe I can look at his conduct itself.

I'm looking at the recent conduct of the FBI, for that matter.

Ah, so we start to get an actual opinion on the one of four points I suggested.

Are you going with “the fbi is unfairly targeting trump because what trump did isn’t a big deal?”

From my first post,

Mishandling of classified documents is one of the most clear examples of rampant prosecutorial discretion.

and

Lacking all that, I'm happy to wait for the judge ordering the unsealing of the probable-cause affadavit, and ruling on multiple motions from Trump lawyers, and see how well the AG can continue to speak publicly on an investigation that is selectively leaking information while claiming information must be kept from the public to protect the integrity of the investigation.

Now, I wish I could say you're getting to a point where I believe you read and understood my first response to you. I'm not going to repeat myself again and again just because you missed it the first time.

I asked you rather directly.

You’ve yet to actually answer. You got close to having an opinion, but veered away before committing.

Asked and answered. What part of prosecutorial discretion and needing to see the probable-cause affidavit do you not understand? Are you really just going to restate that the FBI said something, and since that's good enough for you then it ought to be good enough for me? I don't have infinite patience for people that receive their answers, but don't like them, so pretend that they never got them in the first place. You wanted my thoughts, you have them. You made some absurd multiple choice answer scheme that left out responsible choices, so I gave my own. You don't understand what is unknown to the public at this stage of the investigation, limiting possible deep speculation, so I tried to help you out.

And at no point during the last 6 years or the time it took you to type that pamphlet length "but what about Hillary" did you ever wonder why that is. Perhaps if you looked at context you might understand, but we both know you won't.

You wish to talk about context, but haven't given any impression beyond that you think the FBI is above reproach when given the context of the most recent issue of mishandling of classified documents. I don't elevate them to that degree.

-The FBI can't be questioned on its decisions-

Yes, I'm questioning the FBI's past conduct in regards to this charge. I know this really upsets people that let Democrats off the hook for deletions and lies regarding them, but I'll continue to do this. It's the most relevant context to seeing when prosecutors decide not to prosecute the crime, which occurred. Ten years ago, I wouldn't have believed Democrats would be all "Well, the FBI treated this black person and white person political figure and that political figure differently, so they must therefore be too different to compare."



But two pages ago, someone wanted to Lynch Barr ...

and another only barely disagreed ...

and a third argued that killing him wouldn't accomplish anything ...

So I guess I should re-evaluate my presumptions on the lengths the left is willing to go to achieve their standards of justice. Actually, not standards of justice, but justice by removing certain standards.

[Edge-]

You're really stopping short of responses that actually address the key questions. But first, Hillary did claim ignorance about the C marking in her emails making them classified. She said that to federal investigators. Much like Trump, stupidity and ignorance is not much of an excuse.

Yet investigators never viewed it rising to the level of criminality. Because she didn't hide multiple rounds of classified documents to the point where both a subpoena and a lawful search warrant were needed.

But Trump would literally have had to actively shred the documentation to come close to Hillary. Her and her lawyers deleted emails under subpoena and active investigation, and scrubbed the servers afterwards. That's the cornerstone for knowing she violated the law, and attempting to cover up afterwards. Some emails were eventually recovered, but not all.

What documents were shredded? The deleted emails were retrieved and I believe all were verified as personal.

Note: The subpoena she received was from the Republican-led Congress, not a law enforcement agency like the FBI. The FBI evaluated these actions and determined that they did not rise to the level of criminality. Compared to Trump, whose own pick to run the FBI, who agreed that a search warrant was needed due to Trump's unwillingness to cooperate with requests or a subpoena from the FBI/DoJ.

The starkness of her example is a useful tool to separate people with standards for these things, to people that just make up standards to help defend people they're favorable to, and prosecute those they want to attack. If you're dismissing Hillary lying about not knowing classified markings, and deleting emails under active subpoena, then I know just about the degree of effort I should use in answering your questions. Hillary's response to the inquiries was to delete the evidence and scrub the drives. Very nice use in your post of "responses to the inquiries," because they were different.

Literally none of this is true, and some is simply a gross misrepresentation. Seemingly, knowingly and intentionally.

You don't seriously expect me to believe you think that Clinton didn't break the law because the FBI said she didn't?

After multiple investigations? Yeah, actually. Especially after Congressional investigations into the matter seem to have failed to result in criminal referrals to the FBI.

I wasn't aware that you let federal agencies decide whether people violate the law based on their word alone.

They don't, they use the evidence as well. And there wasn't evidence to even pursue a search warrant for Clinton.

They didn't charge her for the crime. Remember back to when I said mishandling classified documents was a statute rife with prosecutorial discretion on whether to charge.

That's not a remotely accurate take, and implying that Merick Garland, who has absolutely infuriated liberals and Democrats with his tepid actions and refusal to go after "gimme" violations of the law like Trump administration officials lying to Congress under oath or lying to investigators in order to avoid the appearance of political prosecutions is absolute fiction.

I'm looking at the recent conduct of the FBI, for that matter.

What recent conduct? Executing a lawful search warrant signed off on by a Trump-appointed judge?

Your whole post is fairly fictional in content and not remotely connected to actual reality.

[Gorsameth]

So if I'm reading all this correct, the judge will look at what wasn't redacted, is expected to agree that there was good cause -- which I'd argue is even more likely since the FBI did, in fact, find what they said they were looking for, exactly where they looked. While the search warrant was issued before that was proven, it's going to be hard to pretend the results don't exist.

I'd also like to point out the part where Trump's allies are saying this affadavit will prove Garland overreached. Bear in mind, we just now heard about Barr. He hid the memo about Trump obstructing justice for three years. The warrant to take back the stuff Trump stole was issued three weeks ago. That's hypocrisy. If anything, the Barr memo (dealing with Trump being impeached or arrested) should have come out sooner. Yes, Trump could have stolen nuclear secrets, which is bad, but blocking an investigation into how he worked with Russia is worse.

As I understand it the judge has already seen the unredacted affadavit, he was the one who granted the search warrent in the first place. What he will do is determine if what the DoJ wants redacted is reasonable or excessive.

[Breccia]

You don't seriously expect me to believe you think that Clinton didn't break the law because the FBI said she didn't?

Hey, remember a couple hours ago when I said you needed to comment on Barr, or else expose your hypocrisy? I know you read that post, you just admitted it.

Considering this is the Trump thread, and you still haven't addressed that, I feel this qualifies as noncompliance. Your defense of Trump (yes it is) is therefore categorically waved as hypocrisy. I would politely ask everyone else to do the same.

I gave you a chance, dude. You chose not to use it.

On topic: remember how Trump never pays people? A friend pointed out this article for anyone who forgot.

Truth Social is locked in a bitter battle with one of its vendors claiming that the platform is stiffing the company out of more than $1 million in contractually obligated payments, FOX Business has learned.

Oh sweet, and I get a CNN point for posting FOX News, too! Wait, is FOX Business close enough?

If the allegations are true, they would suggest that Truth Social’s finances are in significant disarray, people with direct knowledge of the matter say. Internet infrastructure company RightForge is said to be among Truth Social’s largest vendors and creditors, these people say.

In October, RightForge announced it entered into an agreement to host Truth Social, which Trump helped create after he was banned by Twitter following the Jan. 6 riots. RightForge now contends that Truth Social has reneged on its contractually obligated monthly payments for setting up the platform’s web-servicing infrastructure, according to three people with direct knowledge of the matter.

These people say RightForge contends that Truth Social has made just three payments and ceased making any payments since around March. RightForge claims that Truth Social owes it around $1.6 million and is threatening legal action to recoup the money, these people add.

"Well surely, the DWAC purchase will fix all that."

Except DWAC is already backing away, and quite frankly, Trump not paying his bills will only make them flee faster.

In a May regulatory filing, Digital World stated: "There is no operating history upon which to base any assumption as to the likelihood that [Trump Media] will prove successful and [Trump Media] may never generate any operating revenues or ever achieve profitable operations. If TMTG is unsuccessful in addressing these risks, its business will most likely fail."

The filing added that Truth Social doesn’t yet generate revenues and "may begin to generate revenue from the Truth Social platform as early as 2023."

Whatever RightForge is/does for Trump is something I really don't need to know. I do know that, if you're already at 10% health because you stand in the fire, you don't start insulting the healers. CyberTrump 2077 is counterclaiming RightForge broke their contract, which is what Trump says all the time about everyone he chooses not to pay.

But let's look at a bigger picture: Trump's bloated obese body.

Just kidding. Now let's look at a larger context: 2022 and 2024. Trump launched his bare-bones social media template wearing Twitter's face to get money from his rabid fanbase, most likely during the elections. This is the absolute worst time to stiff your suppliers, and even a businessman as objective a failure as Trump knows this.

I think he didn't want to pay what he contractually owed, he never does...but I think, this time, it wasn't just about his horrible ethics.

I think Truth Social is broke. I think DWAC is basically telling the world IN ALL CAPS they're going to flee the deal, leaving Trump with a bunch of unpaid interns and no ad revenue. I think he had a better-than-for-him-average-thought-out plan to get out of the crippling debt he owes Deutsche Bank and NYState, and he burned it. Huh. Popular choice today, it seems.

DWAC has to fish or cut bait by mid September. Don't wander off.

- - - I Wish Pandas Were Real - - -

As I understand it the judge has already seen the unredacted affadavit, he was the one who granted the search warrent in the first place. What he will do is determine if what the DoJ wants redacted is reasonable or excessive.

Well shit, you caught me monologuing.

I agree, it does appear to be the same judge. The "special master" judge is a different one. But I'll be honest, I don't know what kind of security clearance a judge would get that the FBI would hand him an unredacted affadavit that deals with SCI information stolen by someone who sprayed himself into an orange jumpsuit. I mean, I guess such judges have to exist and he's one of them. I just honestly never thought those details much.

Assuming you're right, that plus the articles I've read and posted suggest that, not only will the witnesses' names and other factors be stripped, the judge will allow that...and might even say what's left is so minimal there's no point in releasing anything at all.

[Gorsameth]

Well shit, you caught me monologuing.

I agree, it does appear to be the same judge. The "special master" judge is a different one. But I'll be honest, I don't know what kind of security clearance a judge would get that the FBI would hand him an unredacted affadavit that deals with SCI information stolen by someone who sprayed himself into an orange jumpsuit. I mean, I guess such judges have to exist and he's one of them. I just honestly never thought those details much.

Assuming you're right, that plus the articles I've read and posted suggest that, not only will the witnesses' names and other factors be stripped, the judge will allow that...and might even say what's left is so minimal there's no point in releasing anything at all.

I don't think the judge needs SCI clearance to be told that a SS member on Trump's detail has signed a sworn statement saying that a SCI clearance document detailing nuclear secrets is sitting in a cardboard box in a Mar-A-Lago storeroom.

The one sifting through the recovered documents probably needs clearance but those are special people brought in for that sort of stuff, I assume.

The way I see it the judge believes that a raid on a former President is a big enough deal that a request to release the affidavit by the public is reasonable. He also agrees with the DoJ that the investigation should be protected so lets redact everything that needs to be kept hidden and then we'll see if there is anything left to release.
Other then a blacked out page with the word Bigly.

[Endus]

You're really stopping short of responses that actually address the key questions. But first, Hillary did claim ignorance about the C marking in her emails making them classified. She said that to federal investigators. Much like Trump, stupidity and ignorance is not much of an excuse.

But Trump would literally have had to actively shred the documentation to come close to Hillary. Her and her lawyers deleted emails under subpoena and active investigation, and scrubbed the servers afterwards. That's the cornerstone for knowing she violated the law, and attempting to cover up afterwards. Some emails were eventually recovered, but not all.

This is a lie. She deleted personal e-mails that were sent to the same account, since it was a private account. They scrubbed the servers after sending the material because that was the legal obligation; if they weren't scrubbed, data would still be recoverable that she didn't have authorization to hold.

You're just openly lying about the known facts at this point.

[DarkTZeratul]

This is a lie. She deleted personal e-mails that were sent to the same account, since it was a private account. They scrubbed the servers after sending the material because that was the legal obligation; if they weren't scrubbed, data would still be recoverable that she didn't have authorization to hold.

More specifically, her team went through everything, decided what needed to be turned over, sent it off, and then set a schedule to scrub the servers. The problem came from the fact that the Republican-led investigation in Congress subpoenaed her in the meantime, and then her team scrubbed the data on schedule anyway.

[SoulForge]

---SNIP---

Let me stop this BS really easily.

Republicans have been in control since then. Even had a president in office. So flip a coin here;

A.) There was nothing to the whole Clinton affair.
B.) Republicans are so god damn incompetent that they don't do anything.

Law enforcement has always held a traditionally right leaning. Did you see any whistleblowers over the Clinton email affair? Hell if anything the FBI helped Trump win by reopening that investigation DAYS before the Presidential election.