Mar-a-Lago raided
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89th may not agree, but I still maintain that a President can declassify a document at will.
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@Jolly said in Mar-a-Lago raided:
89th may not agree, but I still maintain that a President can declassify a document at will.
They can, but there is still a process for it. Think of it like an executive order. A president can say an order, but he still needs to publish and sign and whatever an actual document.
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Bottom line from Andrew McCarthy:
"Based on its continuing investigation, particularly interviews of witnesses whom prosecutors do not want to identify, the FBI concluded that Trump persisted in storing top-secret intelligence at Mar-a-Lago. While some was likely to be in the boxes, other documents were apt to be found in his office space, among other places he frequented.
That is just what the August 8 search uncovered. As prosecutors point out, in addition to finding classified documents in Trump’s office, the FBI found 76 classified documents in storage room boxes — more than twice as many as Trump’s representatives produced on June 3 when they claimed there was nothing more to be found at the resort.
This is a serious obstruction case that appears as if it would not be difficult to prove. The Justice Department is under immense pressure from the Democratic base to indict Trump, and the jury pool in Washington, DC, where the government would file any indictment, is intensely anti-Trump. It is thus hard to imagine that Attorney General Merrick Garland will decide against filing charges."
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@George-K said in Mar-a-Lago raided:
the jury pool in Washington, DC, where the government would file any indictment, is intensely anti-Trump.
I don't know anything about grand jury selection, if that's what he's talking about. Do people ever file for a change of venue for a grand jury? Cuz that would be yet another delaying tactic for Trump.
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That must have been a hard column for him to write. Though he phrased it as ‘does the DOJ have a case’, he’s really saying ‘did Donald Trump conceal these documents and lie about it’. And his conclusion is a resounding yes.
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@jon-nyc said in Mar-a-Lago raided:
That must have been a hard column for him to write. Though he phrased it as ‘does the DOJ have a case’, he’s really saying ‘did Donald Trump conceal these documents and lie about it’. And his conclusion is a resounding yes.
Clearly he's become a RINO and a Very Bad Person. So bad.
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It's "none of these documents is his," you troglodyte.
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George Kreplied to Catseye3 on 1 Sept 2022, 00:59 last edited by George K 9 Jan 2022, 01:01
@Catseye3 said in Mar-a-Lago raided:
It's "none of these documents is his". you
troglodyteturdblossom.There.
And either is correct:
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Yeah, it's the Daily Beast, but...
Are Trump’s Passports the FBI’s Smoking Gun?
When the FBI searched former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence earlier this month, they didn’t find a smoking gun, but they did find some smoldering passports.
On August 8, agents removed from Trump’s home 33 boxes of sensitive government documents, including more than 100 records classified at the highest levels. In a 36-page brief responding to Trump’s motion to appoint a special master to review the material seized by the FBI, the Justice Department explained that three of the classified documents were recovered from Trump’s private office, known as “the 45 Office.”
According to DOJ’s recent brief, classified documents in that office were “commingled” in a desk drawer with three passports. While the government did not disclose the name on the passports, Trump himself has complained that during the search, the FBI “stole” his three passports. It seems a safe bet that the passports DOJ recovered were Trump’s.
The significance of the passports is enormous. As DOJ explained in an understated footnote, “The location of the passports is relevant evidence in an investigation of unauthorized retention and mishandling of national defense information.”
In other words, the presence of the passports in the same drawer as the classified records tends to tie the unauthorized possession of these documents to Trump himself. A photo included with the filing shows the items that were recovered from his office. Among the classification markings on the documents are “Top Secret,” meaning that the disclosure of the material could cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security of the United States.
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I would imagine Trump's defense will eventually degrade to "they planted the documents, and staged the photos" unless the FBI has a live body-cam footage from start to finish of the raid.
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More detailed inventory of what the FBI has taken from Mar-A-Lago:
https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/trump-v-US-inventory-09-02-2022.pdf
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Looks like they just took everything they found. What business do they have taking news and magazine clippings? I'm inclined to accept Jolly's take that it was a fishing trip.
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@Mik said in Mar-a-Lago raided:
Looks like they just took everything they found. What business do they have taking news and magazine clippings? I'm inclined to accept Jolly's take that it was a fishing trip.
In the description they specifically say when the news-clipping were dated - maybe it has something to do with establishing how long the documents had been there.
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@Mik said in Mar-a-Lago raided:
Looks like they just took everything they found. What business do they have taking news and magazine clippings? I'm inclined to accept Jolly's take that it was a fishing trip.
I just read something about that today, that when executing a search warrant it is common to also take articles packaged together or were in the immediate vicinity of the targeted articles, because these other articles give evidentiary context to where and how the targeted articles were stored and handled.
The WSJ article, if you can access it, breaks down the number of articles that are government documents vs. not government documents, classification levels vs. not classified, etc. Just from eyeballing the graphics produced by the WSJ, it looks like ~85% of the articles are government documents. So that speak against the "fishing expedition" accusation.
EDIT: the WSJ quoting former Trump-appointed US Attorney General William Barr: “Once you’re investigating, and you go in and execute a search warrant, you’re entitled to take not only the government records but things from the same containers where you found the documents that will show the context in which they were held.”
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And the leaks continue.
I've seen this show...
548/780