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The Most Active Threads Since Friday
Catching up since my last post, the topics with the most engagement included Trump's indictment, identifying Americans abroad, too much tourism, and an outstanding college applicant (if true).
As has been my habit, I skipped this blog over the weekend so today I'll look at the most active threads since my last post on Friday. The most active thread during that period was titled, "Lock him up indictment FL" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. This thread is about the indictment of former President Donald Trump on federal charges related to government documents that he took from the White House and kept illegally in his Mar-a-lago residence. The thread is 46 pages and, therefore, too long for me to read completely or provide much in the way of a summary. Suffice it to say that there are significant differences of opinion between Trump critics and Trump supporters. The first group was overjoyed with many posters repeating Trump's frequent demand with regard to Hillary Clinton to "lock her up". This expression, which is mocked in the thread's title, appears to have come back to haunt the former president. Trump's fans, on the other hand, also referenced Clinton, arguing that the failure to prosecute her displayed a double standard. While there is probably nothing that will break through the cloaks of ignorance in which these posters are determined to ensconce themselves, there are significant differences between the cases. As Secretary of State, Clinton established a private email server at the advice of predecessors. Investigations later showed that a very small number of the emails sent to the server contained classified information. However, investigators did not find evidence that Clinton had intentionally or willfully mishandled classified information. In addition, investigators could find no evidence that the server had been compromised by adversaries. Moreover, Clinton made no effort to maintain possession of the classified information once it was discovered. Similarly, a researcher discovered classified documents that had been inadvertently included among documents donated by then Vice President Joe Biden to the University of Pennsylvania. These documents were immediately returned to the government. Subsequent searches by Biden's lawyers discovered classified documents stored in other locations and they were also returned. In Trump's case, his possession of classified documents was discovered fairly quickly and efforts made to have them returned. Trump not only failed to comply, but — according to the indictment — actually obstructed the effort to return the documents. So, whereas the cases of Clinton and Biden involved the inadvertent mishandling of classified information which they cooperated to return, Trump's case involves the failure to comply and actual obstruction of efforts by the Government to regain possession of the documents. It is highly likely that had Trump cooperated instead of obstructing the retrieval of the documents, things would not have come to this.