This … this.
(Two “thises” is overkill, but the 9-character police made me expand.)
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I believe that Trump proves that both can be mutually exclusive and exist (especially the latter) in great abundance in a single individual.
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“It’s depressing to me that the first post or so on this thread didn’t snarkily confuse this story as something by The Onion.”
I kind of feel sorry for The Onion. It must make it difficult to parody something that parodies itself.
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I’d be curious to know how Dick Cheney measured up on keeping all the official papers that passed through his office Archives-ready.
That guy was almost as bad as Pruitt. The first thing he did on assuming office was have a walkin-closet-sized vault installed. (Although, that might’ve been for storage/refrigeration of his daily blood-of-the-innocents requirement.)
You just know he didn’t want anything going out (well, except the identities of CIA operatives whose intelligence clashed with his false narrative on Iraq WMDs).
There must’ve been some world-class shredding/deleting going on in his office around January 19, 2009.
Court painter Jon McNaughton’s portrayal of the dear leader, titled Expose The Truth
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Hah! Can you imagine his frustration as he tries to tear it? If anyone sets that up they need to film it. It would also be a good idea to already have another job lined up.
Hopefully nobody introduces the knowledge of the cleansing power of fire to the cave dweller in chief. It’s real hard to tape ashes back together.
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The article also mentions he doesn’t just rip things up and throw them in the garbage, but rips things up and throws them on the ground. Because Trump isn’t just a criminal idiot, he’s also a petulant child.
Yeah. I mean, it’s blatantly against the law, but if no one is going to actually enforce the law with consequences, it doesn’t matter, so he doesn’t have to change his behavior. Which isn’t just a description of the dynamics of Trump’s administration in a nutshell, but also his whole life - breaking laws that never caused him to suffer any real consequences (not counting a fine here and there, aka the cost of doing business). It’s inculcated in him a deep-seated disdain for the law. The law is irrelevant to him (except as a bludgeon with which to hit others).
He doesn’t have any control over that, at all. (Even if he did, Trump is tearing up notes and letters from people outside the White House, so it wouldn’t entirely help.) His job is to take documents that come from the White House and properly file and preserve them. Except they’re coming out of the White House in little pieces.
Well, this is Trump, so probably both.
Their whole department has been gutted from the start of the Trump presidency. I think it’s more a combination of “if Trump can fire people appointed by previous presidents, he will” (he did that, across the board in very stupid ways, literally the minute he entered office) and this administration’s efforts to hollow out the entire federal government. They’ve done this with so many departments, it’s part of a larger pattern, not a targeted attack.
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He has internalized the idea that the law a contest between lawyers and who can hire the meanest ones rather than that it is a set of rules that one should obey.
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“They keep showing me stuff with big words!”
Rrrrriiiip!!!
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What are these tiny black pictures in straight lines? Are these pictures FOR ANTS?
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By what part of Federal criminal law is it a crime?
This is critical for ensuring that at some point, the public has access to these records.
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I’d be happier with a Zoolander President! lol
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It’s a law, but not criminal law.
Maybe not, but that doesn’t mean that there shouldn’t be some sort of consequences for willful violation of this act. Once we decide that someone or other actually is above civil or criminal laws, it’s game over, I’d argue.
Civil law does matter, I think.
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It does. And technically, he’s still in compliance as long as documents are still being turned over regardless of condition. If the documents didn’t make it over the archive, he could get sued by the Archivist (wouldn’t be the first time), and the Archivist could get a court order against him, and if Trump were in violation of the court order, he could be held in contempt (in a court way, not the way we all hold him), and that would be a crime.
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He’s only in compliance because two dudes are taping them together. It’s NUTS that this is the state of affairs. It should concern us, I think.
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And a clear exit path out of the building. Do not go back for that favorite coffee cup!
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It becomes destruction of government property. The records are owned by the government as an entity not the president as a person. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2071
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Revelation 13:4
“And they worshiped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshiped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?”
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