The Walls be Closing

[Joe Ferguson forever]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/mar-a-lago-prosecutors-eye-july-episode-with-trump-surveillance-cameras/ar-AA1bUA33

[Kemp]

https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/31/politics/trump-tape-classified-document-iran-milley/index.html

The Walls be closing.

Not much time left, now.

[Joe Ferguson forever]

Legal analysis..Lawyers, what u think?

https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2023/05/31/trump-federal-prosecutors-audio-recording-evidence-honig-vpx.cnn

[The Frankish Reich]

12 hours ago, redtail hawk said:

Legal analysis..Lawyers, what u think?

https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2023/05/31/trump-federal-prosecutors-audio-recording-evidence-honig-vpx.cnn

I'll bite.

Any classified docs prosecution had one critical hole: intent. Remember Hillary and James Comey's press conference about why he recommended against prosecuting her? He said that it was a case of carelessness - something that could (under the law) support a prosecution, but something that, under the totality of the circumstances, shouldn't be prosecuted.

And up till now that was really Trump's best defense too. Thousands of classified documents flow into the White House, there's always confusion (in Trump's case, self-inflicted chaos) when one president leaves and another comes in, mistakes are made, etc. 

IF (as reported) the audio tapes contain some admission/understanding by Trump that he took (and held onto) an extremely sensitive classified doc about Iran, and IF they also (as reported) contain something on the order of "I wish I had declassified that while I was still President because I can't do that anymore now that I'm not," well, there goes the simple carelessness/negligence defense. 

He'd still be left with something legalistic like this:

 

"The authority to classify and, in turn, declassify documents is inherent in the President's Article II authorities. By taking (or ordering that the documents be taken) out of the White House and into his personally held papers, the President necessarily declassified that document (and the information contained therein); the law does not require any specific action/declaration of declassification. Therefore, even though Trump expressed regret about not issuing a formal declassification memo at the time he was president, this is of no legal effect; as a matter of constitutional law, the declassification occurred when he took the document into his personal possession. To hold otherwise would violate the Article II clause the the full executive power is vested in the President."

 

Note that this is what Trump was already briefed on by his lawyers - it's the origin of the "if I even think to declassify it, it's declassified" comment. Which is stupid on its face because, well, Trump is not the brightest bulb who ever illuminated the Oval Office. But it's stupid in that it's a corruption of the untested, but not laugh-you-out-of-the-courtroom theory that I just outlined above. If Smith recommends prosecution, and if Garland brings a prosecution, it's hard to imagine a federal trial court judge buying that argument. But an appeals court? The Supreme Court? Who knows.

 

Separate and apart from that: how reckless can you be with national security? Is this the guy anyone should ever want back in the position of ultimate responsibility for the national security of Americans?

 

[wnyguy]

2 minutes ago, The Frankish Reich said:

Is this the guy anyone should ever want back in the position of ultimate responsibility for the national security of Americans?

 

Sure.

[SoCal Deek]

9 minutes ago, The Frankish Reich said:

I'll bite.

Any classified docs prosecution had one critical hole: intent. Remember Hillary and James Comey's press conference about why he recommended against prosecuting her? He said that it was a case of carelessness - something that could (under the law) support a prosecution, but something that, under the totality of the circumstances, shouldn't be prosecuted.

And up till now that was really Trump's best defense too. Thousands of classified documents flow into the White House, there's always confusion (in Trump's case, self-inflicted chaos) when one president leaves and another comes in, mistakes are made, etc. 

IF (as reported) the audio tapes contain some admission/understanding by Trump that he took (and held onto) an extremely sensitive classified doc about Iran, and IF they also (as reported) contain something on the order of "I wish I had declassified that while I was still President because I can't do that anymore now that I'm not," well, there goes the simple carelessness/negligence defense. 

He'd still be left with something legalistic like this:

 

"The authority to classify and, in turn, declassify documents is inherent in the President's Article II authorities. By taking (or ordering that the documents be taken) out of the White House and into his personally held papers, the President necessarily declassified that document (and the information contained therein); the law does not require any specific action/declaration of declassification. Therefore, even though Trump expressed regret about not issuing a formal declassification memo at the time he was president, this is of no legal effect; as a matter of constitutional law, the declassification occurred when he took the document into his personal possession. To hold otherwise would violate the Article II clause the the full executive power is vested in the President."

 

Note that this is what Trump was already briefed on by his lawyers - it's the origin of the "if I even think to declassify it, it's declassified" comment. Which is stupid on its face because, well, Trump is not the brightest bulb who ever illuminated the Oval Office. But it's stupid in that it's a corruption of the untested, but not laugh-you-out-of-the-courtroom theory that I just outlined above. If Smith recommends prosecution, and if Garland brings a prosecution, it's hard to imagine a federal trial court judge buying that argument. But an appeals court? The Supreme Court? Who knows.

 

Separate and apart from that: how reckless can you be with national security? Is this the guy anyone should ever want back in the position of ultimate responsibility for the national security of Americans?

 

A very well reasoned explanation Frank…seriously. It was going along quite nice and logically until your antiTrump bias surfaced at the end.
 

To summarize, a President can declassify anything he wants to, but you don’t personally like the particular guy who did it. The End. 

[The Frankish Reich]

4 minutes ago, SoCal Deek said:

To summarize, a President can declassify anything he wants to, but you don’t personally like the particular guy who did it. The End. 

A very well-reasoned and nice comment, Deek, until the last line ...

... Agreed. I don't like the guy who did it. And I don't think the legal theory I outlined will (or should) prevail. From what I know so far, he violated the law (and damaged national security for selfish, self-aggrandizing reasons). I'm trying to be fair, saying that there is a legal theory (look up "Unitary Executive") under which a prosecution could be found unconstitutional. I think that's a misreading of the constitution as it would apply to the facts as I understand them in this case. But it is a plausible defense. I'm just very skeptical of the legal merits of that defense. 

[Doc]

Is it "intent"...to keep it or profit off of it"?  

[Kemp]

Great news day for Trump:

Turns out there's video and audio of Trump saying he KNOWS that he can't do anything with classified docs without facing severe legal consequences.

Now that it looks like Giuliani might be the whistleblower who will bring down Joe Biden, you can't help but laugh at the ineptitude. 

If it's true, will Comer call Giuliani to testify?

Good stuff.

The walls be closing.

[Doc]

Yup, the walls will be closing.  For Joke.  Soon.

[Tiberius]

57 minutes ago, Doc said:

Is it "intent"...to keep it or profit off of it"?  

This is Trump we are talking about

[SoCal Deek]

1 hour ago, The Frankish Reich said:

A very well-reasoned and nice comment, Deek, until the last line ...

... Agreed. I don't like the guy who did it. And I don't think the legal theory I outlined will (or should) prevail. From what I know so far, he violated the law (and damaged national security for selfish, self-aggrandizing reasons). I'm trying to be fair, saying that there is a legal theory (look up "Unitary Executive") under which a prosecution could be found unconstitutional. I think that's a misreading of the constitution as it would apply to the facts as I understand them in this case. But it is a plausible defense. I'm just very skeptical of the legal merits of that defense. 

Well it’s interesting for sure. Either the President can declassify documents or he can’t. And since he clearly can, then I guess the allegations are regarding treason? This should be interesting. 😂

[BillsFanNC]

Hillary created her own private server in her home therby bypassing the security measures in place on official government servers.

 

But don't worry, she was just careless and there was no intent when she intentionally created her own private unsecured server in her home in order to bypass secure government servers.

 

You people are friggin clowns.

 

 

[The Frankish Reich]

14 minutes ago, SoCal Deek said:

Either the President can declassify documents or he can’t. And since he clearly can

This is an argument Trump has lost repeatedly before the courts. It involves confusion between "the President" and "the Presidency." Trump invoked Executive Privilege in an attempt to kill discovery of various documents. The courts said Executive Privilege belongs to "the Executive," as in the current holder of the Executive power (the White House, acting through the duly-appointed President Biden). Since the Biden White House wasn't invoking the privilege, a former office-holder couldn't rely on it.

So ... if the tapes really say what reports say they do, they're very interesting because Trump treats the information in the documents as STILL CLASSIFIED. In other words, he says something like "I'd love to go into detail about that, but I didn't declassify the documents when I was President, and I can't do that anymore now that I'm not President, so I just can't discuss the contents."

 

[It is important to remember here that, as anyone who has had a clearance knows, it's not just the document itself that is classified. It is also the contents of the document. For example, if you look at or discuss classified information in a SCIF, you cannot take notes about the discussion; if you do, those notes are destroyed (e.g., shredded in a shredder qualified for classified that turns paper into something close to powder) in the SCIF. You also cannot talk to other people about what was in the document unless they too have the required clearance level and a need to know. EVERYONE who is given a clearance has to take the course, every year. NO ONE should have any doubt about what the restrictions are]

 

So that's why I added an additional wrinkle to my proposed Trump defense that goes like this:

- I THOUGHT the documents were still classified

- But in reality, I had effectively declassified them by taking them out of the White House while I was still President

 

For those of you wondering, "Is this really a defense that I was too dumb to realize what I was and wasn't doing?"

The answer is: Yes. That is the defense.

-

[wnyguy]

3 minutes ago, The Frankish Reich said:

This is an argument Trump has lost repeatedly before the courts. It involves confusion between "the President" and "the Presidency." Trump invoked Executive Privilege in an attempt to kill discovery of various documents. The courts said Executive Privilege belongs to "the Executive," as in the current holder of the Executive power (the White House, acting through the duly-appointed President Biden). Since the Biden White House wasn't invoking the privilege, a former office-holder couldn't rely on it.

So ... if the tapes really say what reports say they do, they're very interesting because Trump treats the information in the documents as STILL CLASSIFIED. In other words, he says something like "I'd love to go into detail about that, but I didn't declassify the documents when I was President, and I can't do that anymore now that I'm not President, so I just can't discuss the contents."

 

[It is important to remember here that, as anyone who has had a clearance knows, it's not just the document itself that is classified. It is also the contents of the document. For example, if you look at or discuss classified information in a SCIF, you cannot take notes about the discussion; if you do, those notes are destroyed (e.g., shredded in a shredder qualified for classified that turns paper into something close to powder) in the SCIF. You also cannot talk to other people about what was in the document unless they too have the required clearance level and a need to know. EVERYONE who is given a clearance has to take the course, every year. NO ONE should have any doubt about what the restrictions are]

 

So that's why I added an additional wrinkle to my proposed Trump defense that goes like this:

- I THOUGHT the documents were still classified

- But in reality, I had effectively declassified them by taking them out of the White House while I was still President

 

For those of you wondering, "Is this really a defense that I was too dumb to realize what I was and wasn't doing?"

The answer is: Yes. That is the defense.

-

So were the documents unclassified when he brought them out of the Office or not, regardless if Trump was dumb?

[Westside]

1 minute ago, SUNY_amherst said:

This is America. trump is NOT king... yet

 

he cannot do whatever he wants and claim "executive privilege" ... judges should wipe their a## with the paper trump's legion of lawyers make the claim with

That goes for everyone, not just Trump. Most of our politicians on both sides are corrupt. I think it’s time to end your diatribe against Trump and focus it on career politicians who have profited greatly while we suffer. 

[Tiberius]

1 minute ago, Westside said:

That goes for everyone, not just Trump. Most of our politicians on both sides are corrupt. I think it’s time to end your diatribe against Trump and focus it on career politicians who have profited greatly while we suffer. 

The "Everyone is corrupt" argument is just a dodge for Trump 

[Westside]

1 minute ago, Tiberius said:

The "Everyone is corrupt" argument is just a dodge for Trump 

You don’t think there are corrupt politicians? Trump is not a career politician. The bidens, pelosi’s, mcconnells of our world just happened to become multimillionaires by honest means? 
 

1 minute ago, SUNY_amherst said:

thanks for the advice but the discussion in this thread is the corrupt actions of donald trump why would I discuss anyone else?

Because corruption is rampant in our government. You should most definitely care. 

[Tiberius]

Just now, Westside said:

You don’t think there are corrupt politicians? Trump is not a career politician. The bidens, pelosi’s, mcconnells of our world just happened to become multimillionaires by honest means? 
 

Trump is by far the most corrupt person in our government. 

[Westside]

Just now, Tiberius said:

Trump is by far the most corrupt person in our government. 

Are you serious? He may or may not be corrupt. But he is far from the most corrupt. You’re letting your personal bias cloud your judgment.