Mar-a-Lago raided

[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?

[LuFins Dad]

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

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.

It actually sounds like those reports are from while he was still in the White House…

[Renauda]

@Jolly

@Jolly said in Mar-a-Lago raided:

@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.

As long as he the sitting President, yes, he can declassify documents. He also must make note of those docs while he is sitting POTUS and follow prescribed protocols. He cannot declassify documents that he has in his possession when he is no longer POTUS.

Trump, of course, believes that he is still President. Presumably you and one or two others here, do as well.

[kluurs]

@Jolly said in Mar-a-Lago raided:

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

Her email server was a private server intended for non-governmental information transmission. The destruction of a hard drive would be appropriate. What was shown to have happened is that that some sensitive governmental communications were sent to her private gmail account. This kind of thing happens - actually happened to me as well. Some folks go to type a note to Kluursatgmail instead of klurrs atbusiness.com

In Clinton's case, nearly all of the mistakes made were initiated by staff sending to the wrong Clinton account as opposed to Hillary herself. The FBI determined that one email string contained classified information - and the classified information was in the middle of the string of non-classified information. It was designated by a "c" indicating classified material. It should have been noted at the time - but wasn't. Hillary said there was nothing classified in her emails.

Because of the amount of crap being thrown at the screen, it is hard to determine 1) if there's anything that President Trump retained that should not have been retained and 2) whether there was any crime was committed and by whom.

[Axtremus]

@Jolly said in Mar-a-Lago raided:

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

Power to declassify - Trump also does not have that power after he leaves office, then the inquiry comes down to whether Trump actually declassified the documents while in office. If there is any convincing evidence that shows that he has, chances it would have been released and you would have seen that evidence already. Even now you cannot find a coherent statement that affirms that Trump has indeed declassified, while he was in office, all the documents the FBI took from Mar-A-Lago.

Power to destroy sensitive document - yes, just about any one has the power to destroy "sensitive document," as long as you own the "sensitive document" (and has not been legally ordered to preserve the document). If, for example, an unsuspecting Joe Public accidentally received an email containing classified information, that Joe Public can simply delete that email (and he should be encouraged to do so promptly because leaving the email un-deleted increases the risk of that email being exposed to more people down the line). But if the document is physically the government's property, then you're talking about "destroying government property." Do note that Trump does not and never did have the power to "destroy government property."

[Catseye3]

Now he's telling the FBI to return the documents.

And the FBI will say, "Oh, okay. Sorry, here you go."

(Eyeroll.)

[Copper]

@kluurs said in Mar-a-Lago raided:

Her email server was a private server intended for non-governmental information transmission.

Correct, except for the classified government documents.

The CIA explained this.

The FBI, James Comey, explained a little differently, he said that she was "extremely careless".

And by destroying the data she violated federal law.

Why do you guys bother lying about this? It is well documented, everyone here is familiar with it.

[Doctor Phibes]

@Jolly said in Mar-a-Lago raided:

The President can declassify whatever he wishes.

Yes, however there's a process he has to follow. He can't just announce it.

I'd bet money on the fact that he didn't follow the process.

[Catseye3]

Excerpts from NBC News:

"Richard Immerman, a historian and an assistant deputy director of national intelligence in the Obama administration, said that, while the president has the authority to declassify documents, there’s a formal process for doing so, and there's no indication Trump used it.

"I’ve seen thousands of declassified documents. They’re all marked ‘declassified’ with the date they were declassified,” Immerman said.

That does not appear to have been the case with some of the documents that were returned to the National Archives from Mar-a-Lago this year. Archivist David S. Ferriero, an Obama appointee, said in a letter to the House Committee on Oversight and Reform in February that his agency had "identified items marked as classified national security information within the boxes” from Mar-a-Lago.

"A source who had discussed the matter with Trump but was not authorized to reveal those conversations said the former president wasn't concerned with formal protocol.

"We’ve told him there’s a process and not following it could be a problem but he didn’t care because he thinks this stuff is dumb,” the source said. “His attitude is that he is the president. He is in charge of the country and therefore national security. So he decides.”

Bradley Moss, a lawyer who specializes in national security issues, said, "That's not how it works."

"Trump could say we're declassifying this until he's blue in the face, but no one is allowed to touch those records until the markings are addressed," said Moss, a frequent Trump critic on Twitter.

"In the current dispute, the apparent lack of a paper trail showing that Trump declassified the documents before he left office could be a problem for the former president, said Stephen Vladeck, a University of Texas School of Law professor who specializes in national security."

For the whole article: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-allies-say-declassified-mar-lago-documents-experts-say-unclear-w-rcna42311

[Jolly]

@Renauda said in Mar-a-Lago raided:

@Jolly

@Jolly said in Mar-a-Lago raided:

@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.

As long as he the sitting President, yes, he can declassify documents. He also must make note of those docs while he is sitting POTUS and follow prescribed protocols. He cannot declassify documents that he has in his possession when he is no longer POTUS.

Trump, of course, believes that he is still President. Presumably you and one or two others here, do as well.

For the President, there are no prescribed protocols.

[Jolly]

@Copper said in Mar-a-Lago raided:

@kluurs said in Mar-a-Lago raided:

Her email server was a private server intended for non-governmental information transmission.

Correct, except for the classified government documents.

The CIA explained this.

The FBI, James Comey, explained a little differently, he said that she was "extremely careless".

And by destroying the data she violated federal law.

Why do you guys bother lying about this? It is well documented, everyone here is familiar with it.

They're doing it, because they have to. If it can be shown that other government officials have not lived up to the letter of the law, the case against Trump looks more like persecution via selective law enforcement.

[Renauda]

@Jolly said in Mar-a-Lago raided:

@Renauda said in Mar-a-Lago raided:

@Jolly

@Jolly said in Mar-a-Lago raided:

@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.

As long as he the sitting President, yes, he can declassify documents. He also must make note of those docs while he is sitting POTUS and follow prescribed protocols. He cannot declassify documents that he has in his possession when he is no longer POTUS.

Trump, of course, believes that he is still President. Presumably you and one or two others here, do as well.

For the President, there are no prescribed protocols.

Rubbish.

As Phibes pointed out there is a procedure he must follow to declassify documents. In this case take your pick, call it what you will - process, procedures, protocols there are specified steps for declassification to which the POTUS must adhere.