ChiGoose

Don't forget the FBI breaking protocol to hurt Clinton and probably hand the 2016 election to Trump. Or the time the DoJ found countless instances of the Trump campaign working with the Russians and did... nothing with it. Or the time the DoJ outlined multiple times when Trump himself committed obstruction of justice but they decided to wait out the statute of limitation for... reasons. Or the time the FBI scuttled the background check of one of Trump's SCOTUS nominees despite more than 4,000 tips. You know, that DoJ and FBI definitely is in the tank for the Dems, right?

All institutions are made of people and all people are fallible. Just because somebody screws up or one person in a large group has bad intentions doesn't necessarily mean the entire endeavor is compromised. It is helpful to keep things in context. As someone who spent the majority of my life believing the Dems are the bad guys and who is now begrudgingly allied to the most incompetent party ever, I have no problem criticizing the dems.

Anyone have a subscription to WSJ? Looks like they took 10 boxes worth of documents during the search but I can't get to the article.

So wanting to make the elites comply with the law is an elitist position and opposing any attempt to make the elites comply with the law is the anti-elitist positions? Do I have that right?

The White House should not be coordinating with the FBI on ongoing investigations. It's not plausible deniability, it's how things are supposed to work.

I cannot guarantee anything but I am very willing to bet that the middle class will not be bled dry by the new IRS auditors. What they should do is just have the IRS prepare the returns for most Americans. Employers provide the information to the IRS anyway but we have to guess what they have because lobbyists won't let congress simply the process. If you are not a contractor and get a W-2 every year, the IRS basically already has everything they need. You should be able to just view it and either approve or change it.

So this will prove out to be false. But it's weird to me that all these people complaining about the elites naysay any action of actually holding elites accountable. I don't get it.

Hopefully nobody in the White House knew ahead of time. It wouldn't be appropriate for the administration to have been briefed on this beforehand.

Ok, so a law that mandates that the IRS use additional resources to go after the elites means they won't do it? So are you saying that it is impossible to enforce the tax law against the elites and we shouldn't even try?

What other way should they have done it? They wanted to be sure they had all the documents, what other way is there to do that than to physically go there and check? From what we know, it seems that they coordinated with the secret service detail, arrived in plain clothes, and many of the people who were there didn't realize what was going on while the search was happening. I think that beats the heck out of a pre-dawn no-knock with SWAT teams knocking down the door.

Got a new job this year with a significant pay bump and better work-life balance. Definitely doing way better than I was when I was working 60-80 hours per week for peanuts. Has nothing to do with who was president though.

I doubt he has clearance. Presidents generally don't need clearance since they own the classification of information by virtue of being president. No SF-86 required. . Former presidents can be read into classified info at the request of the current president, but I don't believe former presidents maintain any clearance on their own. So a big concern (and I am NOT saying this is what happened) would be someone selling secrets. Documents with TS/SCI info on them would be very valuable and could make someone a good chunk of change. Less malicious would simply be that those documents belong to the national archives and should not be stored outside of its custody. If they did not believe they had received all of the documents taken from the White House, they would likely want to search to ensure there are no documents remaining at Mar a Lago that shouldn't be there. Since these are physical documents instead of digital ones, it's not as simple as just ensuring files were deleted or removing a server or two.

Did Trump declassify the documents while he was still president? I haven't seen anything on that. There are a lot of questions that we don't have answers to (but it's not preventing people from jumping to conclusions) but if this was all political, Trump could just make the search warrant public and show it's about some paltry little thing and didn't justify the FBI actions.

The law as crafted is to give the IRS resources to target high wealth individuals and corporations with complicated tax structures. I am absolutely in favor of ensuring that all Americans are subject to our tax laws, not just the poor and middle class. If they use the funds improperly, they should be punished for it. So I will ask you for a third time: Do you think the IRS should enforce tax laws against the elite?

From reports, they showed up in plain clothes and the secret service brought them where they needed to go. Many people in the building didn't realize what was happening until after. Which seems very discrete.

so the FBI search of Mar a Lago is a deep state democratic plot to elect a republican president in 2024?

The point is to make him president in 2024?

So what you're saying is that you *don't* want the elites to be audited. Ok then...

There's a real chance that what happened here is: In the chaos of closing up the Trump White House, they just grabbed everything, not realizing they took classified materials. When asked to return it, Trump refused for whatever reason (could be as innocuous as he thought the stuff was his), but then ultimately returned it when he realized he could get in trouble. The GSA then looked at the documents and felt that they were missing some and referred it to the FBI who obtained and then executed a search warrant. Maybe they find nothing. Maybe they find some things and take them, but ultimately decide this wasn't malicious and do not file charges. Maybe there is something deeper going on here (like selling access / information) that they will charge. We don't know right now. But it would be nice if Trump would make the search warrant public.

This is insane. Just so you know. This is the rantings of someone who has completely lost touch with reality. Log off. Go touch some grass. The internet is rotting your brain.

Ok, let me ask you something. Should the IRS spend more time and resources enforcing tax laws against the elite? If so, would you support them getting additional resources to do so? If not, why?

Nah, I'm sure the guy who rips up documents and throws them in the toilet handled all of those documents properly and provided the GSA with everything they asked for...

So let me get this straight: The FBI trying to obtain evidence when classified material was improperly handled is a political stunt? Interesting...

And this is why you're opposed to the IRS getting resources specifically to target the elites?

They are bringing in auditors because without more resources, all they can do is audit wage earners on W-2's. High wealth individuals have incredibly complicated tax returns that make it difficult to audit. If you want the IRS to be able to audit them as well, you should want it to have more resources. However, if you would like to starve the IRS of resources, then all they will do is audit middle class Americans because it's easier. Also, big government is a bipartisan thing, buddy. Administrations of both parties have increased government spending, but at least the Dems don't run up the massive deficits that the GOP does.