Forgive me, but it's hard to believe 2 years ago a far right supremacist president tried to overthrow democracy and we are supposed to believe the FBI is using this to protect Americans?
The FBI has been mum, but some sources indicate a large FBI presence among the Capitol rioters, and some incitement by them too. If true, this would be typical FBI behavior.
I don't know why this is particularly contentious or controversial. The FBI played a huge role in the Chicago 7 incident in the 70's, which hit progressive democrats. They did the same thing with many other progressive movements in the 70's and 80's. Incitement of riots using informants and undercover agents is a time-honored tradition for the FBI.
Tbf he did fail, was prevented from going himself in person, and over a thousand of the people that he got to go have all been arrested as a result now.
yes the insurrection without weapons led by FBI informants.
meanwhile the govt is trying to jail the leading opposition candidate for 100 years is not overthrowing democracy?
Mobility scooters can be dangerous. Also, the rioting insurrectionist revolutionaries that dropped dead of heart attacks could have caused a tripping hazard.
Trump shouldn't blatently commit crimes if he doesn't want to be charged with them.
Willful retention of national defense information: This charge, covering counts 1-31, only applies to Trump and is for allegedly storing 31 such documents at Mar-a-Lago.
Conspiracy to obstruct justice: Trump and Nauta, along with others, are charged with conspiring to keep those documents from the grand jury.
Withholding a document or a record: Trump and Nauta are accused of misleading one of their attorneys by moving boxes of classified documents so the attorney could not find or introduce them to the grand jury.
Corruptly concealing a document or record: This pertains to the Trump and Nauta's alleged attempts to hide the boxes of classified documents from the attorney.
Concealing a document in a federal investigation: They are accused of hiding Trump's continued possession of those documents at Mar-a-Lago from the FBI and causing a false certificate to be submitted to the FBI.
Scheme to conceal: This is for the allegation that Trump and Nauta hid Trump's continued possession of those materials from the FBI and the grand jury.
False statements and representations: This count concerns statements that Trump allegedly caused another one of his attorneys to make to the FBI and grand jury in early June regarding the results of the search at Mar-a-Lago.
False statements and representations: This final count accuses Nauta of giving false answers during a voluntary interview with the FBI in late May.
According to the indictment, each one of those charges carries a maximum fine of $250,000, with maximum prison sentences between five and 20 years.
either Trump, the only elected official of the executive branch has the highest authority over the executive branch or the archivist has a higher authority than him? if the latter is true, then effectively your third branch is no longer run by a president.
The documents where created by his administration. He can have a copy as much as you can have a copy of your business record or tax returns.
Further every dictator in existence was claiming to rule under the authority of the law, and claimed arrest opposition candidates under such authority. Resorting to arresting your opposition rings hallow to anyone with some shred of common sense.
Trump is not above the law. At least some of the documents (nuclear secrets) are not ones that the president has the legal right to declassify – the statute specifically limits that process – so his only option would have been to pardon himself, but he didn’t even want to admit having done this at the time and likes to pretend that he’s innocent, so he didn’t.
Espionage Act doesn't apply to him. Your president is not a spy, lol.
The document about nuclear secrets he's alleged to be in possession of is the nuclear capability of a foreign country. It's an open secret that it's Israel that has nuclear weapons.
So you want to jail your former president, and leading candidate for 100 years over this document?
I think we both know it's not about that.
Suppose Trump has documents on the letter agencies committing crimes. And they want them back to destroy.
Should presidents be subjugated by them, than who really will be running the country?
The president is the head of the bureaucracy. He's the source authority. Classification is for his benefit, so that people under him don't disclose secret information.
However as the source authority, he can disclose at will.
You don't have to take my word for it.
Here's a Lawyer going over all the legal and constitutionals problems with this indictment.
> The president is the head of the bureaucracy. He's the source authority. Classification is for his benefit, so that people under him don't disclose secret information. However as the source authority, he can disclose at will.
Its a shame that he admitted on tape that he didn't declassify or couldn't declassify the documents he took, and that he shouldn't be in possession of them.
I think you're being misinformed by an out of context quote.
“Secret. This is secret information. Look, look at this,” Trump says at one point, according to the transcript. “This was done by the military and given to me.”
Specifically in that excerpt Trump is referencing information about Milley leaking secret information. In the full context, Trump was saying to that reporter that Milley was the leaking plans to attack Iran. This was the "secret information", given to Trump confirming this by the Military.
Trump is claiming that Milley was the one that was leaking classified information of "Trumps plans" to attack Iran.
Trump had no such ambitions, but it was Milley that wanted such an attack to happen.
As president, it's part of his administration's record that he received that information from the Military. If he want to let the American Public know this information he has the constitutional authority to do so.
However, Milley has no authority to disclose secret military plans, and has committed a crime.
> As president, that doesn't mean that Trump can't disclose that.
But he cannot disclose at least a large amount of what he has been accused of leaking. This article from the American Bar Association[0] is a good primer on what can and cannot be declassified at whim and specifically these two parts are important to this discussion.
>> In all cases, however, a formal procedure is required so governmental agencies know with certainty what has been declassified and decisions memorialized. A federal appeals court in a 2020 Freedom of Information Act case, New York Times v. CIA, underscored that point: “Declassification cannot occur unless designated officials follow specified procedures,” the court said.
>> Some secrets, such as information related to nuclear weapons, are handled separately under a specific statutory scheme that Congress has adopted under the Atomic Energy Act. Those secrets cannot be automatically declassified by the president alone and require, by law, extensive consultation with executive branch agencies.
So it looks like regardless of if that quote is out of context that the President does not have the sole authority to declassify everything.
There are rules for people under the president that are followed for them to disclose information. That doesn't mean the president is restrained under such rules.
Imagine you're the chief executive officer of your household (dad). You can make rules that your kids have to follow, but that doesn't mean you have to follow the same rules. You can have a rule that says "no TV after 10 pm" That doesn't mean you can't watch TV. It just means your kids can't watch TV after 10. As the Dad you're the source of the rules. It would be meaningless for you to restrain yourself to such rules, as you could just as easily unrestrain yourself (being the source of the rules).
Let's assume there's a secret document that says Israel has nuclear weapons.
The president is meeting with the prime minister of Israel, are you saying that the president can't talk to prime minister about their nuclear weapons because congress (DOJ? FBI?) restrained him from disclosing this secret...
It would be nonsensical.
Hypothetically, suppose you are correct. Which branch of government would you like to be telling the president what he can and can't disclose. DOJ? FBI? CIA? Congress?
> There are rules for people under the president that are followed for them to disclose information. That doesn't mean the president is restrained under such rules.
This is precisely not the contents of the article, I see you did not read it all.
The article entirely about the president and his ability to declassify.
Are you tying to suggest you know more than the American Bar Association?.
> Hypothetically, suppose you are correct. Which branch of government would you like to be telling the president what he can and can't disclose. DOJ? FBI? CIA? Congress?
I quoted the answer to this, did you not bother reading it?.
>> Some secrets, such as information related to nuclear weapons, are handled separately under a specific statutory scheme that Congress has adopted under the Atomic Energy Act. Those secrets cannot be automatically declassified by the president alone and require, by law, extensive consultation with executive branch agencies.
The article is bunk, full of double speak jargon, and statements that amount to nothing of value. No wonder it has no author credits.
The BAR association, has proven itself to be a biased leftist controlled organization that wanted to strip anyone that question the integrity of the last election of their Law license.
As to the article:
Misrepresentation of Experts' Views: The article states that "Most national security legal experts dismissed the former president’s suggestion that he could declassify documents simply by thinking about it." However, it does not provide any evidence or references to support this claim.
Inconsistent Information on Presidential Declassification Authority: The article initially states that legal guidelines support the former president's contention that presidents have broad authority to formally declassify most documents. However, it later contradicts itself by mentioning that a formal procedure is required for declassification and that declassification cannot occur without officials following specified procedures. These statements create confusion regarding the extent of a president's authority to declassify materials.
Lack of Clarity on Statutory Protection: The article mentions that documents not statutorily protected can be declassified by the president. However, it does not provide specific information on what qualifies as "statutorily protected" documents. This lack of clarity hinders a comprehensive understanding of the declassification process.
Limited Scope of Court Challenge: The article states that the extent of a president's legal authority to unilaterally declassify materials without following formal procedures has yet to be challenged in court. However, it does not provide any additional context or explanation as to why this issue has not been challenged. This omission leaves the reader with an incomplete understanding of the legal landscape surrounding declassification authority.
> The article is bunk, full of double speak jargon, and statements that amount to nothing of value. No wonder it has no author credits.
The article references most of its claims unlike you, who just spurts out a couple paragraphs random nonsense.
> The BAR association, has proven itself to be a biased leftist controlled organization that wanted to strip anyone that question the integrity of the last election of their Law license.
Screeching about bias because we have no substantive evidence for anything I see.
I think you will find the bar associations around america striped those lawyers of their licenses because they broke the ethical rules associated with being a lawyer.
> Misrepresentation of Experts' Views: The article states that "Most national security legal experts dismissed the former president’s suggestion that he could declassify documents simply by thinking about it." However, it does not provide any evidence or references to support this claim.
Here’s another article with three different presidents that disagrees with your rant and agrees with the actual lawyers (the ABA).
> Inconsistent Information on Presidential Declassification Authority: The article initially states that legal guidelines support the former president's contention that presidents have broad authority to formally declassify most documents. However, it later contradicts itself by mentioning that a formal procedure is required for declassification and that declassification cannot occur without officials following specified procedures. These statements create confusion regarding the extent of a president's authority to declassify materials.
This is untrue the president can have broad declassification powers and still be limited to a formal procedure.
This is not a limitation of the article but more a limitation in your understanding of the article.
> Lack of Clarity on Statutory Protection: The article mentions that documents not statutorily protected can be declassified by the president. However, it does not provide specific information on what qualifies as "statutorily protected" documents. This lack of clarity hinders a comprehensive understanding of the declassification process.
It literally references the definition of restriction data for the DOE at the end of the article but because you seem to be unable to read even quotes I’ll just link it.
> Limited Scope of Court Challenge: The article states that the extent of a president's legal authority to unilaterally declassify materials without following formal procedures has yet to be challenged in court. However, it does not provide any additional context or explanation as to why this issue has not been challenged. This omission leaves the reader with an incomplete understanding of the legal landscape surrounding declassification authority.
It’s never been challenged because it’s never been taken to court before.
It’s never been taken to court before because prior to Trump we didn’t have a president that thought he could declassify anything with his mind nor one that didn’t cooperate when they had taken/removed classified documents.
There’s been an intense, well-funded libertarianism outreach effort for decades and it’s been especially pronounced in the tech sector where relatively high wages and negotiating power let a lot of people tell themselves that they’re in the same group as their CEO, and should vote to give them a tax cut (surely I’ll need that, too!) and freedom from paying for externalities, etc. That meant voting for Republicans over the years and saying that the people they voted for probably wouldn’t really do all of the anti-liberty things they promised to do.
After doing that, for some it’s easier to support Trump than admit making so many mistakes for years. There’s an entire media empire devoted to supporting that decision.
The world is a mean and dangerous place, with genteel civilization a very thin veneer on top. Top secret documents are usually classified as such because the information they contain would cause severe harm to the United States if leaked. Names of spies and design and operations of nuclear weapons are top secret. Leaking the names of spies would get them killed.
You are speaking complete rubbish. Trump didn't have a right to those docs, and he knew it. And speaking of dictators, Trump did try very hard to overturn a fair election he lost.
Indictment says Trump lied, schemed to keep highly classified secrets
The former president faces 37 criminal charges. His longtime valet, Walt Nauta, faces six charges.
Former president Donald Trump stashed sensitive intelligence secrets in a bathroom, his bedroom and a ballroom at Mar-a-Lago, according to a scathing 49-page indictment unsealed Friday against him and a loyal servant who is accused of lying to cover up his boss’s alleged crimes.
The grand jury indictment tells a story of hubris and hypocrisy, describing a wealthy former president living among neck-high stacks of boxes with classified documents scattered inside them, sometimes literally spilling out of their containers. In the prosecutors’ telling, neither Trump nor any of his aides or lawyers appeared bothered by the sprawl of sensitive papers until government agents came calling. Then, the former commander in chief allegedly set out to hide some of what he had.
We don't have a Constitutionally permitted secret police with power over the President about secrecy. It just can't be that way and have a functioning democracy. President is commander-in-chief under Constitution. He determines what's classified. Espionage Act doesn't apply to him.
Finally, The Presidential Records Act (PRA) allows a President access to documents, both classified and unclassified, once he leaves office.
>Former president Donald Trump stashed sensitive intelligence secrets in a
>bathroom, his bedroom and a ballroom at Mar-a-Lago,
You mean like a bathroom in a hotel room turned into a storage room. The horror, lol. The Mar-A-Lago is a large hotel and his residence. Part of it is public the other private. There is security guarding one from the other.
Literally nonsense. You're being manipulated by out of context pictures, of boxes that you don't even know what those boxes contain.
> The grand jury indictment tells a story of ...
The prosecution will always frame their accusations in a most biased damming way. And routinely make allegations that are false or unprovable. The Grand Jury will only hear their side.
Sorry but that's incorrect. The President is granted access to classified information on a need-to-know basis, meaning they must have a legitimate reason to access that particular information for the purpose of carrying out their duties. This is the only restriction, if the bureaucrats are following the law, and he's following the law, he will get access to any secret information if he needs it.
If you think about it, it must be this way because otherwise a secret government would in charge. In fact this is what the entire confrontation is about.
Do we want the only elected representative, and the Person on top of the Executive branch, to be able to tell us what the government is up to.
Or do we want a deepstate shadowy government that commits crimes, and has the right to even censor the president from telling us about it.
Keep in mind at least with the president, you can vote in or vote out. You can't get rid of the shadowy bureaucrats, that don't need your vote.
They're about to spend multiple billions of dollars on a new gigantic FBI headquarters. Do you want these giant organizations sucking up more and more control over your government and people.
