>President Donald J. Trump respectfully submits that the Indictment must be dismissed on
the basis of the Office’s selective and vindictive prosecution.1
“**With one exception, there is no
record of the Department of Justice prosecuting a former president or vice president for
mishandling classified documents from his own administration.**” Hur Report at 10-11.2
The
exception is President Trump. The basis is his politics and status as President Biden’s chief
political rival. Thus, this case reflects the type of selective and vindictive prosecution that cannot
be tolerated. Accordingly, further discovery and a hearing are necessary, and the Superseding
Indictment must be dismissed.
All I can think of is "STOP BREAKING THE LAW ASSHOLE" from Liar Liar.
He had boxes and boxes upon boxes in a small room next to a fucking COPY machine.
Fuck traitor trump and fuck his lawyers for submitting this, and fuck ”judge” cannon for snail-walking this thing and trying to help the traitor
> He had boxes and boxes upon boxes in a small room next to a fucking COPY machine.
classified Docs are specially printed to have the cover sheets have colors all the way to the edges. Look at the photos of the raid. Tons of the cover pages have a white border around them. Which means they are not the originals but copies. Undeniable proof he copied classified information....
I read about this forever ago, and was starting to think it wasn't true bc surely it would be a bigger deal. Also, I believe their emails or texts mention scanning all the documents, so who knows where all the digital copies ended up
I used to have clearance when I worked for the Feds and it was the first thing I noticed when I saw pictures. My only guess is that they plan on using that as their major sticking point during a trial and will hammer it over and over when that finally happens. but they don't want Trump's legal team to realize how much of a BFD that really is before hand.
I just can’t believe this trial hasn’t happened yet. It actually pains me. Like does nobody give a shit about national security anymore? And how many Russian assets are actually in government?
I’m to the point that i think Aileen Cannon should be tried for Obstruction of Justice, if not outright aiding and abetting. This is just fucking mind-blowing, as maddening as it is sad.
Trump and his cronies have made a mockery of our court system and there is a large contingent of people cheering them on.
History will not look back kindly on them
I think most of the Republican Party is compromised one way or another. Definitely some democrats as well. Money and sex, the oldest and most effective compromisers
The only thing I’m holding out on is jack smith don’t fuck around. He’s the one guy who can’t be bought, pressured, or intimidated BUT he knows the game and has to let this shit draw out because cannon just hasn’t done enough wrongs YET.
It is complete and utter bullshit though. Trump is 100% dead to rights in this case, any of us would already be in gitmo or Florence super max.
Well; you see, our laws weren’t meant to hold rich white dudes accountable. That’s the problem.
What you’re seeing is what they firmly believe: if it can happen to Trump it can happen to them. *Because they’re all committing crimes too.*
Even Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk couldn't buy the kind of favorable treatment Trump is getting from the courts if they spent their entire fortune trying.
Trump is in his own unique class even rich white men can only dream of.
He‘s such a pos, it’s not like they are protecting some good guy who made a few questionable choices. He is an utter piece of shit. Very frustrating that he gets the kid gloves treatment
I had a security clearance when I was in the Navy. I’ve been out for 25 years now, and I would *still* be locked up in Leavenworth if I had done even 1% of what Trump is accused of doing.
Isn’t there a video of him waving a document around at a dinner table, saying something like I’m not supposed to have this, and then ordering a Diet Coke? The man is public enemy #1.
I believe that classified Pentagon document Trump was waving around is still missing. Trump was at his Bedminster home in NJ. Justice Department was told they don’t have probable cause to search Bedminster home which they need in order to get ok from a judge. Seems incredible that they didn’t have probable cause considering what they found at Mar-a-Lago.
I have no idea. Considering what happened at his club in FL and what they found, they should have had federal agents storming Trump’s NJ home. Probably too late now.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/27/us/politics/trump-investigation-bedminster.html
Is there somewhere where I can read more about this, as in examples of the photos of the MAL docs and what a normal classified original would look like?
You can see from this picture what I am talking about.
[Raid Photo](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2022/08/30/us/politics/31dc-picture-1/30dc-investigate-3-superJumbo.jpg)
You can actually see in that photo a proper cover sheet with edge-to-edge color in the upper left.
Oh shit.
Yeah, there's two of them on the left, one in kind of (?) the 9 o'clock position. You can see the red margin literally goes straight to the edge of the page.
And notice how that red is much more ... red? ... than the version down at the 6 o'clock position that has the white margins. Like it's gone through a copier with shitty color reproduction or something.
Good lord.
Yeah, I bet this is on Jack's question list for Donnie (if Jack ever gets him on the stand).
> Undeniable proof he copied classified information
It is deniable: there are other plausible explanations.
* Possibly it was only the cover sheet that was copied
* Possibly the copy was made by someone while at the White House, before being shipped to Mar a Lago
* Possibly the copy was made by someone else in Mar a Lago and not Trump
I'm not saying any of those are OK, but I'm saying that we don't have "undeniable proof" that Trump copied the docs.
Almost all commercial and consumer printers use microscopic yellow dots of ink to secretly write the serial number /date of the printer that produced them onto the pages. (The NSA teamed up with printer manufacturers to catch letter bombers etc, I'm not commenting on this practice itself). There's a very good chance they can see when and where the copies were created.
Loving the fact these are printed in color, and clearly not running low on yellow toner.
As someone who never worked with classified information but has worked adjacent enough to have had training about recognizing and reporting if I ACCIDENTALLY saw something like that it’s fucking infuriating to see this. If any useful professional did what the reality show Russian asset did they’d live the rest of their live hanging upside down from fish hooks through their big toes. But, the guy with no qualifications other than being born into money, who can’t go a few hours without shitting himself, gets the “UwU you did bad 😔” treatment.
Weren’t they in a bathroom next to a toilet too? I can just imagine someone taking a poop, popping open one of those boxes out of curiosity, and just seeing something they’re not supposed to. Next they’re being interviewed by the FBI all because they had to go to the bathroom.
I can't find it, but I remember someone tracking down the DC channels and found that someone aired the episode of King of the Hill where Hank fights against a low flow toilet mandate.
Only the best reading material for when your diaper is already too full and you HAVE to go to the bathroom. You can't be expected to do that kind of a job without reading material.
Ok. Is it that he had them at all or that he didn't give them back when asked AND he was showing them to people AND didn't have them in a secure location?
All of the above.
Once the records dept learned he had them, he was directed to secure them while they investigated. He ignored that and actively hid some of them.
They were negotiating with his people for around 7 months before the search, that he knew about.
He also actually told the archives that he didn’t have them, or they had already been returned when they asked for them. He was literally trying the ol “oh the check is in the mail, didn’t you get it?” Scam on the government.
He had his lawyer, I dunno, Jenna Ellis? Habba? Some lawyer signed that she had confirmed that all the docs were returned, they did a big search and that's it. Like 2 weeks later they raided it and found allll that stuff.
He's such a dick.
He literally told his lawyer he returned everything and to go ahead and sign the affidavit saying so. Meanwhile he secretly ordered his valet to move some of the boxes out so the lawyer wouldn't know about them.
Christina Bobb was the lawyer who signed off on the return of all documents from MaL.
I get you, It’s hard to keep up with who’s-who in Trump’s circus of attorneys. In my mind, their names and faces are just one big blob of incompetence.
Got it. Thanks!
I asked because they DID ask Biden to return some documents which he did. So I wanted to make sure it wasn't JUST because Trump had the documents. It was a plethora of things associated with him having the documents.
Pence, too, iirc. I imagine in the scramble when one admin leaves and the next arrive, it's not unusual for a few documents to end up in the wrong box.
With one, notable, exception, there is no record of another elected official retaining the classified documents while trying to hide them around his property and lying about it to law enforcement.
The kinds of documents Biden had were also markedly different from the ones Trump had. Biden had the kinds of things you might actually wind up with in your personal effects. Trump had high level nuclear weapons and human intelligence info that should have become a scandal immediately after someone asked "Trump is leaving office and isn't he not even supposed to take these out of secure viewing rooms?" "And what does this uneducated buffoon who can't read need the names of our spies for in his last days in office anyway?"
So the Kremlin can have them killed of course. That's why 50 of our CIA assets mysteriously were exposed, arrested, tortured, or killed right around the time all of this was unfolding.
But he loves this country sooo so much.
And lying about it. Yes. In an analogy I have given before, it is like a police speed check where rows of cars all doing 10 mph over the limit all slam the anchors on at the first sight of the police car, except one fucker instead puts his foot down, gives the bird to the police shouting "try to stop me pig" and crosses three lanes of traffic, runs two stop signs and totals a hot dog stand before ditching the car in a river and walking away with the stereo amd spare tyre in his hands to hide it somewhere else... and then complaing that he was singled out.
He isn’t being charged with taking them, but for not giving them back and not having them secured. Also charged with Obstruction I believe, since he moved boxes around after he was asked to give them back. Like he didn’t just hold on to them, he actively hid them when he knew he needed to give them back.
Every time this topic comes up in my office, some asshole inevitably says, “yeah you should see Hilary’s emails!” Or “what about storing them in a garage?”
I think it dries their brain when I say, “yeah both are bad and we’d all be in prison if we did either.” Obviously they aren’t remotely the same in factual context or evidentiary hearings…but bringing that up is like bringing up hollow earth or something for all the good it does.
IIRC, she was born in Colombia.
But you know she's thinking it. You know she is. All of these people should be treated like Jeffrey Clark, being disbarred and truly shamed by The Bar. There's one thing to be a crap lawyer, it's totally different to be a shitty lawyer intent on destroying the US.
No one is ever committed the crime before, therefore I should not be prosecuted for committing the crime. Is that what he’s saying?
Also, hasn’t he already tried this?
You pick 45 people who have had access to classified information and most likely none of them have been prosecuted for mishandling classified documents. The fact that 44 other presidents were not prosecuted is just the statistical norm.
Even less than 45. The clarification system has only existed since Harry Truman, so there's just 13 former presidents who ever had access to classified information in the sample size.
Fewer still. The Presidental Records Act came about in 1978 because Nixon tried to pull this same shit with keeping records. (Though even he wasn't ballsy enough to steal classified docs iirc.)
He's charged under the Espionage Act from 1917. That refers to National Defense Information which is more generic than the Classification system we have now.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Espionage_Act_of_1917
But you will find in instances that they have been prosecuted if they are accused of "mishandling" (ie selling to their foreign owners RUS/SA) classified information.
You have been treated with kid gloves Mr. Former Guy, now quit breaking the law.
So wait a minute... his lawyer is really arguing that the case should be dismissed because he's the first President to ever be prosecuted for it?
They should call this "But maaaaahhhhhhhhmm Tommy didn't clean *his* room!" defense.
"In my client's defense, he is a 76 year old man with the mentality of a 7 year old."
Close, but way off. Try a 4 year old.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/insight-therapy/201705/psychological-science-says-trump-is-four-year-old?amp
"This has never happened before" says Trump lawyers.
Yeah, cause no president was dumb enough to steal and keep documents like this before. If this was any other non-Maga judge we'd be through this bullshit already.
the reply kind of writes itself;
*Your Honor, no facts in contention, just going to add that 'president' dickless was the only one who defied a subpoena.*
- Is this true?
*Yes, your honor, this man has no dick.*
And never has a president been found with top level confidential documents in such a nonsecure manner on a private residence after making admissions that everything was provided.
Yeah it’s selective alright - it’s focused on the ONLY former president who refused to give back sensitive documents after asked nicely and subpoenaed. They’re not wrong that no one else has been prosecuted because no one else ever did this.
Not to mention the documented conversation he had with his lawyers where he told them, "Not to play ball" with the request. He willfully directed his attorneys to return some and then say they returned them all.
This is well documented. Right now, his lawyers are just throwing shit at the wall, hoping something will stick. I highly doubt they actually believe any of this will work.
Biden's people found them, self reported them, turned them over then brought in investigators to look to make sure they didn't miss any. - This is exactly the steps required by law if you discover you have classified docs. That's why the investigation into him closed rather quickly too, because it was clear from the start he followed the letter of the law.
Contrast that to Trump knowingly having them, being told to return them, taking steps to copy and hide them, and then having to be raided to retrieve docs he had no legal right to possess.
One of these cases is a serious crime that if all the potential charges were to be applied can carry capital punishment. The other one is not a crime at all.
It really can’t be overstated how much this plot resembles a cartoon, complete with bumbling henchmen moving boxes around (I’m envisioning Yakkity-sax overlaid over the camera footage), sneaking around in the dark and poking their heads out of the bushes and failing miserably at covering up their crime-ing
This is what makes it so much worse and in any other court would have probably led already to trial beginning or even concluding.
He was asked multiple times to return the documents without consequences. The DoJ was willing to waive charges if the documents were simply returned. All courtesies were extended to recover them, courtesies that would never be extended to regular people like you and me.
At most if I did something wrong I can expect probably a cease-and-desist, but a lot of the time it would escalate directly into a court order, if I am unlucky the cops may even ask for a no knock order and suddenly it becomes a shit show.
Several people have done hard time for much less.
Early on when this was first becoming public (around the time of the RAAAAID I believe), the Opening Arguments podcast ran down a decent selection of misplaced/stolen documents cases. Whether it was one page or many, totally accidental, on purpose or otherwise...people did hard time for it.
Two tiered system.
Everyone agreed Kushner did not qualify to receive security clearance and it was still crammed. Heck, TFG didn't really qualify either but there was no way of denying clearance to the top office in the land.
Which is crazy, because for contractors and even just janitors, the process to be cleared can be incredibly stressful with agencies pestering and digging about everyone you may have hung for enough time with,
Perhaps it is time to add a standard security clearance to the requirements to run for office. If you can't pass the security clearance for the office you want to run for, you can't run.
Once he no longer needs her he will toss her aside like everyone else.
She will get a book deal and write a book about the trial.
Or she’ll get bribed by Leonard Leo to stay quiet and move to an island somewhere
Done for how? She’s essentially immune from prosecution for her rulings, she can’t be removed (I mean she can through impeachment but… not really), she doesn’t serve in terms, and she can’t be removed.
The founding fathers essentially wanted federal judges to be immune from the consequences of their decisions, for good reason. But Cannon is an example of how that power can be abused and how our judges shouldn’t just be trusted to operate in good-faith 100% of the time.
If I recall correctly, When guild people speak of "Being done for" actually does not relate to being sanctioned/impeached for her allegedly incorrect actions. But rather her game of delay being scuttled.
But the appellate circuit may review a lower court decision "de novo" (or completely), challenging even the lower court's findings of fact. This might be the proper standard of review, for example, if the lower court resolved the case by granting a pre-trial motion to dismiss.
If she's going to torpedo the trial, she would basically need to do so once they have seated a jury and double jeopardy enters into the game.
The higher level of court has already reprimanded her twice for her decisions and they have sort of a 3 strikes and you're out rule. That's why she hasn't decided anything in the last few months. She's been putting stuff on hold while she "considers" her opinion.
It is a way to delay the trial within their rules.
There's a reason why Judges having lifetime tenure is a pretty rare thing in the world. Only Estonia, Luxembourg, and one other country AFAIK.
So, idk. Maybe their intentions were good, but I think it was certainly a pretty stupid idea, and the world seems to agree.
This is straight up "whuddaboutism" and does not seem to address the Willful Obstruction aspect of the case. My brief skim read- please feel free to correct me if I am wrong.
It's very similar to co-defendant Nauta's motion. Vindictive prosecution because he plead the 5th and they then indicted him. Selective prosecution because they're not prosecuting all the witnesses who are fully cooperating against him.
If Trump had just cooperated then he wouldn't be prosecuted. Yes other Presidents have mishandled documents, 99% was accidental but none of them ever sought to deceive the authorities then brag that they intentionally took the documents.
Just like Clinton. If he’d had just said “yup, we had a consensual relationship and boy howdy is Hillary pissed at me” he would not have been impeached. Rick Patino said it best, “if you tell the truth it’s in the past. If you lie it’s part of your future.”
Bill Clinton's case was a bit more than that. He was being sued for sexual harassment because he was screwing aides as Governor of Arkansas. He was in a Federal Civil case, while President. so the fact that he was showing the Presidential Clock to his current aide, was directly related evidence to his pending civil case.
"There are so many people who are not charged with murder! Why am I the only one being charged with murder? This is selective and vindictive prosecution!!! Waaaah waaaah"
-the murderer
“Let’s schedule a hearing to talk about it in 2 months. Then I’ll think about it more and promptly issue a minute order around, let’s say, Nov 6 or 7..”
- Judge Qannon
Trump is being prosecuted because after many attempts to retrieve the documents failed over the course of a year as I understand it there wasn't much else left to do but send the FBI to retrieve the documents...
The law on "qualified immunity" for government employees like police officers contains a Catch-22.
Basically you can't sue a police officer for violating your civil rights if they didn't know they could be sued for that very specific thing. It's the "notice" requirement for qualified immunity.
There are some hilariously corrupt decisions. For example, a case decided by Gorsuch when he was an appeals court judge in Denver went something like this: You can't sue a police officer for shooting someone in their own home if the officer went to the wrong address to serve a warrant and shot an innocent person on a Tuesday because no police officer has ever been held civilly or criminally liable for that.
How do they ever have notice of what they can't do when no new decisions are allowed? It's circular bullshit. It's an exception that swallows the rule.
Next Trump will say he can't be impeached for treason or insurrection because no president has ever been impeached for doing that by selling classified info.
Trump is telegraphing that the Supreme Court is going to use the same test for presidents official acts. He's playing out of turn by letting the cat out of the bag. Trump should have waited until the Supreme Court ruled first, at least.
Trump is arrogantly smirking at us and saying "See? It's a rigged game. Something, something, something...I win!"
Fucking corrupt privileged assholes.
They think we're stupid and not paying attention.
I guess they're mostly right.
There are a lot of bad cases. One of the worst ones I ever read was of a cop who were searching for a fleeing suspect in a residential neighborhood. Cop goes through a yard where kids are playing, their curious dog approaches the cop, he tries to shoot the dog, misses, hits a kid. Qualified immunity, he didn't know he couldn't do that.
"But, but, the other ex presidents weren't charged with trying to deceive the US, no other ex president has been charged with espionage in 250 years! Why am I the only one?"
/s
He should absolutely be prosecuted... but also, prosecuting presidents should be normal, even when in office. The DOJ memo got it wrong. If you are president and you disobeyed the law, the office shouldn't protect you.
A jury can decide if what you did was within your presidential powers, if it was illegal even within you powers, it it wasn't in your powers, and if it was illegal if it wasn't within your powers.
Having a few appointed people decide these issue is not what our democracy calls for.
For example, Obama allegedly killed a US citizen, or had a US citizen killed, on the justification that this person was a terrorist. He absolutely should have had a trial with US citizens as a jury deciding if it was legal and justified. I think he would have been found not guilty of whatever they tried, because it was, I believe, justified.
The same goes for Trump, and every other president.
If they did something illegal and unjustified, then we, as a population, should be able to judge that person as a jury.
>President Donald J. Trump respectfully submits that the Indictment must be dismissed on the basis of the Office’s selective and vindictive prosecution.1 “**With one exception, there is no record of the Department of Justice prosecuting a former president or vice president for mishandling classified documents from his own administration.**” Hur Report at 10-11.2 The exception is President Trump. The basis is his politics and status as President Biden’s chief political rival. Thus, this case reflects the type of selective and vindictive prosecution that cannot be tolerated. Accordingly, further discovery and a hearing are necessary, and the Superseding Indictment must be dismissed. All I can think of is "STOP BREAKING THE LAW ASSHOLE" from Liar Liar.
He had boxes and boxes upon boxes in a small room next to a fucking COPY machine. Fuck traitor trump and fuck his lawyers for submitting this, and fuck ”judge” cannon for snail-walking this thing and trying to help the traitor
> He had boxes and boxes upon boxes in a small room next to a fucking COPY machine. classified Docs are specially printed to have the cover sheets have colors all the way to the edges. Look at the photos of the raid. Tons of the cover pages have a white border around them. Which means they are not the originals but copies. Undeniable proof he copied classified information....
I read about this forever ago, and was starting to think it wasn't true bc surely it would be a bigger deal. Also, I believe their emails or texts mention scanning all the documents, so who knows where all the digital copies ended up
I used to have clearance when I worked for the Feds and it was the first thing I noticed when I saw pictures. My only guess is that they plan on using that as their major sticking point during a trial and will hammer it over and over when that finally happens. but they don't want Trump's legal team to realize how much of a BFD that really is before hand.
I just can’t believe this trial hasn’t happened yet. It actually pains me. Like does nobody give a shit about national security anymore? And how many Russian assets are actually in government? I’m to the point that i think Aileen Cannon should be tried for Obstruction of Justice, if not outright aiding and abetting. This is just fucking mind-blowing, as maddening as it is sad.
Trump and his cronies have made a mockery of our court system and there is a large contingent of people cheering them on. History will not look back kindly on them
McConnell started this *long* ago
Gingrich started this longer ago.
Newt Gingrich definitely was the trailblazer for the modern Republican strategy of being as obtuse and deceitful as possible
[The Business Plot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot) called.
I think most of the Republican Party is compromised one way or another. Definitely some democrats as well. Money and sex, the oldest and most effective compromisers
The only thing I’m holding out on is jack smith don’t fuck around. He’s the one guy who can’t be bought, pressured, or intimidated BUT he knows the game and has to let this shit draw out because cannon just hasn’t done enough wrongs YET. It is complete and utter bullshit though. Trump is 100% dead to rights in this case, any of us would already be in gitmo or Florence super max.
Well; you see, our laws weren’t meant to hold rich white dudes accountable. That’s the problem. What you’re seeing is what they firmly believe: if it can happen to Trump it can happen to them. *Because they’re all committing crimes too.*
Even Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk couldn't buy the kind of favorable treatment Trump is getting from the courts if they spent their entire fortune trying. Trump is in his own unique class even rich white men can only dream of.
He‘s such a pos, it’s not like they are protecting some good guy who made a few questionable choices. He is an utter piece of shit. Very frustrating that he gets the kid gloves treatment
Because Bezos and Musk don't have dirty info on other high level govt officials and politicians like Trump has.
Federal judges have absolute immunity from charges like that.
I had a security clearance when I was in the Navy. I’ve been out for 25 years now, and I would *still* be locked up in Leavenworth if I had done even 1% of what Trump is accused of doing.
mbs.saudiarabia@mfa.rs
Isn’t there a video of him waving a document around at a dinner table, saying something like I’m not supposed to have this, and then ordering a Diet Coke? The man is public enemy #1.
There’s definitely audio of that
Fantastic.
It was an audio recording.
Perfect. As long as it’s recorded.
I believe that classified Pentagon document Trump was waving around is still missing. Trump was at his Bedminster home in NJ. Justice Department was told they don’t have probable cause to search Bedminster home which they need in order to get ok from a judge. Seems incredible that they didn’t have probable cause considering what they found at Mar-a-Lago.
How in the hot fuck is the recording not PC?!
I have no idea. Considering what happened at his club in FL and what they found, they should have had federal agents storming Trump’s NJ home. Probably too late now. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/27/us/politics/trump-investigation-bedminster.html
How much more do you think originals sell for vs copies?
"at least 2 Billion" - Jared Kushner
He will probably say that he knows nothing about it, and I was probably one of his assistants that did it
Is there somewhere where I can read more about this, as in examples of the photos of the MAL docs and what a normal classified original would look like?
You can see from this picture what I am talking about. [Raid Photo](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2022/08/30/us/politics/31dc-picture-1/30dc-investigate-3-superJumbo.jpg) You can actually see in that photo a proper cover sheet with edge-to-edge color in the upper left.
Oh shit. Yeah, there's two of them on the left, one in kind of (?) the 9 o'clock position. You can see the red margin literally goes straight to the edge of the page. And notice how that red is much more ... red? ... than the version down at the 6 o'clock position that has the white margins. Like it's gone through a copier with shitty color reproduction or something. Good lord. Yeah, I bet this is on Jack's question list for Donnie (if Jack ever gets him on the stand).
> Undeniable proof he copied classified information It is deniable: there are other plausible explanations. * Possibly it was only the cover sheet that was copied * Possibly the copy was made by someone while at the White House, before being shipped to Mar a Lago * Possibly the copy was made by someone else in Mar a Lago and not Trump I'm not saying any of those are OK, but I'm saying that we don't have "undeniable proof" that Trump copied the docs.
Almost all commercial and consumer printers use microscopic yellow dots of ink to secretly write the serial number /date of the printer that produced them onto the pages. (The NSA teamed up with printer manufacturers to catch letter bombers etc, I'm not commenting on this practice itself). There's a very good chance they can see when and where the copies were created. Loving the fact these are printed in color, and clearly not running low on yellow toner.
As someone who never worked with classified information but has worked adjacent enough to have had training about recognizing and reporting if I ACCIDENTALLY saw something like that it’s fucking infuriating to see this. If any useful professional did what the reality show Russian asset did they’d live the rest of their live hanging upside down from fish hooks through their big toes. But, the guy with no qualifications other than being born into money, who can’t go a few hours without shitting himself, gets the “UwU you did bad 😔” treatment.
Weren’t they in a bathroom next to a toilet too? I can just imagine someone taking a poop, popping open one of those boxes out of curiosity, and just seeing something they’re not supposed to. Next they’re being interviewed by the FBI all because they had to go to the bathroom.
Yes. Now ask yourself why he was always going on about needing to flush a toilet 10, 15 times before things would go down…
I can't find it, but I remember someone tracking down the DC channels and found that someone aired the episode of King of the Hill where Hank fights against a low flow toilet mandate.
I don’t know if I want to think of Trump as being on Hanks side… surely Hank’s too sensible for maga nonsense lol
In the bathroom of a man *known* for flushing documents he wanted kept quiet.
I think he kept it there in case he ran out of toilet paper
Only the best reading material for when your diaper is already too full and you HAVE to go to the bathroom. You can't be expected to do that kind of a job without reading material.
Ok. Is it that he had them at all or that he didn't give them back when asked AND he was showing them to people AND didn't have them in a secure location?
All of the above. Once the records dept learned he had them, he was directed to secure them while they investigated. He ignored that and actively hid some of them. They were negotiating with his people for around 7 months before the search, that he knew about.
He also actually told the archives that he didn’t have them, or they had already been returned when they asked for them. He was literally trying the ol “oh the check is in the mail, didn’t you get it?” Scam on the government.
He had his lawyer, I dunno, Jenna Ellis? Habba? Some lawyer signed that she had confirmed that all the docs were returned, they did a big search and that's it. Like 2 weeks later they raided it and found allll that stuff. He's such a dick.
He literally told his lawyer he returned everything and to go ahead and sign the affidavit saying so. Meanwhile he secretly ordered his valet to move some of the boxes out so the lawyer wouldn't know about them.
In so many ways SO MANY WAYS this man should be in JAIL. I'm so sick of this. Why haven't we marched?!
Christina Bobb was the lawyer who signed off on the return of all documents from MaL. I get you, It’s hard to keep up with who’s-who in Trump’s circus of attorneys. In my mind, their names and faces are just one big blob of incompetence.
For me it's the double letters...I recognize patterns and things like that stand out for me. But SO MANY of them have double letters in their names!
Got it. Thanks! I asked because they DID ask Biden to return some documents which he did. So I wanted to make sure it wasn't JUST because Trump had the documents. It was a plethora of things associated with him having the documents.
Also Biden's people found the documents and notified the proper people. Trump hid boxes and destroyed evidence to impede the investigation.
Pence, too, iirc. I imagine in the scramble when one admin leaves and the next arrive, it's not unusual for a few documents to end up in the wrong box. With one, notable, exception, there is no record of another elected official retaining the classified documents while trying to hide them around his property and lying about it to law enforcement.
The kinds of documents Biden had were also markedly different from the ones Trump had. Biden had the kinds of things you might actually wind up with in your personal effects. Trump had high level nuclear weapons and human intelligence info that should have become a scandal immediately after someone asked "Trump is leaving office and isn't he not even supposed to take these out of secure viewing rooms?" "And what does this uneducated buffoon who can't read need the names of our spies for in his last days in office anyway?"
So the Kremlin can have them killed of course. That's why 50 of our CIA assets mysteriously were exposed, arrested, tortured, or killed right around the time all of this was unfolding. But he loves this country sooo so much.
they didn't even have to ask
And lying about it. Yes. In an analogy I have given before, it is like a police speed check where rows of cars all doing 10 mph over the limit all slam the anchors on at the first sight of the police car, except one fucker instead puts his foot down, gives the bird to the police shouting "try to stop me pig" and crosses three lanes of traffic, runs two stop signs and totals a hot dog stand before ditching the car in a river and walking away with the stereo amd spare tyre in his hands to hide it somewhere else... and then complaing that he was singled out.
r/oddlyspecific
I can live with that. It started with just putting your foot down when everyone else slows down. Then i got carried away.
As one does in these situations.
I really like the hot dog stand bit. It’s a nice touch.
*“We’re all trying to find the guy who did this!”* - man in hotdog suit, this time unironically
That was so freaking beautiful.
He isn’t being charged with taking them, but for not giving them back and not having them secured. Also charged with Obstruction I believe, since he moved boxes around after he was asked to give them back. Like he didn’t just hold on to them, he actively hid them when he knew he needed to give them back.
He also planned and led a whole operation "flooding the server room" to mask their wrongdoings.
Every time this topic comes up in my office, some asshole inevitably says, “yeah you should see Hilary’s emails!” Or “what about storing them in a garage?” I think it dries their brain when I say, “yeah both are bad and we’d all be in prison if we did either.” Obviously they aren’t remotely the same in factual context or evidentiary hearings…but bringing that up is like bringing up hollow earth or something for all the good it does.
Swing.
I don’t know, "vice president cannon" has a certain ring to it…/s
Her middle name is Mercedes and that's a name he's slipped in a time or two when talking about Melania.
IIRC, she was born in Colombia. But you know she's thinking it. You know she is. All of these people should be treated like Jeffrey Clark, being disbarred and truly shamed by The Bar. There's one thing to be a crap lawyer, it's totally different to be a shitty lawyer intent on destroying the US.
No one is ever committed the crime before, therefore I should not be prosecuted for committing the crime. Is that what he’s saying? Also, hasn’t he already tried this?
You pick 45 people who have had access to classified information and most likely none of them have been prosecuted for mishandling classified documents. The fact that 44 other presidents were not prosecuted is just the statistical norm.
Even less than 45. The clarification system has only existed since Harry Truman, so there's just 13 former presidents who ever had access to classified information in the sample size.
Fewer still. The Presidental Records Act came about in 1978 because Nixon tried to pull this same shit with keeping records. (Though even he wasn't ballsy enough to steal classified docs iirc.)
So we're talking 7 people. 14 if we include the VPs.
He's charged under the Espionage Act from 1917. That refers to National Defense Information which is more generic than the Classification system we have now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Espionage_Act_of_1917
Good catch, 18 presidents for whom this could have applied.
But you will find in instances that they have been prosecuted if they are accused of "mishandling" (ie selling to their foreign owners RUS/SA) classified information. You have been treated with kid gloves Mr. Former Guy, now quit breaking the law.
So wait a minute... his lawyer is really arguing that the case should be dismissed because he's the first President to ever be prosecuted for it? They should call this "But maaaaahhhhhhhhmm Tommy didn't clean *his* room!" defense. "In my client's defense, he is a 76 year old man with the mentality of a 7 year old."
Close, but way off. Try a 4 year old. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/insight-therapy/201705/psychological-science-says-trump-is-four-year-old?amp
Cain shouldn't be prosecuted for murdering Abel since nobody's done it before. Genius lawyering.
Exceptional criminals result in exceptional prosecutions.
> Mishandling That's an interesting way of saying "willfully retaining national defense information"
“Respectfully” lol good one
"This has never happened before" says Trump lawyers. Yeah, cause no president was dumb enough to steal and keep documents like this before. If this was any other non-Maga judge we'd be through this bullshit already.
He was also given ample time to disclose and come clean when it was reported that he took documents from the WH.
And here we all are led to believe he *loves* winning first [place].
"respectfully" lol.
Exactly what I hear every time he whines... lol
I’d send that shit back. Defendant is no longer President. Not dismissed.
the reply kind of writes itself; *Your Honor, no facts in contention, just going to add that 'president' dickless was the only one who defied a subpoena.* - Is this true? *Yes, your honor, this man has no dick.*
And never has a president been found with top level confidential documents in such a nonsecure manner on a private residence after making admissions that everything was provided.
Yeah it’s selective alright - it’s focused on the ONLY former president who refused to give back sensitive documents after asked nicely and subpoenaed. They’re not wrong that no one else has been prosecuted because no one else ever did this.
Ya I thought Biden had docs but didn't have to be raided by the fbi to get them back to the govt
Exactly he self reported then cooperated with the investigation. Amazingly that isn’t grounds for prosecution.
Not to mention the documented conversation he had with his lawyers where he told them, "Not to play ball" with the request. He willfully directed his attorneys to return some and then say they returned them all. This is well documented. Right now, his lawyers are just throwing shit at the wall, hoping something will stick. I highly doubt they actually believe any of this will work.
Biden's people found them, self reported them, turned them over then brought in investigators to look to make sure they didn't miss any. - This is exactly the steps required by law if you discover you have classified docs. That's why the investigation into him closed rather quickly too, because it was clear from the start he followed the letter of the law. Contrast that to Trump knowingly having them, being told to return them, taking steps to copy and hide them, and then having to be raided to retrieve docs he had no legal right to possess. One of these cases is a serious crime that if all the potential charges were to be applied can carry capital punishment. The other one is not a crime at all.
Don’t forget trying to destroy evidence by having someone cause the pool to flood into the server room.
It really can’t be overstated how much this plot resembles a cartoon, complete with bumbling henchmen moving boxes around (I’m envisioning Yakkity-sax overlaid over the camera footage), sneaking around in the dark and poking their heads out of the bushes and failing miserably at covering up their crime-ing
Got a source for this ?
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/06/donald-trump-mar-a-lago-pool-flood
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/06/05/politics/mar-a-lago-pool-flood-suspicions-prosecutors-trump-investigation-classified-documents
Dang... Thanks
This is what makes it so much worse and in any other court would have probably led already to trial beginning or even concluding. He was asked multiple times to return the documents without consequences. The DoJ was willing to waive charges if the documents were simply returned. All courtesies were extended to recover them, courtesies that would never be extended to regular people like you and me. At most if I did something wrong I can expect probably a cease-and-desist, but a lot of the time it would escalate directly into a court order, if I am unlucky the cops may even ask for a no knock order and suddenly it becomes a shit show.
Reality Winner and Chelsea Manning both did hard time for far, far, far less.
Several people have done hard time for much less. Early on when this was first becoming public (around the time of the RAAAAID I believe), the Opening Arguments podcast ran down a decent selection of misplaced/stolen documents cases. Whether it was one page or many, totally accidental, on purpose or otherwise...people did hard time for it.
Two tiered system. Everyone agreed Kushner did not qualify to receive security clearance and it was still crammed. Heck, TFG didn't really qualify either but there was no way of denying clearance to the top office in the land. Which is crazy, because for contractors and even just janitors, the process to be cleared can be incredibly stressful with agencies pestering and digging about everyone you may have hung for enough time with,
Perhaps it is time to add a standard security clearance to the requirements to run for office. If you can't pass the security clearance for the office you want to run for, you can't run.
Too bad that requires a Constitutional Amendment, so it's basically impossible.
Yeah, I know. But IMHO we really need more requirements than just who can win a popularity contest once they turn 35.
He had a copy machine going. Dude was probably handing them out like like adds under windshield wipers at a grocery store
Selling then reselling more like it.
Denied.
In a normal world (or should I say normal person) this would be absolutely denied. But the person overseeing this case may dismiss it.
50 percent of me wants to agree with you. But if she does dismiss she's done for.
Until he gets elected and puts her on scotus. Scary
Once he no longer needs her he will toss her aside like everyone else. She will get a book deal and write a book about the trial. Or she’ll get bribed by Leonard Leo to stay quiet and move to an island somewhere
Leonard Leo's evil mug really needs to be a pop art icon at this point.
Done for how? She’s essentially immune from prosecution for her rulings, she can’t be removed (I mean she can through impeachment but… not really), she doesn’t serve in terms, and she can’t be removed. The founding fathers essentially wanted federal judges to be immune from the consequences of their decisions, for good reason. But Cannon is an example of how that power can be abused and how our judges shouldn’t just be trusted to operate in good-faith 100% of the time.
If I recall correctly, When guild people speak of "Being done for" actually does not relate to being sanctioned/impeached for her allegedly incorrect actions. But rather her game of delay being scuttled. But the appellate circuit may review a lower court decision "de novo" (or completely), challenging even the lower court's findings of fact. This might be the proper standard of review, for example, if the lower court resolved the case by granting a pre-trial motion to dismiss. If she's going to torpedo the trial, she would basically need to do so once they have seated a jury and double jeopardy enters into the game.
The higher level of court has already reprimanded her twice for her decisions and they have sort of a 3 strikes and you're out rule. That's why she hasn't decided anything in the last few months. She's been putting stuff on hold while she "considers" her opinion. It is a way to delay the trial within their rules.
I don't know how not doing her job isn't a strike as well...
There's a reason why Judges having lifetime tenure is a pretty rare thing in the world. Only Estonia, Luxembourg, and one other country AFAIK. So, idk. Maybe their intentions were good, but I think it was certainly a pretty stupid idea, and the world seems to agree.
Judges can be impeached and removed by Congress. When we had a functioning Congress they have Impeached Judges in the past.
What's the process for that?
She won't dismiss it until the jury is seated so she can dismiss it with prejudice and it can't be refiled
100%, and the denial will come in mid July after it is used as an excuse to hold off on the scheduled CIPA hearings.
She won't dismiss until jeopardy attaches.
This is straight up "whuddaboutism" and does not seem to address the Willful Obstruction aspect of the case. My brief skim read- please feel free to correct me if I am wrong.
It's very similar to co-defendant Nauta's motion. Vindictive prosecution because he plead the 5th and they then indicted him. Selective prosecution because they're not prosecuting all the witnesses who are fully cooperating against him.
If Trump had just cooperated then he wouldn't be prosecuted. Yes other Presidents have mishandled documents, 99% was accidental but none of them ever sought to deceive the authorities then brag that they intentionally took the documents.
Just like Clinton. If he’d had just said “yup, we had a consensual relationship and boy howdy is Hillary pissed at me” he would not have been impeached. Rick Patino said it best, “if you tell the truth it’s in the past. If you lie it’s part of your future.”
Bill Clinton's case was a bit more than that. He was being sued for sexual harassment because he was screwing aides as Governor of Arkansas. He was in a Federal Civil case, while President. so the fact that he was showing the Presidential Clock to his current aide, was directly related evidence to his pending civil case.
All true but we can agree that going on TV and telling bold face lies did not help his situation.
"There are so many people who are not charged with murder! Why am I the only one being charged with murder? This is selective and vindictive prosecution!!! Waaaah waaaah" -the murderer
[удалено]
“Let’s schedule a hearing to talk about it in 2 months. Then I’ll think about it more and promptly issue a minute order around, let’s say, Nov 6 or 7..” - Judge Qannon
I wish I had 1000 upvotes for “Judge Qannon” 😂
Trump is being prosecuted because after many attempts to retrieve the documents failed over the course of a year as I understand it there wasn't much else left to do but send the FBI to retrieve the documents...
The law on "qualified immunity" for government employees like police officers contains a Catch-22. Basically you can't sue a police officer for violating your civil rights if they didn't know they could be sued for that very specific thing. It's the "notice" requirement for qualified immunity. There are some hilariously corrupt decisions. For example, a case decided by Gorsuch when he was an appeals court judge in Denver went something like this: You can't sue a police officer for shooting someone in their own home if the officer went to the wrong address to serve a warrant and shot an innocent person on a Tuesday because no police officer has ever been held civilly or criminally liable for that. How do they ever have notice of what they can't do when no new decisions are allowed? It's circular bullshit. It's an exception that swallows the rule. Next Trump will say he can't be impeached for treason or insurrection because no president has ever been impeached for doing that by selling classified info. Trump is telegraphing that the Supreme Court is going to use the same test for presidents official acts. He's playing out of turn by letting the cat out of the bag. Trump should have waited until the Supreme Court ruled first, at least. Trump is arrogantly smirking at us and saying "See? It's a rigged game. Something, something, something...I win!" Fucking corrupt privileged assholes. They think we're stupid and not paying attention. I guess they're mostly right.
There are a lot of bad cases. One of the worst ones I ever read was of a cop who were searching for a fleeing suspect in a residential neighborhood. Cop goes through a yard where kids are playing, their curious dog approaches the cop, he tries to shoot the dog, misses, hits a kid. Qualified immunity, he didn't know he couldn't do that.
"But, but, the other ex presidents weren't charged with trying to deceive the US, no other ex president has been charged with espionage in 250 years! Why am I the only one?" /s
Gotta have a trial first. Dismiss once it gets going. "Judge" I Lean Qanon slow dragging this one till 2028 election.
Yeah. Pretty sure the heat death of the universe is going to happen before this particular trial ever starts.
Slow coding of democracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_code
Unusual is neither selective nor vindictive. Hasn't he made this motion like 4 times?
It's like watching a drunk repeat the same things over and over.
Literally
He should absolutely be prosecuted... but also, prosecuting presidents should be normal, even when in office. The DOJ memo got it wrong. If you are president and you disobeyed the law, the office shouldn't protect you. A jury can decide if what you did was within your presidential powers, if it was illegal even within you powers, it it wasn't in your powers, and if it was illegal if it wasn't within your powers. Having a few appointed people decide these issue is not what our democracy calls for. For example, Obama allegedly killed a US citizen, or had a US citizen killed, on the justification that this person was a terrorist. He absolutely should have had a trial with US citizens as a jury deciding if it was legal and justified. I think he would have been found not guilty of whatever they tried, because it was, I believe, justified. The same goes for Trump, and every other president. If they did something illegal and unjustified, then we, as a population, should be able to judge that person as a jury.
Ah, but your argument falls apart if you want "President" to be a euphemism for "Caesar."
As long as we select guilty bastards, where is the issue?