Trump 57: Stealing Nuclear Documents And Pleading The Fifth

[Cults-r-us]

On 9/4/2022 at 9:01 AM, Xan said:

I agree.  And I have been alarmed that he's done so much that's obviously criminal and nothing happens.  Time after time, people back away.  At first, I thought it was just fear of inciting a civil war with his crazy mobs.  Now

The Republicans would love for Donny to step away and let his clone DeSantis run for president.  That way they could get the stench of Donald off the party but keep control.  I just don't think Trump will ever let go.

No, Trump will never let go, causing the GOP a little candidate problem. On one hand, DeSantis is a power-hungry, democracy-wrecking, narcissistic sociopath. On the other, Trump, a delusional, power-hungry, democracy-wrecking narcissist who spends his days nursing past grievances, fighting legal battles and stoking rage in his (diminishing?) cult-like followers. He is jealous of DeSantis and will sabotage him at every turn if he feels threatened. The best thing for the rest of us is for these two to turn on each other and steal the other's votes.

[GreyhoundFan]

2 hours ago, Cults-r-us said:

No, Trump will never let go, causing the GOP a little candidate problem. On one hand, DeSantis is a power-hungry, democracy-wrecking, narcissistic sociopath. On the other, Trump, a delusional, power-hungry, democracy-wrecking narcissist who spends his days nursing past grievances, fighting legal battles and stoking rage in his (diminishing?) cult-like followers. He is jealous of DeSantis and will sabotage him at every turn if he feels threatened. The best thing for the rest of us is for these two to turn on each other and steal the other's votes.

I wish we could have a Rethuglikan Hunger Games. Can you picture these a-holes turning on each other?

[onekidanddone]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I wish we could have a Rethuglikan Hunger Games. Can you picture these a-holes turning on each other?

They would turn so fast in a New York minute 

[47of74]

Legal experts are busy picking apart the special master ruling by BT Judge Aileen Cannon. 

Quote

A federal judge's decision Monday to appoint an independent official to review the documents seized from former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort surprised legal experts. 

Attorneys and former federal officials picked apart Cannon's ruling, with many focusing on her view that Trump might be able to assert executive privilege over some of the records and withhold them from the Justice Department.

The current government is the legal owner of all government records, and the Biden administration has declined to assert privilege over any of the material Trump took with him to Mar-a-Lago or withhold it from investigators. 

"I don't think a special master makes sense in connection with executive privilege material," William Barr, who served as attorney general under Trump, told Reuters.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

44 minutes ago, 47of74 said:

Legal experts are busy picking apart the special master ruling by BT Judge Aileen Cannon. 

 

Barr was on Faux picking it apart. It's a strange day when I agree with him.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

He is freaking delusional:

 

I'm sure the DOJ is making copies of all his crap. Hopefully they will nail him.

 

[Audrey2]

1 hour ago, 47of74 said:

Legal experts are busy picking apart the special master ruling by BT Judge Aileen Cannon. 

 

I was thinking that this judge was one appointed by trump. I wonder if she was someone who legitimately deserved a position or if she's someone that the Federalist group light who is much less qualified than what she should be. I remember someone up for judge in another state and from what I remember he never should have been up to be a judge because he wasn't qualified.

[GreyhoundFan]

This made me laugh so hard I got the hiccups.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Sadly, I can see the GQP judge in question doing this. I hope the DOJ appeals before it happens.

[Dandruff]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Barr was on Faux picking it apart. It's a strange day when I agree with him.

 

DOJ needs to jump on this sooner vs. later, to shut down any opportunities for TFG to slither out.  The process should not be allowed to become part of the problem.

[GreyhoundFan]

No, Kash, declassifying doesn't work like that. Your orange master couldn't just wave a magic wand and declassify everything. It doesn't matter how many times you say it, that's not the way it's done.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

[BensAllergies]

Where’s Pence in all of this? He has been quiet.

[Howl]

2 hours ago, Audrey2 said:

I was thinking that this judge was one appointed by trump. I wonder if she was someone who legitimately deserved a position or if she's someone that the Federalist group light who is much less qualified than what she should be. 

ABA deemed her unqualified, she's never tried a case in court, but she got an 11th hour fedsoc useful stooge appointment for just such a situation as this. 

There was discussion that the classified, top secret and beyond top secret materials would be finger printed to see who had physically handled them.  Maybe they'd go to the level of recovering touch DNA?  Would Cannon's granting of a special master stop this process? We could be getting ready to find out how blatantly compromised a Federal judge can be and still remain on the bench. 

And fuck Bill Barr upside down and sideways.  He's a wily political player and he's putting juuuuuuuust enough distance between the current Bill Barr and the corrupt Trump-toady Bill Barr. 

[Anne Of Gray Gables]

23 minutes ago, BensAllergies said:

Where’s Pence in all of this? He has been quiet.

He's currently a nothing.

Wait, he's always been a nothing. 

[fraurosena]

3 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

No, Kash, declassifying doesn't work like that. Your orange master couldn't just wave a magic wand and declassify everything. It doesn't matter how many times you say it, that's not the way it's done.

 

Although, yes, national security has been (severely) compromised, discussion about declassification status is not the core question at issue. The question that should be continuously asked is why Trump stole these documents. Regardless of classification, all of these documents are government property that he illegally took with him, and then actively hid them from the government, even after they asked him nicely to please return them. So apparently they had to be very important to him for some reason. This is the question that is at the core of everything. Why did he steal them— and what did he do with them?

[Dandruff]

5 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Although, yes, national security has been (severely) compromised, discussion about declassification status is not the core question at issue. The question that should be continuously asked is why Trump stole these documents. Regardless of classification, all of these documents are government property that he illegally took with him, and then actively hid them from the government, even after they asked him nicely to please return them. So apparently they had to be very important to him for some reason. This is the question that is at the core of everything. Why did he steal them— and what did he do with them?

I hope we get answers.

Meanwhile, I'd be surprised if foreign (to the US) governments haven't been bombarding DOJ with concerns about the security of information pertaining to them.

[GreyhoundFan]

7 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Although, yes, national security has been (severely) compromised, discussion about declassification status is not the core question at issue. The question that should be continuously asked is why Trump stole these documents. Regardless of classification, all of these documents are government property that he illegally took with him, and then actively hid them from the government, even after they asked him nicely to please return them. So apparently they had to be very important to him for some reason. This is the question that is at the core of everything. Why did he steal them— and what did he do with them?

Kash is doing what the rest of the GQP is doing: muddying the water to confuse low information people from seeing the real issue that you pointed out. They’ll never be able to answer why TFG possessed those documents, as well as the documents that are missing, so  they flood the zone with BS, just like Bannon has said many times. 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Material on foreign nation’s nuclear capabilities seized at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago"

Quote

A document describing a foreign government’s military defenses, including its nuclear capabilities, was found by FBI agents who searched former president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence and private club last month, according to people familiar with the matter, underscoring concerns among U.S. intelligence officials about classified material stashed in the Florida property.

Some of the seized documents detail top-secret U.S. operations so closely guarded that many senior national security officials are kept in the dark about them. Only the president, some members of his Cabinet or a near-Cabinet-level official could authorize other government officials to know details of these special-access programs, according to people familiar with the search, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive details of an ongoing investigation.

Documents about such highly classified operations require special clearances on a need-to-know basis, not just top-secret clearance. Some special-access programs can have as few as a couple dozen government personnel authorized to know of an operation’s existence. Records that deal with such programs are kept under lock and key, almost always in a secure compartmented information facility, with a designated control officer to keep careful tabs on their location.

But such documents were stored at Mar-a-Lago, with uncertain security, more than 18 months after Trump left the White House.

After months of trying, according to government court filings, the FBI has recovered more than 300 classified documents from Mar-a-Lago this year: 184 in a set of 15 boxes sent to the National Archives and Records Administration in January, 38 more handed over by a Trump lawyer to investigators in June, and more than 100 additional documents unearthed in a court-approved search on Aug. 8.

It was in this last batch of government secrets, the people familiar with the matter said, that the information about a foreign government’s nuclear-defense readiness was found. These people did not identify the foreign government in question, say where at Mar-a-Lago the document was found or offer additional details about one of the Justice Department’s most sensitive national security investigations.

Christopher Kise, a lawyer for Trump, decried leaks about the case, which he said “continue with no respect for the process nor any regard for the real truth. This does not serve well the interests of justice.”

“Moreover, the damage to public confidence in the integrity of the system simply cannot be underestimated. The responsible course of action here would be for someone — anyone — in the Government to exercise leadership and control. The Court has provided a sensible path forward which does not include the selective leak of unverifiable and misleading information. There is no reason to deviate from that path if the goal is, as it should be, to find a rational solution to document storage issues which have needlessly spiraled out of control.”

Spokespeople for the Justice Department and FBI declined to comment.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is conducting a risk assessment, to determine how much potential harm was posed by the removal from government custody of hundreds of classified documents.

The Washington Post previously reported that FBI agents who searched Trump’s home were looking, in part, for any classified documents relating to nuclear weapons. After that story published, Trump compared it on social media to a host of previous government investigations into his conduct. “Nuclear weapons issue is a Hoax, just like Russia, Russia, Russia was a Hoax, two Impeachments were a Hoax, the Mueller investigation was a Hoax, and much more. Same sleazy people involved,” he wrote, going on to suggest that FBI agents might have planted evidence against him.

A grand jury subpoena issued May 11 demanded the return of “all documents or writings in the custody or control of Donald J. Trump and/or the Office of Donald J. Trump bearing classification markings,” including “Top Secret,” and the lesser categories of “Secret” and “Confidential.”

The subpoena, issued to Trump’s custodian of records, then listed more than two dozen sub-classifications of documents, including “S/FRD,” an abbreviation for “Formerly Restricted Data,” which is reserved for information that relates primarily to the military use of nuclear weapons. Despite the “formerly” in the title, the term does not mean the information is no longer classified.

One person familiar with the Mar-a-Lago search said the goal of the comprehensive list was to ensure recovery of all classified records on the property, and not just those that investigators had reason to believe might be there.

Investigators grew alarmed, according to one person familiar with the search, as they began to review documents retrieved from the club’s storage closet, Trump’s residence and his office in August. The team soon came upon records that are extremely restricted, so much so that even some of the senior-most national security officials in the Biden administration weren’t authorized to review them. One government filing alluded to this information when it noted that counterintelligence FBI agents and prosecutors investigating the Mar-a-Lago documents were not authorized at first to review some of the material seized.

Among the 100-plus classified documents taken in August, some were marked “HCS,” a category of highly classified government information that refers to “HUMINT Control Systems,” which are systems used to protect intelligence gathered from secret human sources, according to a court filing. A partially unsealed affidavit said documents found in the boxes that were sent to the National Archives in January related to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. There was also material that was never meant to be shared with foreign nations.

The investigation into possible mishandling of classified information, as well as possible hiding, tampering or destruction of government records, grew even more complex Monday when a federal judge in Florida granted Trump’s request to appoint a special master to review the material seized in the Aug. 8 search and weed out documents that may be covered by executive privilege — a legal standard that, as applied to former presidents, is poorly defined.

U.S. District Court Judge Aileen M. Cannon ruled the special master also will sift through all of the nearly 13,000 documents and items the FBI took to identify any that might be protected by attorney-client privilege, even though Justice Department lawyers have said a “filter” team has already completed that task.

Cannon’s ruling could slow down and complicate the government’s criminal probe, particularly if the Justice Department decides to appeal over the unsettled and tricky questions of what executive privilege a former president may have. The judge ruled that investigators cannot “use” the seized material in their investigation until the special master concludes his or her examination.

A special master has yet to be appointed; Cannon has asked Trump and the Justice Department to agree on a list of qualified candidates by Friday. Legal experts noted that the Justice Department can still interview witnesses, use other evidence and present information to a grand jury while the special master examines the seized material.

In her order, Cannon said the appointment of a special master was necessary “to ensure at least the appearance of fairness and integrity under the extraordinary circumstances presented.”

She also reasoned that a special master could mitigate potential harm to Trump “by way of improper disclosure of sensitive information to the public,” suggesting that knowledge or details of the case were harmful to the former president, and could be lessened by inserting a special master into the document-review process.

Kise, the Trump lawyer, cited that part of the judge’s reasoning in his statement Tuesday night in which he denounced leaks in the case.

Cannon wrote that Trump’s position as a former president means “the stigma associated with the subject seizure is in a league of its own” and that a “future indictment, based to any degree on property that ought to be returned, would result in reputational harm of a decidedly different order of magnitude.”

While the FBI search has drawn strong condemnation from Trump and his Republican allies, who accuse the Justice Department of acting with political malice against a past president who may seek the office again in 2024, some Republicans have said the action might have been necessary.

In an interview that aired Friday, former Trump attorney general William P. Barr said there is no reason classified documents should have been at Mar-a-Lago after Trump was out of office.

“People say this was unprecedented,” Barr told Fox News. “But it’s also unprecedented for a president to take all this classified information and put them in a country club, okay?”

 

[47of74]

Of course

Quote

Donald Trump once tried to pay a lawyer he owed $2m with a deed to a horse.

The bizarre scene is described in Servants of the Damned: Giant Law Firms, Donald Trump and the Corruption of Justice, a book by David Enrich of the New York Times that will be published next week. The Guardian obtained a copy.

Enrich reports that “once he regained the capacity for speech”, the lawyer to whom Trump offered a stallion supposedly worth $5m “stammered … ‘This isn’t the 1800s. You can’t pay me with a horse.’”

Accounts of Trump refusing to pay legal and other bills are legion. In New York, his business and tax affairs are the subject of civiland criminal investigations.

I don’t blame that lawyer for saying neigh. Of course he worked for the orange sleaze in the first place. 

Edited September 7, 2022 by 47of74

[fraurosena]

6 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Investigators grew alarmed, according to one person familiar with the search, as they began to review documents retrieved from the club’s storage closet, Trump’s residence and his office in August. The team soon came upon records that are extremely restricted, so much so that even some of the senior-most national security officials in the Biden administration weren’t authorized to review them. One government filing alluded to this information when it noted that counterintelligence FBI agents and prosecutors investigating the Mar-a-Lago documents were not authorized at first to review some of the material seized.

 

6 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

A special master has yet to be appointed; Cannon has asked Trump and the Justice Department to agree on a list of qualified candidates by Friday.

If I interpret these points correctly, there are only a very few people with the necessary security authorization who could even be considered as special master. Because the special master cannot be allowed to potentially view extremely restricted records without it. Such a person would of necessity be part of the current administration-- and they would be well aware of the need to act as fast as possible because of the ongoing security risks.

I wonder if Trump et al had that in mind when they asked for a special master...

[noseybutt]

12 hours ago, Howl said:

ABA deemed her unqualified, she's never tried a case in court, but she got an 11th hour fedsoc useful stooge appointment for just such a situation as this. 

 

I have read contradictory things about her. Some outlets are presenting her as libertarian but that seems at odds with her previous career as a prosecutor. It doesn't add up and that is concerning. 

[GreyhoundFan]

[thoughtful]

1 hour ago, 47of74 said:

“once he regained the capacity for speech”, the lawyer to whom Trump offered a stallion supposedly worth $5m “stammered … ‘This isn’t the 1800s. You can’t pay me with a horse.’”

I love this story.

Trump is hardly Curly from Oklahoma!, protecting his beloved from Jud Fry. He is Jud Fry.

ETA:

1 hour ago, 47of74 said:

I don’t blame that lawyer for saying neigh.

I see what you did there. 😁

Edited September 7, 2022 by thoughtful

[GreyhoundFan]

He really hires the best people. /s