Apparently some of the documents recovered are of a level of secrecy that they are meant to only be accessed in a special supervised chamber (SCIF). We'll never know even a hint of their contents, but keeping them in your office at a golf club is probably frowned upon. Someone is going to do serious prison time for this, so Trump needs a few fall-guys, quickly.
Fall guys?
He'll offer up kushner first then his kids.
I'm shocked to learn that a grifter might grift.
nickc
Full MemberI can’t stop laughing that Trump has been shafted by legislation that he signed onto the books. It will never not be legitimately funny.
Trump's legacy is now officially amazing. And it'll drive the pronoun lunatics crazy, all this time he was saying "lock her up" but he apparently was using her interchangably with him, he's agenda fluid.
I chatted to Mark Thomas today, his current stage show has a riff about <still> not being at peak real-world satire, that every comedian thinks it's coming but every time you reach that point there's another thing that's funnier and madder- he's literally had to change it already because he had a joke about mortgages for the unborn that came true in the weeks since he thought it was a really good absurdist policy,... but he reckons this might be the event that rewrites everyone's politics shows. Someone go in a couple of days and see what he makes of the new material.
Mind you he also said I have tory diabetes so I'm taking off a star for that.
what do we recon ? offering us intelligence on Iran to the Saudis for cash ?
I think people are getting a bit overexcited here. Just possessing classified documents without permission is a breach of the espionage act, you don't have to be trying to sell them or anything. I doubt he was trying to sell the. Here are my theories, they could all be simultaneously true:
1. He took everything he could from the White House because some of the documents are incriminating for him (for example, records showing he wanted to impose military rule during the insurrection). He's too lazy to go through them all and remove the relevant ones so he just took everything.
2. He's still play acting being president for wealthy donors at Mar a Lago. They contribute $100k and get to hang out with him for the day. He takes them back to his office and shows them the safe full of documents marked "Top Secret" so prove that he's still relevant.
3. Someone told him that he's not allowed to take stuff from the White House. His response was, "**** you, I'm President, I'll do whatever I want." So he took stuff just to prove that nobody's going to boss him around.
Also, as far as prosecutions go, he can be prosecuted just for possessing the documents, there's no requirement to prove intent to do anything with them. Prosecutors know that and they will probably only prosecute for possession because intent is much harder to prove. I think he deserves to be prosecuted and thrown in jail, but I think a lot of people are going to be disappointed that he's not going to be charged with spying for another country or anything outlandish like that.
I think people are getting a bit overexcited here. Just possessing classified documents without permission is a breach of the espionage act, you don’t have to be trying to sell them or anything. I doubt he was trying to sell the. Here are my theories, they could all be simultaneously true:
I dont care what he gets ****ed for, so long as he gets ****ed.
People like him deserve it, if for nothing more than taking advantage of peoples gullibility and prejudices, for little more than corruption and ego. Him and the likes of Alex Jones have been pushing people into some harmful perceived realities. *****.
I think people are getting a bit overexcited here. Just possessing classified documents without permission is a breach of the espionage act, you don’t have to be trying to sell them or anything. I doubt he was trying to sell the.
A former president being investigated under the Espionage Act is quite unusual and exciting, though. He doesn't need to be stood under a streetlight in East Berlin with a suitcase full of secrets.
I dont care what he gets * for, so long as he gets *.
Couldn't agree more.
A former president being investigated under the Espionage Act is quite unusual and exciting, though.
Yes, it's easy to overlook that even the most innocent explanations are still utterly unprecedented. And that includes Richard Nixon.
If no indictment follows this, he truly is the Teflon Don. All these documents, some reportedly of the very highest level of secrecy, were in his personal office. There is literally no legal defence available to him.
I think people are getting a bit overexcited here
Don't be a killjoy thols2! 😉
I think #2 and #3 of @thols2 's speculations are the most likely to me, especially if some-one from some obscure branch of the Govt like a library told him. I don't think he'd be bothered at all if it was incriminating. Trump's left a paper trail of all his criminality all his life, it's never bothered him before.
Yes, it’s easy to overlook that even the most innocent explanations are still utterly unprecedented. And that includes Richard Nixon.
Agreed, it is massive. But the fact that this current edition of the Trump show is on the main news websites front pages, but more of a byline than a massive banner headline is a true indictment as to where the world is currently - both in term of the absurdity of the Trump presidency and its afterglow but also what else is currently going on nationally and globally. Kind of terrifying really.
The question now is whether he immediately throws his hat into the ring for the 2024 presidency to try to deflect prosecution. If it proceeds, it would take a couple of years to get to court, so creates a real possibility that the GOP could be saddled with a candidate with a court date.
If it proceeds, it would take a couple of years to get to court
You’re making out there are shades of grey that can be argued in court. With this stuff, the act of simply copying or removing it is an offence, you are briefed when it’s given to you to acknowledge you understand the protocols. It’s got to be kept inside a locked cabinet inside an access-controlled room, not in a golf-club basement. You’re not allowed a mobile phone in the same room. Simply having it in your possession outside a controlled environment is an offence. They’ve been trying to get it back since Trump left office but he/they chose to ignore it. If a regular civilian or military person with the right clearances did this, it’s instant dismissal, probably jail.
This is important. There was apparently an informant, with quite a lot of suspicion that it was a Secret Service agent. Another interesting (but unconfirmed) leak is that the FBI are fingerprinting all the recovered documents to try to establish who had accessed them. If Trump had been showing off to his buddies about how he had a big stack of classified files, then those people would also be liable for prosecution. Their best defense would be to come forward as cooperating witnesses and plead that they did not realize at the time what was going on.
https://twitter.com/MarkSZaidEsq/status/1558143916985171969
he’s agenda fluid.
Deserves more recognition
So, the guy - Ricky Shiffer who attacked the FBI in Cincinnati on Thursday and was later shot and killed by the cops , has already been dismissed by some of the Alt-right sites as a false flag...How pissed off would you be if you were the ghost of Rick?
How pissed off would you be if you were the ghost of Rick?
The ironing is unsurpassed.
It's good to see Trump in trouble, but sadly it wont heal the divisions he's stoked.
I could see another January 6th event on the cards of he gets charged
I agree with someone earlier who said people are getting a bit over excited....see below from a US Law professor in the Guardian
Although it is called the Espionage Act, it does not necessarily mean that Trump took the documents with the intention of passing them to a foreign power. The statute also covers more minor offences – for example, someone who is lawfully in possession of documents, photos and so on and passes them to anyone not entitled to receive it, or fails to hand it over to officials who ought to have it.
It can also apply to someone who “through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody” and fails to report it.
Fines can be imposed, and the justice department may be satisfied with getting the secret documents back under lock and key.
“I still think an arrest and a prosecution are low probability,” Vladeck said. “From the government’s perspective, it seems like at least part of this exercise was about just removing things from President Trump’s possession, and that’s been accomplished, whereas arresting him and prosecuting him raise a whole different slew of political complications.”
I too worry that the division and extremism that he has stoked will boil over.
The only winners here are nations that gain from an unstable, divided USA.
It’s good to see Trump in trouble, but sadly it wont heal the divisions he’s stoked.
I could see another January 6th event on the cards of he gets charged
Yeah, I don't know how you de-escalate that the mess he created
If it starts to look like he's in genuine legal trouble Trump will accuse the FBI of planting any documents he shouldn't have had at the direction of Joe Biden, his lunatic followers will believe every word of it and the US will become even more divided than it already is
If it starts to look like he’s in genuine legal trouble Trump will accuse the FBI of planting any documents he shouldn’t have had at the direction of Joe Biden, his lunatic followers will believe every word of it and the US will become even more divided than it already is
He already has. Thing is, he was such a strategic genius that while he was president, he declassified the fake documents that the FBI planted so possessing them wasn't a crime anyway.
Woppit's post 7 years whicb started this thread referred to '...comedy gold'.
If only.
It's all been dark, divisive and deeply damaging.
The only comedy will be if/when he gets a jail sentence.
When it comes to Trump and legal matters, only one question is worth considering: is he locked up?
Nope, then Teflon Don carries on regardless.
Thing with Trump is that he's quite authentic in his ignorance and petulance. Every other Republican is trying to copy his act, but most of them are graduates of elite universities and their phoniness is transparent. One day, however, someone who is authentically ignorant will turn up and take up the torch. That will be frightening.
Rodney Dangerfield just nailed Trump without knowing it.
Woppit’s post 7 years whicb started this thread referred to ‘…comedy gold’.
If only.
It’s all been dark, divisive and deeply damaging.
The only comedy will be if/when he gets a jail sentence.
I think he’ll do a Jimmy Saville and get away with it all.
I just can’t see him ever doing jail,everyone else yes but him no.
Biden will have to pardon him to avert a civil war.
Biden will have to pardon him to avert a civil war.
I'm not sure on the legal details. A full pardon might let him run again. Just commuting the sentence would not, I guess. One of the implications of a pardon is acceptance of guilt. Trump would obviously twist it into a claim of innocence.
Biden will have to pardon him to avert a civil war.
I think he'd rather have the civil war.
Rodney Dangerfield just nailed Trump without knowing it.
If Trump was like Dangerfield's character in Caddyshack, that would be a vast improvement.
And some of the stuff the FBI recovered from MAL is several big notches beyond 'classified' if the reports are to be believed.
If he really did take TS/SCI categorised documents home with him and refused to return them despite formal requests to do so it's very very hard to see how he avoids jail, if he'd been a 'normal' civvie he wouldn't have been asked nicely or even been publically arrested, he'd have just been dissapeared.
The expression 'Top Secret' gets bandied about in popular culture so much that I think we've lost sight of just how seriously the secrets contained by documents with that designation are guarded in the US system.
The DOJ are handling this with kid gloves because of the huge political aspect but don't underestimate how serious a crime the theft of TS/SCI material is, regardless of whether or not he actually 'did' anything with them.
Biden will have to pardon him to avert a civil war.
I don't think you can back down if it gets to that point. Maybe commute the sentence, but not absolve him of the crimes. Any nutters who want to take on the democratically elected government of the US, with all it's might, well, good luck to them.
Heheh it is kinda funny watching from a distance.
The mental gymnastics from the trump side.
Surely it's a question of strict liability. There's no wiggle room. If you did it you are guilty.. Simple as that.
Not sure if that is a thing in the USA.. But I'd be very surprised if he's not guilty as sin.. The FBI will have known damn well they'll get him on something or they wouldn't have even bothered to raid him in the first place...
It would be too much of a risk for them given the perceived political climate in the USA.
Let's be honest, trump is a real wrong 'un.
If the only outcome of this is that he's barred from running again that's a plus. I suspect that it might be a bit more serious than that though...
But again the small but very vocal group of trumpists are a worry.. So maybe the best political thing to do is bar him from politics.
Then it's up to trump how he deals with the various private law suites against him.
Side note...
He must be running out of heavy hitting lawyers prepared to represent him and must be scraping the barrel now.
If I was an up and coming hot shot solicitor, with a reputation to protect there's no way in hell I'd want to get associated with this craziness.
Biden should maintain his stated policy of strict impartiality.
Leave it to the DoJ.
Indeed! Biden doesn't really have any blood in this game.
You know when trump has done something wrong he keeps his gob shut and hides for a bit.
I believe he went "no comment"
So send him to San Quentin for 5 years
no comment
5th Amendment.
I do wonder if the cult members will be shouting 5 more years at his rallys.
My US colleague, just a regular citizen like us, interested in the whole Trump bit of a mess, and the myriad legal knots he's being tied in, reckoned his only way out ultimately is to do a moonlight flit to Riyadh or Moscow.
Tho you have to wonder if Riyadh would have to balls to give him asylum
susepic - that's why I asked the question in an earlier post...how long before the DoJ declare him a flight risk and confiscate his passport(s).
his only way out ultimately is to do a moonlight flit to Riyadh or Moscow.
Chances of this being possible went down to zero after the raid, I suggest.
