Scarlet Posted August 31, 2022 Share Posted August 31, 2022 Quote Dead to rights And then there's board Trumpist 3 1 Link to comment
Scarlet Posted August 31, 2022 Share Posted August 31, 2022 42 minutes ago, suh_fan93 said: That should be an easy one to flip. Link to comment
knapplc Posted August 31, 2022 Share Posted August 31, 2022 1 minute ago, Scarlet said: That should be an easy one to flip. I would hope they can continue up the ladder until they get enough leverage on enough of these people that some ONE person, at least, outs this guy. The head of the organization can't possibly be innocent when so many other people in the organization are guilty. 1 Link to comment
TGHusker Posted August 31, 2022 Author Share Posted August 31, 2022 When I started this thread soooooo long ago, I had no idea what would be the outcome of the this topic. We are talking treason, obstruction - some of the highest crimes one can be charged with. Trump needs to hope he only gets locked up for life when this is all said and done. Also, he would also rather die a martyr and go out in a blaze of insurrection glory than to ever confess and admit the truth & his guilt. In martyrdom he would incite his cult to rise up in his name and tear the country apart. He'd rather see the country burn then for him to say he was wrong. 2 2 Link to comment
TGHusker Posted August 31, 2022 Author Share Posted August 31, 2022 Good read. I vote for # 1. Money is behind everything Trump does. https://medium.com/politically-speaking/was-trump-selling-access-to-top-secret-documents-5c23bc4df9fb Possible motive #1: selling classified information Quote This would be a pretty huge deal. But it’s not so farfetched when you consider it. Trump’s most significant motivating factor has always been money. The money he made as president by forcing the Secret Service and his aides to stay at his properties was real. Specifically, Trump’s businesses made $2.4 billion during his time as president. A large amount of this came from taxpayers. Trump was also undeterred by the 9/11 victims who protested hosting a Saudi Arabia-backed golfing event at his New Jersey golf club. Whatever Trump has done and continues to do throughout his life, money has always been a motivating factor. But would he go so far as to sell access to classified information? And to whom? Trump, notorious for receiving oral briefings because he hates reading, would unlikely be poring over the documents himself. So why take them? As of this writing, The New York Times reports that some of the documents recovered by the FBI at Mar-a-Lago were classified as “Top Secret.” The Times reports: The person said that the F.B.I. left behind a two-page manifest of what was taken. The F.B.I. does not need to list the substance of every item it removed from Mar-a-Lago, and it is not clear what the inventory will reveal if it is unsealed by a Florida judge. If the manifest is made public, it is likely to be redacted to shield any classified material. But the inventory provided to Mr. Trump’s team does reference an array of sensitive material, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. For example, it alludes to miscellaneous confidential documents as well some [sic] labeled “top secret.” That, in and of itself, is a pretty huge deal. It is also eye-opening, given recent reporting from CNN that the grand jury investigating the theft of the documents had subpoenaed them back in June. In fact, the whole purpose of the FBI warrant was that they had probable cause to believe he did not hand all the documents over. And if the warrant confirms reporting from The Times, they were correct. This leaves us with three distinct possibilities: Trump made copies; and/or He didn’t lawfully comply with a subpoena from a federal grand jury; and/or He and his team lied to the FBI. All three of these are bad. So why is he going to such lengths to keep the information he took? Is he selling it? Is he passing it to foreign countries? National Security experts were surprised that the chief counterintelligence official at the Department of Justice, Jay Bratt, signed off on the motion to unseal the warrant. Possible motive #2: weaponizing it for personal and political purposes Quote We still don’t know the contents of the documents, and it’s unlikely we ever will, given their classification. But whatever is in them, it could be used as leverage against members of Congress, Trump’s opponents, foreign countries, and other people — maybe offering access to that information in exchange for political favors, such as endorsements or donations. Would he go so far as to provide access to this information to countries such as Russia and China in exchange for election interference in 2024? Possible motive #3: to feed his ego Quote He lost the presidency, relegated to history as a rare one-term president. Maybe taking top secret documents was a way to cope with his loss because he got access to documents unique to his position as president that nobody else could get. Perhaps a “trophy” of the presidency. His vanity would be a pretty risky motive. Possible motive #4: he didn’t realize what he was doing Quote This is the most palatable option for Trump and also the most unlikely. Quote The seriousness of top secret information In the government, “confidential,” “classified,” “secret,” “top secret,” etc., are not all synonyms for the same term. Classified information is classified on a hierarchal spectrum, depending on the seriousness of its contents. From lowest to highest, the classifications are as follows: Restricted: “would cause undesirable effects if publicly available.” Confidential: “would cause damage to national security.” Secret: “would cause serious damage to national security.” Top Secret (TS): “would cause exceptionally grave damage to national security.” The documents the FBI reportedly recovered from Mar-a-Lago were classified as “Top Secret.” This information was in Trump’s home as he was throwing New Year's parties and holding large events. Do you see the problem? 1 Link to comment
TGHusker Posted August 31, 2022 Author Share Posted August 31, 2022 Judge Nap writes an editorial on why he believes trump will be indicted - soon. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/aug/31/why-donald-trump-will-soon-be-indicted/ Quote It gives me no joy to write this piece. Even a cursory review of the redacted version of the affidavit submitted in support of the government’s application for a search warrant at the home of former President Donald Trump reveals that he will soon be indicted by a federal grand jury for three crimes: Removing and concealing national defense information (NDI), giving NDI to those not legally entitled to possess it, and obstruction of justice by failing to return NDI to those who are legally entitled to retrieve it. When he learned from a phone call that 30 FBI agents were at the front door of his Florida residence with a search warrant and he decided to reveal this publicly, Mr. Trump assumed that the agents were looking for classified top-secret materials that they’d allege he criminally possessed. His assumptions were apparently based on his gut instinct and not on a sophisticated analysis of the law. Hence, his public boast that he declassified all the formerly classified documents he took with him. Unbeknownst to him, the feds had anticipated such a defense and are not preparing to indict him for possessing classified materials, even though he did possess hundreds of voluntarily surrendered materials marked “top secret.” It is irrelevant if the documents were declassified, as the feds will charge crimes that do not require proof of classification. They told the federal judge who signed the search warrant that Mr. Trump still had NDI in his home. It appears they were correct. Under the law, it doesn’t matter if the documents on which NDI is contained are classified or not, as it is simply and always criminal to have NDI in a non-federal facility, to have those without security clearances move it from one place to another, and to keep it from the feds when they are seeking it. Stated differently, the absence of classification — for whatever reason — is not a defense to the charges that are likely to be filed against Mr. Trump. Yet, misreading and underestimating the feds, Mr. Trump actually did them a favor. One of the elements that they must prove for any of the three crimes is that Mr. Trump knew that he had the documents. The favor he did was admit to that when he boasted that they were no longer classified. He committed a mortal sin in the criminal defense world by denying something for which he had not been accused. The second element that the feds must prove is that the documents actually do contain national defense information. And the third element they must prove is that Mr. Trump put these documents into the hands of those not authorized to hold them and stored them in a non-federally secured place. Intelligence community experts have already examined the documents taken from Mr. Trump’s home and are prepared to tell a jury that they contain the names of foreign agents secretly working for the U.S. This is the crown jewel of government secrets. Moreover, Mr. Trump’s Florida home is not a secure federal facility designated for the deposit of NDI. The newest aspect of the case against Mr. Trump that we learned from the redacted affidavit is the obstruction allegation. This is not the obstruction that Robert Mueller claimed he found Mr. Trump committed during the Russia investigation. This is a newer obstruction statute, signed by President George W. Bush in 2002, that places far fewer burdens on the feds to prove. The older statute is the one Mr. Mueller alleged. It characterizes any material interference with a judicial function as criminal. Thus, one who lies to a grand jury or prevents a witness from testifying commits this variant of obstruction. But the Bush-era statute, the one the feds contemplate charging Mr. Trump with having violated, makes it a crime of obstruction by failing to return government property or by sending the FBI on a wild goose chase looking for something that belongs to the government and that you know that you have. This statute does not require the preexistence of a judicial proceeding. It only requires that the defendant has the government’s property, knows that he has it and baselessly resists efforts by the government to get it back. Where does all this leave Mr. Trump? The short answer is: In hot water. The longer answer is: He is confronting yet again the federal law enforcement and intelligence communities for which he has rightly expressed such public disdain. He had valid points of expression during the Russia investigation. He has little ground upon which to stand today. I have often argued that many of these statutes that the feds have enacted to protect themselves are morally unjust and not grounded in the Constitution. One of my intellectual heroes, the great Murray Rothbard, taught that the government protects itself far more aggressively than it protects our natural rights. In a monumental irony, both Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks journalist who exposed American war crimes during the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, and Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency employee who exposed criminal mass government surveillance upon the American public, stand charged with the very same crimes that are likely to be brought against Mr. Trump. On both Mr. Assange and Mr. Snowden, Mr. Trump argued that they should be executed. Fortunately for all three, these statutes do not provide for capital punishment. Mr. Rothbard warned that the feds aggressively protect themselves. Yet, both Mr. Assange and Mr. Snowden are heroic defenders of liberty with valid moral and legal defenses. Mr. Assange is protected by the Pentagon Papers case, which insulates the media from criminal or civil liability for revealing stolen matters of interest to the public, so long as the revealer is not the thief. Mr. Snowden is protected by the Constitution, which expressly prohibits the warrantless surveillance he revealed, which was the most massive peacetime abuse of government power. What will Mr. Trump say in his defense to taking national defense information? I cannot think of a legally viable one. • Andrew P. Napolitano is a former professor of law and judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey who has published nine books on the U.S. Constitution. 1 1 Link to comment
BigRedBuster Posted August 31, 2022 Share Posted August 31, 2022 Oh...the horror. Maybe she should just refold her G strings and forget about it. Link to comment
Scarlet Posted August 31, 2022 Share Posted August 31, 2022 Whelp we're now on excuse #?.....sorry I've lost track. But it now appears that Trump had top secret documents to write a memoir. So the FBI planted top secret docs that he telepathically declassified and knew the content of so he could write a memoir. So why is he raging about the FBI? Seems like they were only helping with future book sales 2 Link to comment
commando Posted August 31, 2022 Share Posted August 31, 2022 22 minutes ago, Scarlet said: Whelp we're now on excuse #?.....sorry I've lost track. But it now appears that Trump had top secret documents to write a memoir. So the FBI planted top secret docs that he telepathically declassified and knew the content of so he could write a memoir. So why is he raging about the FBI? Seems like they were only helping with future book sales he keeps throwing s#!t at the walls and seeing what sticks. 1 Link to comment
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