Donnie Dumptruck says Mar-A-Lago's been searched by the FBI

[Anonymous]

Taking the filings at face value, the contention seems to be the DOJ did a bad law thingy and Trump and Keacken 2.0 have no idea what what siezed, so please give us more detailed description of the materials and, oh by the way, tell us the reasons you asked for a warrant to search property owned by a former president.

I don’t give much credence to the proposition that Trump doesn’t know, but the storage seems haphazard at best and Trump’s lawyers would be foolish to believe anything he says, particularly with regard to his knowledge about classified materials that were taken from the WH. OTOH there could be confusion about whether particular documents were handed over as part of the 15 boxes pursuant to subpoena or siezed on August 8. Bobb is in a singular bind given that she provided DOJ with a certification that documents had been returned. And we may never know the significance of what the CCTV surveillance tapes reveal.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I will offer a contrarian view. Trump suffers from a form of narcissistic personality disorder. He was the president and who was anyone else to tell him that he wasn’t allowed to keep “his documents” relating to something he may have considered to be a success of his presidency. So he started to hoard things — including classified materials — with the thought that successive administrations would not give him the credit he thought he deserved. Was it unlawful? Yes. Was it incredibly irresponsible? Yes. Did he put US secrets at risk? Almost certainly. Has he improperly shared classified information in the past? No doubt. But do I think he was selling national intelligence secrets? No.

Has this been the case, DOJ would not have handled the matter with the care and patience it did. It would come as no surprise to anyone that Trump did not turn over presidential records that became the property of NARA on 1/20/21. Something like the infamous Sharpie hurricane map. It was no secret he had aides remove boxes from the West Wing to the residence during the course of January. And senior staff attempted to discuss his legal obligations to surrender documents during that same period.

After repeated efforts to recover the documents, a grand jury was empaneled to subpoena the missing presidential records. Only then was there a recognition that Trump had taken voluminous classified material. And it would subsequently be discovered that his attorneys lied about the possession of such material all-the-while there was no meaningful effort to secure material tossed in boxes with raincoats and golf balls. But Trump was fully aware of the importance of some of the material. It’s the reason that boxes continued to be moved in and out of the storage area and some were found in the closet of his private office suite.

But we still have no indication that Trump was seeking to affirmatively misuse the material for personal or political gain. The time allowed to pass between May and August doesn’t seem to support this was the case. Nonetheless the counterintelligence professionals couldn’t have been happy about Orban visiting MAL earlier in the month and other foreign contacts that have not been made public. Let’s hope this was ultimately more a matter of securing positive control over the material and not something more sinister.

I don’t even know what to say to this.

DP and let me caveat that I hate Trump. I think he is a dangerous authoritarian. I believe January 6th and the efforts around it were an attempted coup/autogolpe.

But I agree with the PP's assessment. I don't think Trump cares one bit about this country or about IC safeguards or the like. But I also don't find it plausible that he was feeding information to a foreign intelligence service on any sort of routinized basis. He's too erratic to take direction from anyone. I think the danger is actually that a foreign intelligence service recruits/co-opts a staffer, or plants someone and that person leverages their access to get Trump to share information or documents.

I absolutely think Trump should be in jail for improperly handling classified, or at least charged and fined. Plus the taking of records he didn't have a right to take. It's completely possible that the records at Mar a Lago were exposed to people that shouldn't have had access to them. I just don't really buy all these crazy stories that Trump exposed assets! Or Trump gave up nuclear information!

It makes for good stories, but I wonder if you have people that are expecting Trump faces treason charges and when he doesn't they lose even more faith in our government and judicial system. I don't think it's a healthy information environment.

You're off your rocker. Just look at the three very reasonable crimes laid out in the warrant. That's it. There's no bloody treason. Those three are serious enough, and can be proved.

***Trump does not need to have monetized his information to be jailed***

***Trump does not need to have INTENDED to sell out agents to EFFECTIVELY sell them out!***

Same thing for nuclear secrets.

Multiple average people have already come forward to say that while guests of Trump, they were shown documents that looked confidential (exact classification uncertain).
That's what he does!!! He cannot live by himself. He has to live at a club with the constant adulation of guests. The way he feeds that adulation is to show them things no one else can show them.
He has a pathological need for recognition and it leads him to share national security docs with all and sundry.
And we already know a Chinese agent was apprehended at Mar-a-Lago at one point. It's obvious there were many more spies.

The obvious scenario is that he showed compromising agent information to someone from the other side, without even thinking he was putting anyone in danger.
He may have also done this with nuclear info.

The other obvious scenario is that his staff has either done the same thing or monetized the information for their own gain (cough-Kushner).

IT'S ALL JAIL-WORTHY.

DP. Interestingly, the FBI's search affidavit lists all the classified handling markings on the documents they seized. The marking that is used for nuclear was not on the list. There are other very concerning markings, but not the ones for nuclear.

I don't think this is about nukes. I think it's about spies. He gave up our spy identities and got them killed.

It is ALSO about nukes. He and Flynn have been funneling nuclear information to the Saudi's for years.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/flynn-backed-plan-transfer-nuclear-tech-saudis-may-have-broken-n973021

Note the words ‘may have’ and ‘planned’ in your article. They are important

There is an investigation for a reason. Trump didn’t tweet about all of his misdeeds.

All the Dems do is investigate. It’s to leak to media and sow discord

Trust me, the discord was already sown. Democrats aren't sowing any new discord.

[Anonymous]

Old enough to remember 10 investigations concerning Benghazi.

[Anonymous]

House democrats kinda suck at the whole investigations thing. They’ve wasted the past 18 months except for Jan6.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Old enough to remember 10 investigations concerning Benghazi.

It's like MAGAs have no memory.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I’m confused about what this special master would do. Say he determines a document is subject to executive privilege. Then what? That basically proves it belongs to the government and trump illegally had it.

A special master typically operates behind the scenes because they are supposed to act in a role as impartial advisor to the court who can make findings and recommendations to the court. Filings may not be docketed. Hearings — such as they are — may not be transcribed or open to the public. It provides cover to Trump.

That doesn’t answer the question. Trump wants a special master to determine what docs are subject to executive privilege. So what if the special master does that? What is the result? Surely they won’t give him the docs back. What’s the point?

Trump...doesn't control executive privilege.

We can expect him to argue otherwise based on language in US v. Nixon characterizing certain presidential communications as presumptively privileged. NARA has explained the reasons Trump is not correct but he’s simply trying to kick to can closer and closer to the midterms and the presumptive announcement of his candidacy.

Even if they were once covered by Executive Privilege doesn’t make them Trump’s personal documents. It means they are Presidential records that belong to the National Archives. Trump doesn’t get to keep government property.

I’m not sure anyone is arguing otherwise. Even Trump’s filing only seek return of materials outside the scope of the warrant (and presumably not presidential records).

https://www.justsecurity.org/82873/assessing-trumps-claim-of-executive-privilege-on-fbi-access-to-mal-docs/

Anything covered executive privilege is by definition a presidential record. And his filing doesn’t mention any other privileges, like AC. That is what is so baffling about the request, and the judges apparent decision to go with it.

It's not baffling the judge went along with it at all - she is a partisan Trump judge who will do whatever she can to help him.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I’m confused about what this special master would do. Say he determines a document is subject to executive privilege. Then what? That basically proves it belongs to the government and trump illegally had it.

A special master typically operates behind the scenes because they are supposed to act in a role as impartial advisor to the court who can make findings and recommendations to the court. Filings may not be docketed. Hearings — such as they are — may not be transcribed or open to the public. It provides cover to Trump.

That doesn’t answer the question. Trump wants a special master to determine what docs are subject to executive privilege. So what if the special master does that? What is the result? Surely they won’t give him the docs back. What’s the point?

Trump...doesn't control executive privilege.

As I understand it, there’s still an open question on whether a former president can assert it over a current one. DC Circuit said no, but SCOTUS affirmed on different grounds and a number of justices expressly disagreed. I bet that never gets decided in this case though because SCOTUS clearly held in the Nixon cases that executive privilege cannot be used as a shield in a criminal prosecution.

That case was about the legislative branch getting records from the executive branch. Doesn’t apply here.

[Anonymous]

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It just gets worse and worse and worse!

The Post buried the mother-of-all-ledes. A reasonable inference would be that Stephanie Grisham has testified before the DC grand jury about the manner in which DJT handled classified information and more specifically how it was handled during trips abroad. The information attributed to her puts this right over the target zone. In other words, the ongoing GJ investigation isn’t limited to how documents were stored in an unsecured basement at MAL or whether they’re presidential records belonging to NARA. It’s ultimately about what Trump was doing with these documents whether in the private residence or during travel abroad. Who was he sharing the information with? And for what purpose? This dovetails with arguments about “declassification” advanced by Kash Patel and the MAGA disinfo army upon removal from the West Wing in an attempt to confuse and reframe the issue — that is, Trump did nothing illegal if he shared classified documents and it was just a matter of time before Kash and John Solomon released all of it. They doth protest too much. Trump isn’t going to sweat being caught with some classified documents in his possession. It’s not in his nature. And it’s not what he learned from Roy Cohn. It doesn’t warrant as much smoke — and shiftiing narratives — as the disinformation machine is producing in near panic mode.

Trump is desperate to find out in greater detail what materials were siezed by the FBI because he alone knows what he did with the information (or what the likes of Jared, Manafort, Flynn, Tom Barrack, Roger Stone or Solomon may have done with it). Did Trump prepare a second pardon for Stone? If so why was it siezed? Did it relate to a ratf8cking op on Macron? Trump did not make that many international trips.

This dovetails with the cited predicate for the warrant under 793(e) (Espionage Act) and 1519 (obstruction). It’s another reason the GJ was used to issue subpoenas for the MAL surveillance footage characterized in reports as capturing people removing and replacing boxes. As has been obvious for the past three weeks this is plainly about more than a failure to turn over presidential records even if that was the genesis of the investigation.

The icing on the cake? Bobb and Corcoran are each witnesses to a possible obstruction charge if not directly implicated as an accessory. It was Bobb who put herself in Giuliani’s warroom at the Willard on 1/5 with rest of the extras from Star Wars bar scene. My money is on complicit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m confused about what this special master would do. Say he determines a document is subject to executive privilege. Then what? That basically proves it belongs to the government and trump illegally had it.

A special master typically operates behind the scenes because they are supposed to act in a role as impartial advisor to the court who can make findings and recommendations to the court. Filings may not be docketed. Hearings — such as they are — may not be transcribed or open to the public. It provides cover to Trump.

That doesn’t answer the question. Trump wants a special master to determine what docs are subject to executive privilege. So what if the special master does that? What is the result? Surely they won’t give him the docs back. What’s the point?

Trump...doesn't control executive privilege.

As I understand it, there’s still an open question on whether a former president can assert it over a current one. DC Circuit said no, but SCOTUS affirmed on different grounds and a number of justices expressly disagreed. I bet that never gets decided in this case though because SCOTUS clearly held in the Nixon cases that executive privilege cannot be used as a shield in a criminal prosecution.

That case was about the legislative branch getting records from the executive branch. Doesn’t apply here.

Whereas Trump wants to get documents "back" from the Executive branch under an executive privilege that actually means they are the ones entitled to the docs, not Trump. He never understood the Office of the President. He thought it was all about Him personally.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

It just gets worse and worse and worse!

The Post buried the mother-of-all-ledes. A reasonable inference would be that Stephanie Grisham has testified before the DC grand jury about the manner in which DJT handled classified information and more specifically how it was handled during trips abroad. The information attributed to her puts this right over the target zone. In other words, the ongoing GJ investigation isn’t limited to how documents were stored in an unsecured basement at MAL or whether they’re presidential records belonging to NARA. It’s ultimately about what Trump was doing with these documents whether in the private residence or during travel abroad. Who was he sharing the information with? And for what purpose? This dovetails with arguments about “declassification” advanced by Kash Patel and the MAGA disinfo army upon removal from the West Wing in an attempt to confuse and reframe the issue — that is, Trump did nothing illegal if he shared classified documents and it was just a matter of time before Kash and John Solomon released all of it. They doth protest too much. Trump isn’t going to sweat being caught with some classified documents in his possession. It’s not in his nature. And it’s not what he learned from Roy Cohn. It doesn’t warrant as much smoke — and shiftiing narratives — as the disinformation machine is producing in near panic mode.

Trump is desperate to find out in greater detail what materials were siezed by the FBI because he alone knows what he did with the information (or what the likes of Jared, Manafort, Flynn, Tom Barrack, Roger Stone or Solomon may have done with it). Did Trump prepare a second pardon for Stone? If so why was it siezed? Did it relate to a ratf8cking op on Macron? Trump did not make that many international trips.

This dovetails with the cited predicate for the warrant under 793(e) (Espionage Act) and 1519 (obstruction). It’s another reason the GJ was used to issue subpoenas for the MAL surveillance footage characterized in reports as capturing people removing and replacing boxes. As has been obvious for the past three weeks this is plainly about more than a failure to turn over presidential records even if that was the genesis of the investigation.

The icing on the cake? Bobb and Corcoran are each witnesses to a possible obstruction charge if not directly implicated as an accessory. It was Bobb who put herself in Giuliani’s warroom at the Willard on 1/5 with rest of the extras from Star Wars bar scene. My money is on complicit.

OK now explain it in simple words my non-lawyer, non-DC brain can understand.

[Anonymous]

Trump has found himself in deep, deep sh1t and will need a team of much, much better lawyers.

[Anonymous]

Conservatives have never cared about misuse of classified information unless it was HRC. Remember Valerie Plame?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Conservatives have never cared about misuse of classified information unless it was HRC. Remember Valerie Plame?

Thanks for reminding me! Yep, they never cared.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Conservatives have never cared about misuse of classified information unless it was HRC. Remember Valerie Plame?

And Trump pardoned Scooter Libby. Time is a flat circle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Old enough to remember 10 investigations concerning Benghazi.

It's like MAGAs have no memory.

The goldfish of voters.