Mar-a-Lago raided

[Mik]

It all has to be jealously guarded. if he gets prosecuted there will be a whole lot of 'splainin to do as to why Hillary was not.

[Copper]

@George-K said in Mar-a-Lago raided:

Six, two, and even the crime-fraud exception applies here.

I'm into my first (cheap) Scotch of the day...please explain?

[jon-nyc]

@Mik said in Mar-a-Lago raided:

It all has to be jealously guarded. if he gets prosecuted there will be a whole lot of 'splainin to do as to why Hillary was not.

She cooperated and turned over the servers and didn’t lie about retaining anything.

[jon-nyc]

@Copper said in Mar-a-Lago raided:

@George-K said in Mar-a-Lago raided:

Six, two, and even the crime-fraud exception applies here.

I'm into my first (cheap) Scotch of the day...please explain?

Go to 1:30.

Link to video

[George K]

@jon-nyc , I am ashamed to admit it, I've never seen that movie.

Another not Trump fan, David French says, be consistent.

Trump lacks any real excuse for his behavior for retaining classified information, but Clinton had no excuse either. Remember, she used a private server to discuss matters that were classified at the highest levels, and she was seasoned enough to know exactly what she was doing.

Trump’s defense is as weak as Hillary’s. His team is reportedly claiming that he had a “standing order” to declassify all documents that he took to Mar-a-Lago, but as Philip Klein notes in National Review, this argument is “patently absurd”:

The bottom line is deeply disheartening. Two of the most powerful and prominent politicians in the United States engaged in conduct that virtually any other American would be prosecuted for. They have placed the system under great strain, and the system is buckling.

It remains to be seen whether Donald Trump’s conduct was so much worse than Hillary Clinton’s that prosecution is both legal and just. Indeed the entire issue may be so fraught with peril that the DOJ may decide to merely seize the documents without any further legal proceedings.

But if Trump did break the law and is not prosecuted, we can look back at a pivotal moment in history and know why. On July 5, 2016, the FBI set an extraordinary standard for prosecuting powerful people for mishandling our nation’s most precious secrets, and we shouldn’t change that standard for Donald Trump.

[Doctor Phibes]

lock 'em up!

[George K]

@Doctor-Phibes said in Mar-a-Lago raided:

lock 'em up!

Fair enough.

[Doctor Phibes]

Both of them have lived pretty much their entire lives looking down on the little people, and that playing by the rules is something for lesser mortals.

Anybody naive enough to think otherwise deserves what they get.

[George K]

@Doctor-Phibes said in Mar-a-Lago raided:

Both of them have lived pretty much their entire lives looking down on the little people, and that playing by the rules is something for lesser mortals.

Anybody naive enough to think otherwise deserves what they get.

Absolutely. The problem is, as French points out, is why should one not deserve what they get and the other does?

As @jon-nyc points out, we don't know enough, yet, about what was alleged, what allegedly secret documents were in his possession, and whether anything not under the warrant may have been seized.

[Doctor Phibes]

@George-K said in Mar-a-Lago raided:

@Doctor-Phibes said in Mar-a-Lago raided:

Both of them have lived pretty much their entire lives looking down on the little people, and that playing by the rules is something for lesser mortals.

Anybody naive enough to think otherwise deserves what they get.

Absolutely. The problem is, as French points out, is why should one not deserve what they get and the other does?

As @jon-nyc points out, we don't know enough, yet, about what was alleged, what allegedly secret documents were in his possession, and whether anything not under the warrant may have been seized.

We don't know what Trump did or didn't do, and we don't know how much he's being hiding.

Pointing out that there's a discrepancy in how people are treated is interesting, but it's not a very good legal defence. If Trump was a poor black guy living in the projects, they'd have broken down his door at 2am and shot him when he tried to defend himself.

(I'm not making a racial point - he wouldn't do too well if he was white trash without money, either)

[George K]

@Doctor-Phibes said in Mar-a-Lago raided:

We don't know what Trump did or didn't do, and we don't know how much he's being hiding.

IF he's hiding (giving the benefit of the doubt, LOL). But your point stands. We just don't know - it hasn't even been a week.

Pointing out that there's a discrepancy in how people are treated is interesting, but it's not a very good legal defence.

No, it's not. and it won't wash in court, to be sure, if it ever gets there. With luck a friendly attorney general will prevent that...

But you can't say that there is such a discrepancy while, in the same breath, alleging, as Garland did, that "no one is above the law." If some are above the law, then everyone is above the law.

[Doctor Phibes]

@George-K said in Mar-a-Lago raided:

But you can't say that there is such a discrepancy while, in the same breath, alleging, as Garland did, that "no one is above the law." If some are above the law, then everyone is above the law.

In that case, the fault is not in raiding Mar-a-Lago, but arguably in not doing enough to go after Hillary.

Wasn't the particular law that Trump is being investigated tightened up under his Presidency?

[jon-nyc]

Again even without knowing what was in the documents uncovered by the search, the situations aren’t comparable.

Hilary turned over the servers and didn’t hold anything back and lie about it.

[Doctor Phibes]

@jon-nyc said in Mar-a-Lago raided:

Again even without knowing what was in the documents uncovered by the search, the situations aren’t comparable.

Hilary turned over the servers and didn’t hold anything back and lie about it.

I agree with you, but even if you believe that Hillary broke the law, it's still a crap defence.

"So little Donny, if Hillary jumped in the river, would you jump in the river too....?"

[George K]

@jon-nyc said in Mar-a-Lago raided:

Hilary turned over the servers and didn’t hold anything back and lie about it.

Bullshit. She deleted tens of thousands of emails before they were turned over. Copies of communications devices were destroyed with hammers. With hammers.

"She didn't lie about it."

Oh my sides.

I need more ((c )heap) Scotch.

[kluurs]

Bullshit. She deleted tens of thousands of emails before they were turned over. Copies of communications devices were destroyed with hammers. With hammers.

That's actually kind of stand practice for both business and consumer hard drives - i.e. to physically destroy them rather than rely upon an erase or reformatting. If they were using hammers, they were doing it old school. Old business and government hard drives are typically shredded - except for good ole Hunter Biden who has the instincts of his father.

[Doctor Phibes]

Apparently, the more technology-challenged Trump tried to flush the papers down the toilet.

I wonder if it was one of the solid gold ones.

[Axtremus]

@George-K said in Mar-a-Lago raided:

Copies of communications devices were destroyed with hammers. With hammers.

Physical destruction of electronic data storage media to safeguard information security and data privacy is a standard practice. As long as the destruction does not happen after one has been legally ordered to preserve the data, physical destruction of electronic data storage media, be it with a hammer or other means, is neither illegal nor extraordinary.

[Jolly]

@Catseye3 said in Mar-a-Lago raided:

@George-K said in Mar-a-Lago raided:

Simply looking at what the rights of the accused are

As much as it sickens me to say so, I agree his rights must be safeguarded. But his rights as important as they are, are not as vital as the main thing: namely, those documents. They cannot be left out of federal custody, especially when their contents are not known.

Knowing Trump, they could be anything. It would not be surprising if they turned out to be of no importance. Boy, what fodder that would be for Trump, eh?

Why in hell did he even take them with him, anyway? Could it be for the purpose of embarrassing the feds and feeding his base's frenzy? At no cost to him?

The President can declassify whatever he wishes.

[Jolly]

@Axtremus said in Mar-a-Lago raided:

@George-K said in Mar-a-Lago raided:

Copies of communications devices were destroyed with hammers. With hammers.

Physical destruction of electronic data storage media to safeguard information security and data privacy is a standard practice. As long as the destruction does not happen after one has been legally ordered to preserve the data, physical destruction of electronic data storage media, be it with a hammer or other means, is neither illegal nor extraordinary.

Whoa there, sodbuster.

Did Ms. Clinton have the right to declassify and destroy sensitive documents, either paper or in digital form?