What I want to know is what was he planning on doing with all those documents?
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Well, one thing we know for sure - he certainly wasn’t going to read them.
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Dare I say, check Ivana’s casket.
Too soon?
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I really don’t get this kind of doomsaying. While he was president, he had certain formal and informal protections. Even the Trumpsurrection was done while he was president, and the process of investigating and prosecuting that involves some politics.
This is different. These violations occured by definition after he was no longer president. These are very serious charges, once they become charges, and if he’s convicted, they need to throw the book at him in such a way as to make sure no future president, vice president, or any other person in similar power ever thinks about doing this.
Like I posted in another thread, that argument is ridiculous. Article 2 outlines the bare minimum requirements, not maximum limitations. Of course the authors didn’t say, “Oh, and no prior treason, rebellion, or espionage against the country. Duh.”
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Let’s all remember the documents that Chelsea Manning leaked only had “secret” classification and she spent years in jail. (Which would have been decades if Obama hadn’t granted her clemency.) Reality Winner served 5 years in prison for leaking a single “top secret” (not SCI) document.
Many others who merely mishandled classified documents but didn’t otherwise leak them have been handed long prison sentences of 20+ years.
The right wingers were falling over themselves saying how great and deserved this all was.
Now here’s Trump mishandling huge amounts of classified documents — some with top secret/SCI classification which should never leave a specially secured facility. (We don’t know how many, just “a set”.) They also removed several sets of TS, secret, and confidential documents.
And it’s not like Mar-a-Lago is Fort Knox or anything. His residence is accessible to club members and their guests, and it’s known to be a hotbed for foreign spies.
Where’s all the right wingers with their outrage? Oh, yeah — they are too busy shooting the messenger.
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To me this is exactly who Trump is. He so totally would take documents he thought could be valuable, fuck “the law.” To the people who love him its like a mother who finds out her son is a serial killer. “No not my boy. He’s a good boy.” It’s pointless to argue with them.
Also I saw this and appreciated it.
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wikipedia does say there was a scif built at mar a lago.
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I don’t care if he’s under house arrest or not, just take away his fucking internet.
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Sure, when he was President. All recent presidents have had SCIFs in their homes while they were in office.
I think we can be pretty certain the recovered TS/SCI documents were not stored in a SCIF (nor would he have one after leaving office anyway), and I think it’s highly unlikely any of those other storage requirements noted in that (great) image were followed.
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When did these documents arrive a mar a logo? Did they fly down there on 1/20/21 or did they get printed out and boxed up while he was still in office and just “never returned”?
Someone has to have knowledge of when they got moved or generated.
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Second floor. Any questions?
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words don’t together that how
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JMHO: He wouldn’t even have to be convicted of violating the Espionage Act. You can’t get any level of *security clearance if you’re a proven risk. So, how can anyone be the POTUS if they don’t have a security clearance? The lowest is “confidential”; that won’t do the trick for a working POTUS. Just the discovery of the documents, and WH aides’ feeling the need to keep sensitive info from him, should be more than enough to deny him a clearance. The intelligence community knew before this investigation that he couldn’t be trusted with sensitive info.
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what is that thing that is like a dumpster fire, except it’s made of exploding clowns
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The Trump & His Magic Inner Circle Show.
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Planning? It’s possible that this was tripped off by US intel coming across copies of this in some other country, or a tip-off that it soon would be.
These are only “the three statutes which agents are pursuing evidence under”, needed to conduct the search of Mar-a-Lago, which could be just the tip of the fatberg.
These are nicely serious, but might be only the start of his troubles.
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It’s kind of amazing that the “lock her up!” party is now trying to suggest that former presidents should be above the law.
Dare I hope that this ketchup-stain of a human being might actually face consequences for his actions? For the first time ever? Dare I hope?
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There is precedent for people running for President while in federal prison for violating the Espionage Act (Eugene V. Debs in 1920).
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POTUS and members of congress do not need security clearances at all. They’re exempt from the process.
Their aides and staffers, however, do.
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I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump took the stuff just for the hell of it, without even bothering to cook up a justification. He didn’t need a nefarious motive. “These look cool; I’ll take them to show to my pals back at Mar-a-Lago.” Then he dumped them in a room and forgot about them until word started to get out that he’d done a no-no. That’s when the Trumpego kicked into full gear: deny wrongdoing, accuse others of doing what you yourself did, play the victim, double down on the lies and never, ever admit you were wrong. It’s been that sociopath’s M.O. his whole life.
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