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A Deeply Fractured US

You have not misread anything.
I didn't think so. SO my question is and I am sure many others have a similar question(s):

1. What did the documents relate to?
2. Who was responsible for the custody and security of said documents?
3. WHY WERE THEY AT A PRIVATE RESIDENCE AND NOT LOCKED UP -Like they should be.

Congress - both houses - should be livid over this breach of security.
 
How true - I had forgotten about that - she got a free pass didn't she?
When you have the right friends, many things are possible. The internecine politics between the various departments in Washington are the stuff of legend. I suspect the State Department hates the Pentagon more than it does Beijing. Hillary was part of the State Department inner Clan, I would not be surprised if they protected their own.
 
I Think Trump's position on these documents is becoming clearer. In a quote from Truth Social he states:

"Number one, it was all declassified. ..."

My guess is that his reasoning will be, I was the President and I declassified them as we boxed them up."

Watch and shoot.

😁
 
When you have the right friends, many things are possible. The internecine politics between the various departments in Washington are the stuff of legend. I suspect the State Department hates the Pentagon more than it does Beijing. Hillary was part of the State Department inner Clan, I would not be surprised if they protected their own.
I’m no fan of Clinton.

But some major differences.


And even so, even if one believes this is somehow on par, if you agree she should be locked up, then there should be no argument that he’s in legal jeopardy. He campaigned on locking her up and had 4 years to do it.

Whataboutism and apologist rhetoric does not somehow null and void this and make this justified. Assuming he is the subject of this investigation and assuming criminal charges will be laid. We still don’t even know if that is the case yet.
 
You're late to the party. GR66 scooped you yesterday afternoon. He showed the real deal. So who's at fault for leading you on? Me or Fox? How much of this Guardian article did you fact check and research? Or did you just accept, being a news outlet, what they put on their website is true?
 
I didn't think so. SO my question is and I am sure many others have a similar question(s):

1. What did the documents relate to?
2. Who was responsible for the custody and security of said documents?
3. WHY WERE THEY AT A PRIVATE RESIDENCE AND NOT LOCKED UP -Like they should be.

Congress - both houses - should be livid over this breach of security.

OS, a POTUS can declassify almost any document and take them away. After that, they can usually be found in the Presidential libraries.
 
OS, a POTUS can declassify almost any document and take them away. After that, they can usually be found in the Presidential libraries.
There is still a process to declassify some documents. Now did he? Don’t know but there would be an appropriate paper trail, he can’t just declare it as he’s packing boxes or whatnot. And Apparently defense documents related to nuclear things is not something even a POTUS can declassify. Again, not sure if nuclear things are at issue.




I’m sure though that the question of declassification will be the argument used.
 
I Think Trump's position on these documents is becoming clearer. In a quote from Truth Social he states:



My guess is that his reasoning will be, I was the President and I declassified them as we boxed them up."

Watch and shoot.

😁
I don’t think it’ll matter. Let’s do a dive into the specifics of the three offences named so far, and then I’ll ‘so what?’ Sorry guys, law nerding here, feel free to scroll and skip.


18 USC 793- Multiple subsections, and they don’t specify in the warrant, but I suspect investigators are looking at d) and or e). In short, if someone:
  • Has lawful or unlawful possession, access to, or control of;
  • Information related to the national defense;
  • That could be used to the injury of the US or advantage of a foreign nation, and;
  • Attempts to or does communicate it to anyone not entitled to receive it, OR wilfully retains and fails to deliver it
Other subsections require intent to basically hand it over to an adversary, but d) or e) are met if someone has the stuff (lawfully = d unlawfully = e) and fails to hand it over or deliver it to the person entitled. The section does not require the information to be classified. Even if declassified, the definition of “defense information” could easily be met.


18 USC 1519- This is an obstruction of Justice offence. Elements:
  • Knowingly;
  • Alters, destroys, mutilates, conceals, covers up, falsifies or makes a false entry in any record, and;
  • With intent to impede investigation or proper administration of a federal matter.
So if you were to falsely say you’ve handed everything over, or that you never had it, or try to alter it, and the intent is to obstruct justice, elements are met. Likewise, does not stipulate classification as a requirement.


18 USC 2071- Concealment, removal, or mutilation:
  • Wilfully and unlawfully;
  • Conceals, mutilates, removes, obliterates, destroys any record, document, thing, etc, OR removes them with intent to do so.
  • Either the materials are in that person’s custody, or they’re in the proper possession of any officer, clerk, public office etc of the US.
Again, no classification requirement.

All three of these offences criminalize, among other things, different misdeeds with respect to the mishandling or destruction/concealment/retention of documents, records etc. declassification does not equate to transferring lawful possession of what are still US government records that are still subject to a legal safeguarding and archiving process. The first offence in particular concerns information pertinent to the national defence- and investigators had PC to believe they would find documents that specifically ticked that box.

Taking this a step further- 18 USC 1924- specifically does criminalize unauthorized removal or retention of classified material. This offence was not named on the warrant but could very much be ‘in play’ in the event that any of the documents recovered were not or could not be (more on that in a sec) declassified.

I don’t know the mechanisms of declassification as a presidential power. I suspect it’s not as simple and I stand as Michael Scott declaring bankruptcy, nor of course could it be retroactive once he lost legal authority. My educated guess is that it requires at least some documentary record which of course would itself become a presidential record. I won’t take bets on whether or not any proper declassification process was followed for the material recovered in the MAL search warrant.

Finally, my understanding is that presidential declassification is not absolute. I place no stock in the talk of ‘nuclear secrets’ until and unless proper government authorities confirm that. Indulging the hypothetical, however, declassification of such matters is a power not vested in the President, but rather held by the Department of Energy. If, hypothetically, materials related to nuclear technology classified as restricted data by DOE could not be unilaterally declassified by the president and he could not make it not an offence for him to retain them outside of proper storage and handling.

So… Classification a) may not matter, b) may not have been properly waived, c) could simply add additional offences rather than negating the ones believed to be supported already by probable cause, and d) might in very limited cases be outside the reach of even a current president to waive.
 
Ladies and gentlemen, the warrant


4 boxes of top secret documents recovered
Yup- discussed above, previous page I think. Also some TS-SCI, which is an order of magnitude worse.

Trump has claimed he declassified it all. That is conceivable, and will be easy for investigators to prove or disprove. If he actually declassified TS-SCI stuff so that he could keep it and make personal use of it, that would be… Well, probably a manifest danger to America’s national security, and maybe that of allies as well.
 
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There is still a process to declassify some documents. Now did he? Don’t know but there would be an appropriate paper trail, he can’t just declare it as he’s packing boxes or whatnot. And Apparently defense documents related to nuclear things is not something even a POTUS can declassify. Again, not sure if nuclear things are at issue.




I’m sure though that the question of declassification will be the argument used.

I'm trying to wordsmith things. I would prefer to present what I see as just unopiniated(by me) news facts. I really don't want to get into the back and forth of things. Not really participating. I'm not there yet, but I can wait until it actually hits court. No matter the verdict, it'll likely end up with the SCOTUS. Given the gravity, I expect they will take it up. I've already drawn my temporary conclusion, in the absence of further developments. So it may change, but I'm not hanging it out here. Too many get upset when I look at thing alternatively.

I agree with what you say.

I think that happened once or twice before😉😁
 
There is very few people that know what is really in those boxes.
It'll come out eventually exactly whatever is in there.
Probably only in very general terms… Assuming there’s ongoing sensitivity about the contents, if used in prosecution they would likely redact all the contents, leaving only the classification headers/footers and probably the use/dissemination caveats. That would likely be supported by sworn affidavits from subject matter experts attesting to the potential harm to national security / national interests, and testimony about classification generally and how those classification markings serve to identify how something must be handled.

You’re likely right that more detail about the contents broadly will leak, and some of it will probably even be accurate. But we likely won’t get any confirmation about specific contents from any source we’ll be able to consider authoritative. I also think (and hope!) that we don’t get anything close to the level of detail that would identify what specifically any document says. The criminal prosecution of a leak or mishandling of classified information is only one tent in the circus, and preserving national security interests may well be a bigger one.
 
I’m guessing he was most likely reported by one of his USSS detail, who accidentally became aware of some of the info and fired up a red star shell cluster…


I say this without talking to any of my friends in the USSS, FBI, DoJ etc. 1) None of them would tell me anything 2) I’m not dumb enough to run theories by them and get myself shut down if I am too close to the truth.


Why;
His detail will be the only ones still with active clearances in that area, thus the understanding of the what, why, how, of Classified material and specific SAP aspects of SCI things, and of course in addition to patriotism, being .gov personnel significant negative effects if they didn’t report.
 
If he actually declassified TS-SCI stuff so that he could keep it and make personal use of it, that would be… Well, probably a manifest danger to America’s national security, and maybe that of allies as well.

That sounds exactly like something he would do.

He should have at least stole area 51 documents.

Once again, it's amazing who we vote for to represent and lead us. At least North America will be captivated, entertained, and distracted for a while.
 
That sounds exactly like something he would do.

He should have at least stole area 51 documents.

Once again, it's amazing who we vote for to represent and lead us. At least North America will be captivated, entertained, and distracted for a while.
Careful about area 51 or Hellyer will appear talking about aliens
 
You're late to the party. GR66 scooped you yesterday afternoon. He showed the real deal. So who's at fault for leading you on? Me or Fox? How much of this Guardian article did you fact check and research? Or did you just accept, being a news outlet, what they put on their website is true?
You, unquestionably, for polluting this thread with an - to my eyes, at least - obviously photoshopped picture and not verifying your sources (which seems to be a common theme).

Didn't mean to be harsh, I just says it as I sees it.

Harris isn’t electable in my book.
Haley is also not going to be able to be nominated. The party is too divided. My running guess is DeSantis. Trump supporters want someone like Trump. DeSantis is similar yet different. Not my cup of tea, like Trump is nit my cup,of tea, but he’s smarter or at least communicates better. He would be a bigger concern if I was a Democrat.

Some see a civil war. i see an increase in Dometsic terrorism and attempted insurrections . It would be ideological and politically led.
My assessment exactly. Harris, as Veep, is the polar opposite of Cheney. Completely ineffectual. 2024 will be an interesting election.

And quite right on the violence aspect. The sides aren't geographically or ethnically separate enough to build up to a war as traditionally understood (for the most part, ''red'' states are almost as blue as they are red, and vice-versa), but you can betchur ass there will be an increase in domestic terrorism and J6 or CHAZ-type events. Case in point below, as relayed by our dear @Navy_Pete
Wow, seeing some reports of shots fired at an FBI office in Cincinnati.

This hyperpartisanship has real world impacts.


Yup- discussed above, previous page I think. Also some TS-SCI, which is an order of magnitude worse.

Trump has claimed he declassified it all. That is conceivable, and will be easy for investigators to prove or disprove. If he actually declassified TS-SCI stuff so that he could keep it and make personal use of it, that would be… Well, probably a manifest danger to America’s national security, and maybe that of allies as well.
Especially when ''President of France'' is directly quoted. I'm fully expecting some public comments from America's allies, and some very harsh words have probably been exchanged in private already. ''America is a liability'' is not a reassuring thought.

I wouldn't be surprised if Trump, being financially troubled, sold classified information to foreign powers. Nothing about him leads me to believe that that would be beyond him.
 
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