Mar-a-Largo raided by FBI?

[Copernicus]

I wish that all these news sites would point out that Trump had no security clearance for reading any classified documents when he was personally reading them. Like any private citizen, he was committing a serious crime. The problem wasn't just that he was a naive idiot who wasn't aware of the need for a clearance. Biden had removed it, and Trump was deliberately defying his declassified status.

 

[Ford]

So Alex Holder, the documentary filmmaker who somehow got access to Trump's White House during the time leading up to 1/6, did an "Ask Me Anything" on Reddit today. He basically watched the dumpster fire burn from up close. Some interesting stuff, but one of his first answers gives some insight as to why a lawsuit like this might be filed by Trump:

He is incapable of believing anything other than him being a "winner". He cannot accept that he lost and convinces himself that he won. It's pretty extraordinary to witness up-close.

To extrapolate...Trump thinks that this shit-show of a legal filing by his bottom of the barrel lawyers (that has lawyers with relevant experience laughing) is - in fact - the most significant legal move in US history. Because he is pathologically unable to believe otherwise.

 

[ZiprHead]

Former prosecutors mock Trump's attorneys and say they may need to hire their own lawyers amid continued Mar-a-Lago fallout

One national security lawyer said Trump's latest suit confused him. An ex-prosecutor said Trump's lawyers were "incompetent or out of their depth."

www.yahoo.com

"As Melissa Murray says, MAGA also means Making Attorneys Get Attorneys," Weissmann quipped.

The linked article is a pretty good read too. I should have included that in the priginal post.

 

[Jarhyn]

I wish that all these news sites would point out that Trump had no security clearance for reading any classified documents when he was personally reading them. Like any private citizen, he was committing a serious crime. The problem wasn't just that he was a naive idiot who wasn't aware of the need for a clearance. Biden had removed it, and Trump was deliberately defying his declassified status.

So, if... Well, not me because I signed a government NDA, and I'm not sure the statute of limitations on the effect of that... But let's say YOU just tripped in the street and landed face first in some classified Top Secret SCI papers, or someone else who was committing a crime unbeknownst to you threw Top Secret documents at you and ran the fuck away, it is not a crime to pick them up and read them.

Anyone has the power to add fake classification markings on things, after all, without committing a crime.

It's probably unethical and stupid to reveal much of what you would find doing it, but it isn't a crime to disclose something that you didn't agree to not disclose.

I'm not sure if the government wouldn't find a way to accuse you of stealing the documents in the first place. but assuming you didn't steal them or ask them to be stolen, and somehow acquired the opportunity to read them without breaking a law while not bound by a government NDA... I'm pretty sure that isn't actually itself a crime. Again, I'm sure they would charge you for stealing them even if you hadn't.

Here the clear issue is that Trump signed the NDA.

He is legally bound by the same agreements that as president gave him access that his unauthorized access would be a crime.

It's one of the reasons why access is so tightly controlled in ways that aren't even talked about.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

So, after reading all 10 pages...

It is the case that the documents seized were nuclear information that Trump planned to give to Putin?

I feel like I didn't actually get an answer.

 

[Copernicus]

I had a clearance in the past, so I understand the rules. A rando who came across classified papers and just read them without knowing the law would probably not be prosecuted, although classified documents are usually marked. Witnesses have sworn under oath that Trump was informed about the law. If he chose to disbelieve what his advisors told him, that would probably not count as a bona fide excuse, although I wouldn't be surprised if there were now some sitting federal judges who would accept it as an excuse. I don't think that the Supreme Court would, with the possible exceptions of Thomas and Alito.

 

[bilby]

So, after reading all 10 pages...

It is the case that the documents seized were nuclear information that Trump planned to give to Putin?

I feel like I didn't actually get an answer.

I feel like you didn't actually ask a question. You made a statement, and terminated it with a question mark.

It is the case that you should reverse the first two words?

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Nice semantic argument! It enables you to completely and utterly duck the point while appearing to address the post.

 

[bilby]

Nice semantic argument! It enables you to completely and utterly duck the point while appearing to address the post.

I have zero interest in whether or not I appear to address your posts.

If you want answers, you have a duty to ask intelligible questions, and in this instance you have failed. Blaming others for your failure is neither justified nor helpful.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

So, after reading all 10 pages...

It is the case that the documents seized were nuclear information that Trump planned to give to Putin?

I feel like I didn't actually get an answer.

I did answer. Possession of nuke docs is a crime in itself. Continuing to hide nuke docs is conspiring to commit the crime. Passing them along would be another crime.

Lock him up is open shut here.

 

[Ford]

Witnesses have sworn under oath that Trump was informed about the law. If he chose to disbelieve what his advisors told him, that would probably not count as a bona fide excuse

This week, I am going through the onboarding process for my job (I've been a contractor for over a year and am now full-time with the actual company). It is nothing approaching national security stuff or even classified documents, but working in a bleeding edge tech company there are some things that even a low-level employee like me cannot talk about. We had an hour long presentation on this just today. It was basically "how not to be fired for divulging company secrets."

This is not hard. I'd love to show you my computer setup at work. I can't. I'd love to show you a picture of our facilities. I can't. A photo of a laptop where I can see a bunch of lines of code for our autonomous stack shared to social media? I'd be fired.

I have to believe that even Presidents are given something analogous to onboarding. They've got people around them to say "um...sir, you can't share this information." He has had a lawyer tell him that the documents he took do not belong to him.

Not only has he broken the law six ways to Sunday, but any staffer who helped him remove, transport, and store the classified material without following proper protocol is guilty of multiple federal crimes.

This cannot be understated. This is serious as cancer.

 

[Bronzeage]

From the beginning of the classified docs scandal, Trump's defenders have relied on the "most plausible lie with that includes the known facts". This is a common ploy of criminals who know they're caught but want to minimize their culpability. The problem with this is new facts keep being revealed.
During Watergate, Ron Ziegler tried this, until he had to admit, "previous statements are inoperative".

We're so used to hearing Trump's lies, no one needs to come out and say, forget everything we said up to now.

The simple thread of truth in this disaster is the belief of Trump supporters that Trump is above the law.

Republicans loved law and order until they realized it would be necessary to break the law to retain power. That's the simple reason they buckled under to Trump.

It's fortunate for the rest of us that Trump is so bone headed stupid. There is no reason in the world for him to steal government documents and set himself up for criminal charges, but it is what it is. For the Trumpers, the only path forward is to recite the mantra of Trump is above the law and continue to fabricate falsehoods that conform to the known facts. I expect the next defense will be based on "no harm, no foul. We'll be told that Trump's criminal acts didn't actually harm national security, so there's nothing to see and we should just move along.

That's the difference between Mar Lagogate and Watergate. Once it was revealed that Nixon had engineered a criminal conspiracy to obstruct justice, Congressional Republicans knew he had to go. Nixon got off easy, compared to the men who served him. We'll have to wait and see how Trump fares.

 

[Patooka]

Nice semantic argument! It enables you to completely and utterly duck the point while appearing to address the post.

Strangely, I know how you feel.

 

[Jarhyn]

I had a clearance in the past, so I understand the rules. A rando who came across classified papers and just read them without knowing the law would probably not be prosecuted, although classified documents are usually marked. Witnesses have sworn under oath that Trump was informed about the law. If he chose to disbelieve what his advisors told him, that would probably not count as a bona fide excuse, although I wouldn't be surprised if there were now some sitting federal judges who would accept it as an excuse. I don't think that the Supreme Court would, with the possible exceptions of Thomas and Alito.

He signed an NDA for fuck sakes. He signed a document saying not just that he knew, but would be bound by the law to protect the documents.

He left them in an unsecured room.

 

[Ford]

That's the difference between Mar Lagogate and Watergate. Once it was revealed that Nixon had engineered a criminal conspiracy to obstruct justice, Congressional Republicans knew he had to go. Nixon got off easy, compared to the men who served him. We'll have to wait and see how Trump fares.

Here's the thing. And this is a hill I won't die upon, but am willing to be slightly wounded upon...

The difference is that, compared to Trump, Nixon was a patriot.

Richard M. Nixon was a lifelong public servant. Went into the military, and into public office afterwards. Was he an egomaniac? Yes. A crook? Absolutely. The most corrupt President up until Trump? Of course.

Yet his (admittedly skewed) motivation was "what can I do for my country?" He was an ends justifies the means guy. Watergate happened because Tricky Dick thought it was his job to save the country, and if he had to do a little crime to keep him in that job, then it was okay.

I say this because I watched an interview with him in the last year or so of his life...it might have been with Larry King...where Nixon was clearly still plugged into world events. He was still getting intelligence briefings, and I got the impression that he was publicly saying "put me in, coach." He genuinely thought he had something to contribute, and if someone would just ask him...

The Tragedy of Darth Plageius The Wise Richard Nixon was that he was prevented from continuing to serve his country. Or at least, that's how he saw it.

Trump? It was never about the country. It was all about him. "The Donald" would burn the nation down to serve his ego. Nixon went to his grave wishing his country would ask him to do one more, for old time's sake.

 

[Bronzeage]

That's the difference between Mar Lagogate and Watergate. Once it was revealed that Nixon had engineered a criminal conspiracy to obstruct justice, Congressional Republicans knew he had to go. Nixon got off easy, compared to the men who served him. We'll have to wait and see how Trump fares.

Here's the thing. And this is a hill I won't die upon, but am willing to be slightly wounded upon...

The difference is that, compared to Trump, Nixon was a patriot.

Richard M. Nixon was a lifelong public servant. Went into the military, and into public office afterwards. Was he an egomaniac? Yes. A crook? Absolutely. The most corrupt President up until Trump? Of course.

Yet his (admittedly skewed) motivation was "what can I do for my country?" He was an ends justifies the means guy. Watergate happened because Tricky Dick thought it was his job to save the country, and if he had to do a little crime to keep him in that job, then it was okay.

I say this because I watched an interview with him in the last year or so of his life...it might have been with Larry King...where Nixon was clearly still plugged into world events. He was still getting intelligence briefings, and I got the impression that he was publicly saying "put me in, coach." He genuinely thought he had something to contribute, and if someone would just ask him...

The Tragedy of Darth Plageius The Wise Richard Nixon was that he was prevented from continuing to serve his country. Or at least, that's how he saw it.

Trump? It was never about the country. It was all about him. "The Donald" would burn the nation down to serve his ego. Nixon went to his grave wishing his country would ask him to do one more, for old time's sake.

On the whole, Nixon was a good President, as long as you aren't South Vietnamese.

 

[bilby]

On the whole, Nixon was a good President, as long as you aren't South Vietnamese.

I don't think the North Vietnamese liked him very much either.

 

[Hermit]

On the whole, Nixon was a good President, as long as you aren't South Vietnamese.

I don't think the North Vietnamese liked him very much either.

Nor did the blacks. Nixon didn't say 'black' when he declared his 'war on drugs' in 1971, but everybody with two synapses between their ears knew what he meant. In 1994 the former Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs, John Ehrlichman explained it to those who did not:

The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.

And

In notes taken at an Oval Office meeting shortly after Nixon’s election, H.R. Haldeman, his chief of staff, wrote, “[the President] emphasized that you have to face the fact that the whole problem is really the Blacks. The key is to devise a system that recognizes this while not appearing to.”

 

[marc]

Thinking about the 'why' he kept all those documents, even when was forced to hand them over months ago and only handed over some of them. There has been speculation about him wanting to sell them, or hand them over to Putin. I think the answer is simpler than that. I think it is because he is a greedy narcissist, who felt that all that stuff became his when he was president. On his way out he grabbed whatever he thought was really valuable. He didn't bother securing it, because he was in his home now. A dragon in his lair, adding new trinkets to his hoard.

 

[Angry Floof]

The judge has asked Trump's team for clarification of their insanely stupid request for special master.

District Court Judge Aileen Cannon in the Southern District of Florida ordered Trump's lawyers to elaborate on their arguments for why the court has the ability to step in at this time, explain what exactly Trump is asking for and whether the Justice Department has been served with Trump's special master motion.

Cannon also asked Trump's team to weigh in on any effect the request might have on a separate review conducted by a magistrate judge into whether any portions of the still-sealed FBI affidavit laying out probable cause for the search can be released.

The judge's order showcases many of the ways that the complaint filed by Trump fell short of what would have been expected of a court submission asking for the appointment of a special master-- particularly in a search as high-stakes as the one FBI executed at Mar-a-Lago earlier this month

"They really didn't ask for anything. That's the craziness," Schnapp [criminal defense lawyer in FL] said. "They didn't ask for anything to be done in the immediate future to slow it down, even though that's what they claimed to be doing"

All the dumb in this request is spelled out in the article, from citing civil rules (instead of criminal) to political ranting to filing the wrong way with the wrong court...

I don't know how judges can be so restrained in their responses sometimes.