Breaking: FBI raiding Mar-a-Lago

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He maybe took them believing he was still the rightful President, and in the mad scramble to exit the office no one on his side blocked that. Sort of a childish “it’s mine!” thing, daring the DOJ to go out of its way to come back to him and ask for them back. People can speculate or fantasize about more nefarious purposes then just him being a difficult and annoying ******* of a person, but I doubt that will ever be proven. What can be established is Trump simply can’t be trusted to safeguard sensitive materials.

 

Yeah as much as I can't stand Maggie Habberman at the NYT, I get the sense that she's done the homework before coming out yesterday and explaining what she's hearing from those around Trump, and who knows... probably Trump himself. I think the big sticking point for him was Kim Jung, and his meetings with him.

The Kim Jung letters really both represent the least nefarious explanation in a way, but in another way COMPLETELY justifies our intelligence apparatus freaking out given that what Trump was discussing and dealing with Kim Jung on was avoiding a GDamn nuclear war. So even if this is "JUST" about getting Kim Jung love letters back, I 110% agree with the FBI going out on a limb to take the unprecedented steps to search his home. The last thing we need as a country is for nuclear secrets to be out there in the ether, or for North Korea and others to figure out how we are able to monitor their nuclear capabilities which would probably get alot of people killed.

However, I'm still convinced that the DOJ's court appearance proves Trump is wrapped up in several investigations that the DOJ is trying to keep under wraps, and it goes beyond Kim Jung love letters. The raid seems separate from other investigations which I believe are probably more about January 6th.

 

This is true, but still highly illegal. Especially because they had been asked for, and his lawyers had told the DOJ or whoever that they had turned everything over.


In reality, bootlickers can defend the guy all they want, make up as many reasons for the many crimes this guy has committed, defend him as to why he's not a bad person (despite the 40 year history of this being true), but there is no defense.



If this is the ship people are willing to sink on, they need to reevaluate their lives. Dude has been essentially accused of pedophilia, sexual assault, rape, tax evasion, money laundering , racism, sexism, has filed for bankruptcy more times than anyone here combined most likely, has stolen money from many many people, has called for the murder of innocent people, tried to overthrow a democracy, incited a riot at the national government headquarters, and the list goes on and on and on and on and on.


And now, he's been caught illegally in personal possession of some of the more secretive communications our country has.



What are people defending here exactly? A witch hunt?

 

LOL. You're right. Trump's big crimes cover so many categories he makes those thugs that were breaking windows to steal shoes during the protests seem like angels.

 

Schrödinger's Treason:

When you didn't take, accidentally took, innocently used, declassified and then took, took and then declassified, the documents that you never took and were illicitly planted in your house by the FBI - all simultaneously. - David Reiss, MD

 

The question then becomes, can a President then legally sell national secrets that out our spies around the world in exchange for money? Can he sell nuclear secrets to other countries since as a former president, nothing is classified?

 

Probably if he was a sitting president which he’s not and why he’s likely to get charged. If he was a sitting president though and he declassified something and sold it to a foreign adversary for personal gain.. yeah… probably hard to indict, but shouldn’t be hard to impeach. The whole Trump situation to me just really highlights the real issue which is Republicans in Congress. Nobody has failed Democracy more than them. Trump tells us what he’s going to do. It’s them who enable him to do it and get away with it.

As a former president though yeah this is illegal even if he did have a standing order. He stole the documents and lied about it. The whole classified/de-classified argument is designed to avoid having to say that he did something that he accused Hillary of. It’s still illegal though regardless.

 

People can guess what was in the SCI documents. They are or may not be right.
People can guess why Trump did it. They may or may not be right.

The bottom line is that none of that matters. What he did was illegal. He lied about it, he's now trying to make an ever-changing array of excuses.

 

Now that we know he took classified materials to his resident, has Trump explained what was his intention of having them? Has any media even directly asked him? (not that it makes it any less illegal, but why the heck?)

 

He probably thought if Hillary could do it, so could he, and thought that maybe it's his right to sell the documents to whomever he wanted to.

 

You can't declassify everything as President (for example, nuclear information). There is also a process to declassify documents, and it doesn't involve taking it to your private residence or having a "standing order." Here is an article about it.

Also it is pretty clear that there was never a standing order and that this is a post-hoc explanation that Trump is trying to get people to believe.

 

he will just say they had been declassified already or were planted…if that doesn’t work, pivot to Hillary

 

Already done that. And most media will just let him spit out bs after bs.

But really, why?

 

This! SMH at the revolving door of excuses sputtering out of that man's mouth.

 

Turley on Tribe on Trump

https://jonathanturley.org/2022/08/19/tribe-the-criminal-case-against-trump-is-another-slam-bunk/

3 hours ago
Tribe: The Criminal Case Against Trump is Another “Slam Dunk”
by jonathanturley
August 19, 2022

In past columns, we have discussed the litany of “slam dunk” crimes that Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe has declared as established against former President Donald Trump, none of which have been actually charged. Indeed, Tribe appears intent upon running through the entire criminal code. Just for the purposes of keeping score, Tribe declared evidence supporting criminal charges of witness tampering, obstruction of justice, criminal election violations, Logan Act violations, extortion, espionage, attempted murder, and treason by Trump or his family. This week, Tribe insisted on MSNBC that Trump yet again is facing a “slam dunk” criminal conviction over the raid on Mar-a-Lago. While some of us have suggested that we wait to see the actual evidence before evaluating the risk in the case, Tribe again is confident that the still uncharged case has already been made.

Just last month, Tribe declared Trump clearly guilty of the attempted murder of Vice President Mike Pence on January 6, 2021. Tribe again insisted that the case could be prosecuted “without any doubt, beyond a reasonable doubt, beyond any doubt, and the crimes are obvious.” I guess there is no doubt. There is also no compelling legal basis for the claim. Nevertheless, Tribe promised more if needed: “There are other crimes that have been proven. Those are plenty to start with.”

It is a curious thing that none of these prior “proven” crimes have been charged. After the riot, District of Columbia Attorney General Karl Racine announced that he was considering arresting Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Rudy Giuliani and U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks and charging them with incitement. So what happened to that prosecution? The failure of Racine to charge Trump was not due to any affection or loyalty to the former president. It was due to the paucity of direct evidence of a crime that would hold up in court.

Now, without an indictment or the public disclosure of actual evidence beyond the inventory list, Tribe sees no reason to wait for proof. The evidence is, again, a “slam dunk” for conviction.

While the three criminal provisions cited in the warrant do not require that the documents be classified, the declassification of the documents could make the case more difficult and could raise difficult issues of a president’s inherent declassification authority. As I have previously discussed, we have not seen what Trump refers to as a “standing order” of declassification. However, to the extent that declassification relates to Trump’s intent in possessing these documents, a court could have to grapple with some novel constitutional questions. While a former president loses such inherent authority, Trump is claiming that he declassified the material when he was still president. Tribe dismisses such claims but, again, we have yet to see the alleged order or the specific claims made in past exchanges between the former president and the Justice Department.

Notably, at the start of the interview, Tribe argues against the release of any of the affidavit. While many of us thought the court would likely defer to the Justice Department, it was also clear (in my opinion) that portions could be released. Anyone familiar with these affidavits knows that there are portions that can be released, including sections with information that are already known to the target. We are interested in not only what was presented to the court but how it was presented given the history of the Department in making false or misleading statements in past Trump-related investigations.

Notably, Tribe also insisted that any release would “violate important rules on grand jury secrecy.” The problem is that we have not heard of any grand jury on the Mar-a-Lago matter. This was a warrant sought from the court based on probable cause of possible criminal offenses. There also has been no suggestion that the warrant incorporated material from other grand juries like the ongoing January 6th grand jury. Ironically, if Tribe has been given such information from sources, it would likely be a Rule 6(e) violation. Moreover, if this warrant is an attempt to acquire evidence for a separate investigation, it would contradict the public statements of the Justice Department that this was prompted to protect national defense information.

Tribe added that ” this man . . . I was going to call him ‘traitor’ but that is not quite right it is not treason.” Actually, Tribe previously suggested that Trump was a traitor and could be charged with treason.

Tribe has, of course, never lacked confidence that his lengthening list of crimes have been proven “without any doubt, beyond a reasonable doubt, beyond any doubt.” He is not alone in such hair-triggered analysis. It has been the signature of much of the legal analysis in the last six years. Yet, it would be useful. . . just once . . . if only for appearances . . . to start with the release of actual evidence before discussing slam dunk convictions.
​

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He declassified while sleeping the very moment the deep state FBI planted it in his totally secret totally legal safe. Which is his authority as president since 2020 election was stolen by Hugo Chavez. It’s all in my drunken interpretation of Article II. Checkmate, Americans. - Trump Lawyer

 

Finally, the hack-on-hack verbal violence we've been waiting for! Let them fight.



I like this analogy more and more. Each writer clearly wearing a big fake partisan suit and flailing awkwardly.

 

Classic Trump.....make a big deal out of a situation, campaign on it...make it a slogan (LOCK HER UP!)...toughen the punishment..

THEN COMMIT THE SAME CRIME HIMSELF!

Please lock him up for at least 1 day so the memes can be generated.

He truly is his own enemy. Everything he does, his past self has condemned it.