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dontmeantobepoliticalbut · 11 months

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Surveying the reactions of top Republicans after Donald Trump’s indictment on charges of mishandling classified information, you’d think the country was in the midst of a coup.

“It is unconscionable for a President to indict the leading candidate opposing him,” House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy tweeted. “The weaponization of federal law enforcement represents a mortal threat to a free society,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis claimed. “There is no limit to what these people will do to protect their power & destroy those who threaten it, even if it means ripping our country apart,” Sen. Marco Rubio declared.

These are extraordinary claims — and all made on Thursday night before the indictment or the evidence behind it was made public. On Friday morning, we learned thanks to CNN that Trump is literally on tape in 2021 discussing having documents in his possession that he knew were still classified. “As president, I could have declassified, but now I can’t,” he reportedly said.

The tape may or may not prove dispositive in a court of law; there’s certainly room for good-faith disagreement on the strength of the case against Trump. But the tape is at least very strong evidence that these charges are not some kind of Biden-mandated witch hunt but instead based on very serious allegations of wrongdoing.

Yet top Republicans — including Trump’s leading rival for the 2024 election — have shown no signs of changing their tune, and instead are lining up behind Trump’s conspiracy theory that special counsel Jack Smith is leading Joe Biden’s personal Stasi.

This paranoid reaction to Trump’s indictment is not a surprise. Over the past several years, the political right has been captured by a worldview that sees the entirety of mainstream society arranged against it. According to this thinking, America’s “woke” power elite, including ostensibly neutral institutions of governance like the Justice Department, is determined to stamp out the conservative way of life. You are either with us or against us — and attempting to send Trump to jail, whatever the reason, puts you on the wrong side.

Such once-fringe thinking now dominates the Republican Party at the very highest levels. Whether people like McCarthy and DeSantis actually believe it is immaterial: The fact that they feel the need to say such wild things indicates just how central anti-institutional paranoia has become in Republican politics.

The dangers of this going forward, as Trump faces trial and America faces an election where he is the GOP’s most likely presidential candidate, should not be underestimated. A democracy whose basic institutional functions come under attack is a democracy in mortal peril.

THE PARANOID STYLE IN REPUBLICAN POLITICS

The entire Trump phenomenon was, from the very beginning, about conservative fear of losing America. Study after study after study has found that Trump voters in the GOP primary and electorate are motivated by a concern that the United States is becoming literally unrecognizable: populated by people who look different and think differently than they do.

The fears of the base were reflected in the language of the elite. In 2016, the most famous intellectual case for Trump in 2016 was Michael Anton’s “Flight 93” essay — which argued that these changes were transforming the government in ways that handed more and more control over American government to the left. Anton spoke of a “bipartisan junta” that controlled the centers of power and wielded it against conservative institutions, a kind of soft coup against ordinary Americans backstopped by demographic change.

“Our side has been losing consistently since 1988,” Anton wrote. “The ceaseless importation of Third World foreigners with no tradition of, taste for, or experience in liberty means that the electorate grows more left, more Democratic, less Republican, less republican, and less traditionally American with every cycle.”

Anton’s essay, seen as fringe at the time, captured an essential linkage of the Trump era: between the traditional conservative sense of alienation from mainstream American culture and growing hostility to its governing institutions. The general conservative sense that they were losing America demographically and spiritually could easily be translated into a case that the government itself was hostile to their interests.

So when Trump began facing legal trouble during his presidency, at first over his campaign’s ties to Russia, he ran a version of the Anton playbook (Anton was, at the time, serving in Trump’s White House). He argued, in now-familiar but then-novel terms, that the investigation was a “deep state” plot against Trump — that special counsel Robert Mueller and his investigators were Democrats who sought only to destroy his presidency.

Faced with this challenge, the rest of the Republican Party had a choice: They could defend the underlying integrity of the Justice Department, even while remaining skeptical of the merits of this specific investigation, or fully accede to the Trumpist “witch hunt” narrative. We know which one they chose, and we know why they chose it: Trump had built such a powerful following on the basis of his paranoid critique of America that any Republican who challenged it risked career suicide.

The Russia investigation set a pattern that would endure for the entire Trump presidency. Again and again, when faced with credible allegations of wrongdoing, Republicans indulged Trump’s wildest fantasies out of either fear or genuine belief. The Anton worldview, once the province of cranks, evolved into the official narrative of the Republican Party — an evolution cemented when Trump attempted to overthrow the 2020 election and the party elite permitted him to do so.

In the Biden years, with Republicans out of power, the narrative of an entire government arranged against them only became more credible in the eyes of the base. Surveys consistently showed that a large majority of Republicans believed his claims of voter fraud; political scientists have shown that this belief is likely genuine and that Republican politicians who parrot Trump’s lies improve their standings in the eyes of the base.

The result is a party that has, in the past several years, grown increasingly radicalized against the core institutions of America. They believe that everything in America is turning against them: not just the traditional enemies like the media and Hollywood, but also the military, big business, and even the US Olympic team. If you express agreement with the left on anything from LGBTQ issues to Trump’s fitness for office, you are an enemy of the right.

The dangers of this shift cannot be overestimated. Republicans are already vowing to “bring accountability to the DOJ” (DeSantis) and “hold this brazen weaponization of power accountable” (McCarthy). If Republicans do win the White House in 2024, the chances of an attempt to turn the Justice Department into an actually political institution are very high. If Trump is their candidate, it’s basically a certainty.

And if they lose — well, January 6 showed us what could happen when Republicans believe they’ve lost illegitimately. And we’re already seeing paranoia about this indictment bleed over into paranoia about the upcoming election.

“Biden is attacking his most likely 2024 opponent. He’s using the justice system to preemptively steal the 2024 election. This is what’s happening, plain and simple,” writes Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH).

Democracy depends on both sides respecting the rules of the game. But one side has decided, without any real evidence, that the rules are rigged against them — and have demonstrated a willingness to disregard them as a result.

#us politics #news #vox #classified documents #classified documents probe #donald trump #republicans #conservatives #2023 #department of justice #jack smith #ag merrick garland #rep. kevin mccarthy #gov. ron desantis #Sen. Marco Rubio #sen. j.d. vance #Michael Anton #conspiracy theorists

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stalkerkyoko · 11 months

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aye trump now under arrest 2 eletricboogaloo

#classified documents probe #usa politics

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xtruss · 3 months

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Special Counsel Won't Charge Demented, War Criminal and “Genocidal Joe Biden” in Classified Docs Probe, Despite Evidence He 'Willfully Retained' Materials

He Said a Potential Jury Might See Genocidal Biden as an "Elderly Man With a Poor Memory." WTF?

— ByPierre Thomas, Alexander Mallin, Lucien Bruggeman, and Katherine Faulders | February 8, 2024

President Joe Biden delivers remarks at the House Democratic Caucus Issues Conference in Leesburg, Virginia, February 8, 2024. Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters

Special counsel Robert Hur said he will not recommend charges against President Joe Biden for his handling of classified documents while out of office, despite finding evidence that Biden "willfully retained" materials -- capping a yearlong investigation that loomed over the 2024 presidential election.

And he drew a bright line with the case against former President Donald Trump, who faces a criminal indictment for his handling of classified documents after he left office, saying that Trump refused to return his documents and "obstructed justice." Trump has pleaded not guilty.

Nonetheless, throughout the 388-page report, Hur painted a dim picture of the president -- one that his political opponents immediately seized on -- as an elderly man with memory issues who could not remember when he finished his term as vice president or when his son, Beau, died.

"We conclude that no criminal charges are warranted in this matter," said Hur's report. "We would conclude the same even if there was no policy against charging a sitting president. "

This was despite the fact that the special counsel "uncovered evidence that President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified information after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen," the report said.

"These materials included (1) marked classified documents about military and foreign policy in Afghanistan, and (2) notebooks containing Mr. Biden's handwritten entries about issues of national security and foreign policy implicating sensitive intelligence sources and methods," said the report.

The materials were found in "the garage, offices, and basement den in Mr. Biden's Wilmington, Delaware home," the report said.

'Elderly War Criminal and Genocidal Man With a Poor Memory'

Ultimately, Hur's office felt that the "evidence does not establish Mr. Biden's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt."

And Hur believed that there were numerous reasons why a potential jury could find reasonable doubt at trial, notably that Biden could come across not only as "sympathetic," but forgetful and not capable of the willfulness required to convict.

Notably, Hur believed that at trial Biden could come across not only as "sympathetic," but forgetful and not capable of the willfulness required to convict.

"We have also considered that, at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory," the report said. "It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him -- by then a former president well into his eighties -- of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness."

The report also stated that "Mr. Biden's memory was significantly limited, both during his recorded interviews with a ghostwriter in 2017, and in his interview with our office in 2023."

Attorneys for Biden blasted the special counsel's characterization of the president's memory and recollections during his two-day interview with investigators in October.

"We do not believe that the report's treatment of President Biden's memory is accurate or appropriate," wrote Richard Sauber, special counsel to the president, and Bob Bauer, a personal attorney for the president. "In fact, there is ample evidence from your interview that the President did well in answering your questions about years-old events over the course of five hours."

The attorneys noted that the interviews took place in the midst of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, when Biden was busy "conducting calls with heads of state, Cabinet members, members of Congress, and meeting repeatedly with his national security team."

"It is hardly fair to concede that the President would be asked about events years in the past, press him to give his ''best" recollections, and then fault him for his limited memory," they wrote.

Biden, speaking Thursday afternoon in Virginia, noted the differences between his case and Trump's, and how the special counsel in his probe had decided not to press charges.

"This matter is now closed," Biden said.

Garage box and storage closet of President Joe Biden's garage taken on Dec. 21, 2022, in a photo released by the Department of Justice. Department of Justice.

Differences with the Trump Case (What a Bullshit? Crime is a Crime)

Trump has sought to link his circumstances to Biden's by trying to draw an equivalence between their conduct and calling his prosecution the result of a justice system improperly targeting Republicans.

But records subsequently released by the National Archives indicate that Biden's legal team cooperated with National Archives officials, whereas federal prosecutors have accused Trump of deliberately withholding records he knew to be classified from investigators with the National Archives and, later, the FBI.

Hur's report drew that distinction, saying, "Most notably, after being given multiple chances to return classified documents and avoid prosecution, Mr. Trump allegedly did the opposite. According to the indictment, he not only refused to return the documents for many months, but he also obstructed justice by enlisting others to destroy evidence and then to lie about it."

"In contrast," the report said, "Mr. Biden turned in classified documents to the National Archives and the Department of Justice, consented to the search of multiple locations including his homes, sat for a voluntary interview and in other ways cooperated with the investigation."

Documents Stretch Back Decades

Hur's report said investigators found documents marked classified from as far back as the 1970s, including a box labeled "International Travel 1973-1979" containing materials from Biden's trips to Asia and Europe that included "roughly a dozen marked classified documents that are currently classified at the Secret level."

According to the report, among the classified documents Biden retained were materials documenting his opposition to the troop surge in Afghanistan, including a classified handwritten memo he sent President Obama over the 2009 Thanksgiving holiday, which FBI agents recovered from Biden's Delaware home and its garage.

Asked in his interview with investigators about handwriting on a folder containing marked classified documents about Afghanistan, the report said Biden "identified the handwriting as his, but said he recalled nothing about how the folder or its contents got into his garage."

The report lays out that Biden, in writing his 2007 and 2017 memoirs, worked with a ghostwriter, and in a recorded conversation with the ghostwriter a month after he left office, referenced the 2009 memo -- saying that he had "just found all the classified stuff downstairs."

At that time, Biden was renting a home in Virginia, the report says, and met the ghostwriter there to work on second memoir. He moved out of the Virginia home in 2019 and consolidated his belongings in Delaware, where the report says FBI agents later found the documents marked classified about the Afghanistan troop surge in his garage.

As such, the report says "evidence supports the inference," that when Mr. Biden said the comment in 2017, he "was referring to the same marked classified documents about Afghanistan that FBI agents found in 2022 in his Delaware garage."

Biden 'Created' Classified Documents

The report also said that Biden "created" his own classified documents via his own handwritten notes in notebooks and notecards, some of which Biden brought home with him and stored in "unsecured locations that were not authorized to store classified information-- even though the notebooks."

The report said Biden used notebooks filled with sensitive materials to write his 2017 memoir, allegedly acknowledging to his ghostwriter that some of the documents he relied on might be classified.

"In writing 'Promise Me, Dad,' Mr. Biden relied extensively on the notebooks containing the notes he took during his vice presidency," said the report. The notebooks contained "notes of meetings Mr. Biden attended as well as entries about his other activities during this period. Many of the meetings related to foreign policy and classified information, including the President's Daily Brief, National Security Council meetings, and other briefings. Some of these entries remain classified up to the Secret level," said the report.

The report outlines that in 2017, Biden had expressed displeasure in a conversation with his ghostwriter that notes he had taken after meetings with President Obama had been turned over to the National Archives – telling the ghostwriter he had not wanted to turn the notecards in.

But investigators noted that many of the records found in Biden's home, at the Penn Biden Center, and at the University of Pennsylvania library "could plausibly have been brought to these locations by mistake."

"The evidence suggests that Mr. Biden did not willfully retain these documents," Hur wrote.

Blue folder labeled "Afghanistan" in a box in President Joe Biden's garage in a picture released by the Department of Justice. Department of Justice

Long-Anticipated Report

Hur's long-anticipated report was released Thursday, hours after the White House reviewed the document and announced that "in keeping with his commitment to cooperation and transparency," the president would not assert executive privilege over any portion of the report.

Ian Sams, a spokesperson for the White House counsel's office, said in a statement that the president's legal team had completed a review of the report and that "in keeping with his commitment to cooperation and transparency," the president would not assert executive privilege over any portion of the report.

Attorney General Merrick Garland earlier this week informed key lawmakers that Hur had concluded his investigation, which examined how approximately two dozen classified documents wound up at Biden's personal home and office.

Interior of President Joe Biden's garage storage closet containing Senate documents, Jan. 20, 2023, in a picture released by the Department of Justice. Department of Justice

The records in question date back to Biden's time as vice president, and at least some include "top secret" markings, the highest level of classification.

Garland appointed Hur as special counsel in January of 2023, after aides to the president discovered a batch of ten documents at the Penn-Biden Center in Washington, D.C., where Biden kept an office after his vice presidency.

A second discovery of additional records in the garage of Biden's Wilmington, Delaware, home precipitated Garland's decision to assign Hur as special counsel, ABC News reported at the time.

The report stated that "Mr. Biden's memory was significantly limited, both during his recorded interviews with the ghostwriter in 2017, and in his interview with our office in 2023."

100 Interviews

Investigators interviewed as many as 100 current and former officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, former White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain, and Hunter Biden, the president's son. In October, Hur's team spent two days interviewing Biden himself.

ABC News previously reported that sources who were present for some of the interviews, including witnesses, said that authorities had apparently uncovered instances of carelessness from Biden's vice presidency, but that -- based on what was said in the interviews -- the improper removal of classified documents from Biden's office when he left the White House in 2017 seemed to be more likely a mistake than a criminal act.

The White House had emphasized from the beginning that it would cooperate with investigators. Biden himself repeatedly denied any personal wrongdoing and said he was "surprised" to learn of the documents' existence.

The Hur investigation has played out quietly against the backdrop of special counsel Jack Smith's inquiry into former President Donald Trump's handling of classified records, which culminated last year in a 40-count indictment, to which Trump has pleaded not guilty.

#Genocidal Joe #War Criminal #Classified Documents 📃 Probe #Top Secret Material | Documents #Source: ABC News 📰 🗞️#Clear Evidence #Donald J Trump | Double Standard

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queenvlion · 1 year

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#DOJ names Jack smith special counsel in trump criminal probes #2ximpeached 1 term grifter #3x loser #donald trump #mara lago #classified documents #missing folders #January 6 #january 6 capitol riot #democracyontheballot #the more you know

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ausetkmt · 2 years

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Reuters: U.S. appeals court says Trump criminal probe can resume classified records review

WASHINGTON, Sept 21 (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department can resume reviewing classified records seized by the FBI from former President Donald Trump's Florida home pending appeal, a federal appellate court ruled on Wednesday, giving a boost to the criminal investigation into whether the records were mishandled or compromised.

The Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted a request by federal prosecutors to block U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon's stay barring them from using the classified documents in their probe until an independent arbiter, called a special master, vets the materials to weed out any that could be deemed privileged and withheld from investigators.

The appeals court also said it would agree to reverse a portion of the lower court's order that required the government to hand over records with classification markings for the special master's review.

"We conclude that the United States would suffer irreparable harm from the district court’s restrictions on its access to this narrow—and potentially critical—set of materials, as well as the court’s requirement that the United States submit the classified records to the special master for review," the three-judge panel wrote.

The decision is "limited in nature," the panel wrote, as the Justice Department had asked only for a partial stay pending appeal, and that the panel was not able to decide on the merits of the case itself.

The three judges who made the decision were Robin Rosenbaum, an appointee of Democratic former President Barack Obama, and Britt Grant and Andrew Brasher, both of whom were appointed by Trump.

Trump's lawyers could potentially ask the U.S. Supreme Court, whose 6-3 conservative majority includes three justices appointed by him, to intervene in the matter.

In filings on Tuesday, Trump's lawyers urged the court to keep the stay in place and to allow them under the supervision of the special master, U.S Judge Raymond Dearie, to review all of the seized materials, including those marked classified.

A Justice Department spokesperson did not have an immediate comment. Attorneys for Trump could not be immediately reached for comment.

In an interview on Fox News Wednesday night, Trump repeated his claim without evidence that he declassified the documents and said he had the power to do it "even by thinking about it."

The FBI conducted a court-approved search on Aug. 8 at Trump's home at the Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, seizing more than 11,000 documents including about 100 marked as classified.

The search was part of a federal investigation into whether Trump illegally removed documents from the White House when he left office in January 2021 after his failed 2020 re-election bid and whether Trump tried to obstruct the probe.

Cannon, a Trump appointee herself, appointed Dearie to serve as special master in the case at Trump's request, despite the Justice Department's objections about a special master.

Cannon tasked Dearie with reviewing all of the materials, including classified ones, so that he can separate anything that could be subject to attorney-client privilege or executive privilege - a legal doctrine that shields some White House communications from disclosure.

However, Trump's lawyers have not made such claims in any of their legal filings, and during a hearing before Dearie on Tuesday, they resisted his request to provide proof that Trump had declassified any records. read more

Although the appeals court stressed its ruling was narrow in scope, it nevertheless appeared to sharply rebuke Cannon's ruling from top to bottom and many of Trump's legal arguments.

"[Trump]has not even attempted to show that he has a need to know the information contained in the classified documents," the judges wrote. "Nor has he established that the current administration has waived that requirement for these documents."

The Justice Department previously also raised strong objections to Cannon's demand that Dearie review the seized records for documents possibly covered by executive privilege, noting that Trump is a former president and the records do not belong to him.

While it voiced disagreement, however, the Justice Department did not appeal that portion of Cannon's order. It is not clear if prosecutors may separately seek to appeal other parts of Cannon's ruling on the special master appointment.

"We decide only the traditional equitable considerations, including whether the United States has shown a substantial likelihood of prevailing on the merits, the harm each party might suffer from a stay, and where the public interest lies," the appeals court said.

#trump #special master #stolen documents #usdoj #U.S. appeals court says Trump criminal probe can resume classified records review

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zvaigzdelasas · 3 months

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President Joe Biden “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency,” according to a final report released Thursday by a Department of Justice special counsel.

But special counsel Robert Hur said he was declining to prosecute Biden over his handling of that material.

The FBI found that material in the garage, offices, and basement den in Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware, home. It included documents about military and foreign policy in Afghanistan, and notebooks containing Biden’s entries about national security, the new report said.

“Our investigation uncovered evidence that President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen,” Hur wrote.

“He knew he kept classified information in notebooks stored in his house and he knew he was not allowed to do so.”

But that evidence “does not establish Mr. Biden’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt,” the special counsel wrote.

Hur in his nearly 400-page report wrote, “We have also considered that, at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

“We conclude that no criminal charges are warranted in this matter,” the report said. [...]

Hur was blunt in detailing lapses in Biden’s memory when he was interviewed for the probe.

“He did not remember when he was vice president, forgetting on the first day of the interview when his term ended (‘if it was 2013 - when did I stop being Vice President?’), and forgetting on the second day of the interview when his term began (‘in 2009, am I still Vice President?’),” the report said.

“He did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died. And his memory appeared hazy when describing the Afghanistan debate that was once so important to him,” Hur wrote.

“In a case where the government must prove that Mr. Biden knew he had possession of the classified Afghanistan documents after the vice presidency and chose to keep those documents, knowing he was violating the law, we expect that at trial, his attorneys would emphasize these limitations in his recall,” the special counsel added.

Biden in a statement said, “I was pleased to see they reached the conclusion I believed all along they would reach – that there would be no charges brought in this case and the matter is now closed.”[...]

Trump was charged in June with 37 felonies, including willful retention of national defense information, a violation of the Espionage Act.

Trump had hundreds more classified documents in his possession than Biden did — more than 300 in total, including 102 that were seized during an FBI raid on Trump’s Palm Beach resort home in August 2022. Trump has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Hur’s report Thursday said that the materials recovered from Biden spanned his career in national office from 1973 when he became a U.S. senator, and through his two terms as vice president under former President Barack Obama from 2009 through early 2017.

Biden during his career “has long seen himself as a historic figure,” and during that time collected papers and artifacts that were connected to “significant issues and events in his career,” the report said.

“He used these materials to write memoirs published in 2007 and 2017, to document his legacy, and to cite as evidence that he was a man of presidential timber,” Hur wrote.

Well we're officially never gonna hear the end of this one huh [8 Feb 24]

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reasonsforhope · 1 year

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"A New York grand jury has indicted Donald Trump on allegations linked to a business records investigation related to a "hush money" payment made to adult film star Stormy Daniels. Trump is the first former president in U.S. history to face criminal charges. His attorney Susan Necheles confirmed the indictment. No other details have been released yet.

The specific charge or charges have not yet been made public, and one Trump attorney told CBS News his legal team is "still waiting to learn" details of the indictment.

Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg's office said in a statement that it had contacted Trump's attorney "to coordinate his surrender to the Manhattan D.A.'s office for arraignment on a Supreme Court indictment, which remains under seal," and more guidance would be provided "when the arraignment date is selected." ...

The case stems from a payment made just days before Trump was elected president in 2016. His former attorney, Michael Cohen, arranged a $130,000 wire transfer to Daniels to buy her silence about an alleged affair...

The indictment comes as Trump faces other potential criminal cases. In Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis is mulling charges in an investigation into alleged efforts by Trump and more than a dozen of his allies to undermine [Georgia]'s results in the 2020 election, which he lost to President Joe Biden. A special purpose grand jury conducted a six-month probe last year and delivered a report with its findings to Willis in January. The majority of that report was ordered sealed, at least until charging decisions are made.

In Washington, D.C., special counsel Jack Smith is overseeing two Justice Department investigations into alleged efforts to interfere with the lawful transfer of power following the 2020 presidential election, and Trump's handling of sensitive government documents [note: specifically top secret, classified documents] found at his Mar-a-Lago home and possible obstruction of efforts to retrieve them."

-via CBS News, 3/30/23

TRUMP'S BEEN INDICTED

And by the way he is going to have to surrender himself to the Manhattan DA's office...

Where he will be arrested, fingerprinted, and have his mug shot taken.

(Obviously/sadly he's going to be released instead of held in jail until trial, but STILL)

-via BBC News, 3/30/23

#donald trump #trump #us politics #united states #indictment #trump indictment #trump insurrection #georgia #new york #manhattan #district attorney #alvin bragg #stormy daniels #corruption #2020 election #us president #good news #hope

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whatbigotspost · 11 months

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lolololololololololololol

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dontmean2bepoliticalbut · 1 year

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Soon...

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dontmeantobepoliticalbut · 11 months

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Former House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said the indictment of former President Trump on federal charges last week will make him unelectable in 2024 if he wins the GOP’s primary election.

“If we nominate anybody not named Donald Trump, we’re going to beat Joe Biden,” Ryan said Tuesday during an appearance on CBS This Morning, noting the former president had plenty of “baggage” before last week’s indictment was handed down.

“He’s got a great core of support, and in a primary that’s what you build off of. So it does matter,” Ryan said. “But I think the electability argument is going to become more salient with this event and whatever happens in the future … it’s going to make it easier to make the argument to his supporters he’s not electable.”

“He’s going to cost us the Senate again, he’s going to cost us House seats, and we want to win,” he added.

Trump is slated to be arraigned in Miami on Tuesday afternoon on 37 counts related to his handling of classified documents after he left the White House in 2021. Federal prosecutors have alleged Trump put national security at risk and is in violation of the Espionage Act.

The former president has dismissed the accusations against him as political and told his supporters President Biden is “weaponizing” the Justice Department against him to keep him from claiming the White House again.

Trump and Ryan are frequent foes.

The former president has repeatedly attacked the former lawmaker over his seat on the board of Fox Corp., which owns and operates Fox News, an outlet Trump has grown increasingly sour on since his 2020 election loss.

#us politics #news #the hill #republicans #conservatives #fox corporation #fox news #paul ryan #donald trump #classified documents #classified documents probe #2024 presidential race #2024 republican primaries #2024 elections #2023

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stalkerkyoko · 11 months

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woaaaaah trump indictment again

https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/08/politics/trump-indictment-truth-social-classified-documents/index.html

Donald Trump indicted in classified documents probe, sources say

#tw donald trump #classified documents probe

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daitoshi · 2 years

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Timeline of the raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, for clarity:

2021

January 2021: Trump is stepping down as president and is ordered to return all documents to NARA before leaving office.

May 2021: NARA officials contact Trump's team after realizing several important documents were missing.

Fall 2021: NARA has not received the documents. NARA lawyer Gary stern reaches out to Trump attorney to intervene, asking about several boxes of records apparently taken to Mar-a-Lago during Trump's relocation.

2022

It's been nearly 12 full months since he's been ordered to return all documents, and 7 months since NARA told him directly that they know documents are missing. He has not returned the documents in his possession during this time.

January 2022 - After months of discussions, NARA retrieves 15 boxes of Trump white house records. Some of them are torn up, some reconstructed with tape. NARA says in a statement that the boxes contain some SAP documents - Special Access Programs that severely limit who would have access to that information.

February 2022 - NARA asks Justice department to investigate Trump's handling of White House records, and whether he violated laws related to classified information.

April 2022 - NARA publicly acknowledges that the Justice Department is involved, and news outlets report that prosecutors have launched a criminal probe into Trump's mishandling of classified documents. Around this time, FBI agents begin interviewing Trump aides about the handling of records.

May 2022 - News outlets report that investigators subpoenaed NARA for access to the classified documents already obtained from Mar-A-Lago. This indicates that the Justice Department is using a grand jury in its investigation.

June 2022 - Four investigators, including a Justice Department counterintelligence official, visit Mar-A-Lago seeking info on the classified information Trump had taken to florida. During this meeting, federal officials serve a grand jury subpoena for some of the sensitive national security documents found on the premises. They take those documents with them when they leave.

Trump's attorneys then receive a letter, from federal investigators, asking them to further secure the room where documents are being stored. Trump aides add a padlock to the room. Federal Investigators serve a subpoena to the Trump investigation, demanding surveillance video. Trump's company turns over the footage.

August 8, 2022 - FBI executes a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago, focused on the club area where Trump's offices and personal quarters were located. Federal agents remove 'about a dozen' boxes of materials from the property after this search.

August 11, yesterday, Attorney General Garland revealed that he personally approved the decision to seek a search warrant.

And today the warrant dropped. You can read it here: https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/mar-a-lago-search-warrant-and-inventory/5144e66f50896998/full.pdf

Federal agents who executed the warrant did so to investigate potential crimes associated with violations of the Espionage Act, which outlaws the unauthorized retention of national security information that could harm the United States or aid a foreign adversary; a federal law that makes it a crime to destroy or conceal a document to obstruct a government investigation, and Section 2071, which covers the unlawful removal of government records. None of these laws differentiate information that has been declassified or not.

The Espionage Act in particular, if violated can carry a penalty of up to 10 years in prison per offense.

The search this past Monday seized 11 sets of documents in all, including some marked as “classified/TS/SCI” documents — shorthand for “top secret/sensitive compartmented information,” according to the report. SAPs like TS/SCI are created when the sharing of specific information represents a heightened threat of damaging disclosures, or when a “secret” or “top secret” classification is not deemed sufficiently protective. Documents marked thus are meant to be viewed only in secure govt. facilities.

The Washington Post also revealed an anonymous tip from individuals 'familiar with the investigation' that the FBI agents were looking for classified documents relating to nuclear weapons, though did not say if said documents had been recovered.Per the Atomic Energy Act, the president has no authority to declassify documents relating to nuclear power or weapons.

The last folks in the United States who violated both the Espionage Act and the Atomic Energy Act were executed!

#donald trump #criminal investigations

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