Classified Documents

[toucana]

Classified Documents

 

According to Reuters, the WP is reporting that the FBI search at Mar-a_Lago was prompted by concerns at the DOJ that the remaining 12 crates of White House documents unlawfully taken there by Donald Trump contained classified documents about nuclear weapons.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-attorney-general-garland-confirms-fbi-investigating-trump-2022-08-11/

A Twitter thread posted by Mark Hertling offers an overview of federal document classification systems in the US:

https://twitter.com/MarkHertling/status/1557911337468133377

Briefly, the sequence in ascending order of sensitivity is

Confidential

Secret

Top Secret

SAP (Special Access Program)

SCI  (Sensitive Compartmented Information)

The latter is often referred to as TS-SCI and is normally only handled and read in special rooms known as a SCIF  (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility) -  photo below.

Other reporting in the WP had already raised concerns among military advisers that some of the  documents taken to Mar-a-Lago were in the SAP  or ‘Need to Know’ category - raising the obvious question as to why in the world would an ex-president remove such material from the custody of the National Archives, and store it in an insecure basement area of his retirement home in Florida ?

[mistermack]

It just shows how stupid Nixon was. Instead of saying "I am not a crook" he should have said, " You are a crook, for investigating me ". 

It's absolute hogwash, but it actually works with Trump's portion of the American people. 

[swansont]

39 minutes ago, toucana said:

why in the world would an ex-president remove such material from the custody of the National Archives

Was it removed from the Archives, or never turned over in the first place?

30 minutes ago, mistermack said:

It just shows how stupid Nixon was. Instead of saying "I am not a crook" he should have said, " You are a crook, for investigating me ". 

It's absolute hogwash, but it actually works with Trump's portion of the American people. 

Back then there were still Republicans who respected their duty to the Constitution rather than having juts allegiance to their party. They were the ones who convinced Nixon he had to resign, because he was going to be impeached and convicted, which would be a bigger blow since it would detail all his crimes, and the coverup, and be in the public eye for longer. Trump's GOP is different. The vast majority of them either fall in line, or stay silent, when he makes his wild claims.

[toucana]

1 hour ago, swansont said:

Was it removed from the Archives, or never turned over in the first place?

Back then there were still Republicans who respected their duty to the Constitution rather than having juts allegiance to their party. They were the ones who convinced Nixon he had to resign, because he was going to be impeached and convicted, which would be a bigger blow since it would detail all his crimes, and the coverup, and be in the public eye for longer. Trump's GOP is different. The vast majority of them either fall in line, or stay silent, when he makes his wild claims.

The information may well have beeen abstracted from the PDB (presidential daily briefing) which is a digest of intelligence agency briefings passed each day to the president and his top advisors. It was widely reported that Jared Kushner usually read this rather than Trump himself.

Bradley Moss a National Security Attorney who was a guest on the MSNBC Last Word Show yesterday evening made the additional point that classified documents relating to the USA’s own nuclear weapons would fall under the Atomic Energy Act (1954) which has its own even stricter classification systems for RD (restricted data) which can’t be declassified by the President alone. They require a double sign-off from the Department of Energy and AEC.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuNZL1wCoek

Edited August 12, 2022 by toucana
correcting typos 1954 for 1956 and 'data' for'documents'

[Peterkin]

2 hours ago, toucana said:

why in the world would an ex-president remove such material from the custody of the National Archives, and store it in an insecure basement area of his retirement home in Florida ?

Because he intended to remain president or be president again, and either use them to control/threaten/ruin other people, or retain control (however illusory) over some aspect of governance, or conceal transactions/exchanges of a criminal/treasonous nature by himself and various minions. It's quite possible he intended to, and thought he could sort out those documents and choose the ones he actually needed, then perhaps return the rest, or arrogate them to his own "library" for that long, rambling, utterly unreadable ghost-written Trump's Compf - but lacked the requisite level of literacy to complete the task.

Just speculating! He has lots of toilets in that big, pretentious house, right?    

1 hour ago, swansont said:

They were the ones who convinced Nixon he had to resign, because he was going to be impeached and convicted, which would be a bigger blow since it would detail all his crimes, and the coverup, and be in the public eye for longer.

Good thing they contained it! Otherwise, we might be still be hearing the W word.

Edited August 12, 2022 by Peterkin

[iNow]

6 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

Just speculating!

More likely to me is it was another grift to secure LARGE sums of money in exchange for info, most likely from the Saudis (who have also already given more than $2 Billion to Jared Kushner for extremely questionable reasons) and potentially even Russia. 

The DoJ tried less severe means first, including a subpoena this spring that Trump and team ignored. Their lack of compliance is a direct reason for the escalation. 

[geordief]

4 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

Because he intended to remain president or be president again, and either use them to control/threaten/ruin other people, or retain control (however illusory) over some aspect of governance, or conceal transactions/exchanges of a criminal/treasonous nature by himself and various minions. It's quite possible he intended to, and thought he could sort out those documents and choose the ones he actually needed, then perhaps return the rest, or arrogate them to his own "library" for that long, rambling, utterly unreadable ghost-written Trump's Compf - but lacked the requisite level of literacy to complete the task.

Just speculating! He has lots of toilets in that big, pretentious house, right?    

Maybe he thought he could leak them at an opportune time  and put the blame on the Dems.

 

Maybe he went down at night and pretended playing president with his sharpie

 

A bit like  Norman and his mother in Psycho.

 

Doesn't really matter of course in this instance.They were none of his business. 

[Peterkin]

4 minutes ago, geordief said:

Maybe he went down at night and pretended playing president with his sharpie

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32JFfCm37R8

 

[swansont]

29 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

Good thing they contained it! Otherwise, we might be still be hearing the W word.

You might recall Nixon made a comeback as an "elder statesman" starting under the Reagan administration, so he was out of the White House but only out of politics for ~6 years.

 

29 minutes ago, geordief said:

Maybe he thought he could leak them at an opportune time  and put the blame on the Dems.

Copy machines exist. Who can say whether information has or hasn't already been shared?

[geordief]

2 minutes ago, swansont said:

 

Copy machines exist. Who can say whether information has or hasn't already been shared?

Yes ,that had occured to me too. (In any case he has the "best memory")

[Peterkin]

7 minutes ago, swansont said:

Copy machines exist. Who can say whether information has or hasn't already been shared?

Sold? Likely. Shared? Never!

[MigL]

He did return 15 boxes of classified material back in early 2022, but there were suspicions that he still held more at Mar-a-Lago.
Suspicions are not enough for a search warrant, and there is speculation that the DoJ and FBI were tipped off by an 'insider'.
Apparently D Trump is very paranoid of being surveilled and wire-tapped.

Rumours are even suggesting Ivanka or Jared as the moles, in an effort to save their own skins.
What the Feds did NOT find was any sign of Melania.

[Peterkin]

11 minutes ago, MigL said:

What the Feds did NOT find was any sign of Melania.

Oh, say.... That's a lot of ground to dig up!

[MigL]

41 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

That's a lot of ground to dig up!

That would be Ivana, who is dead and buried.
And also in poor tate; my apologies.

[geordief]

45 minutes ago, MigL said:

That would be Ivana, who is dead and buried.
And also in poor tate; my apologies.

Poor taste is probably appropriate.(Melania's poor taste is there for the world to see and marvel at)

It should  be in the Tate Gallery

 

[Peterkin]

5 minutes ago, geordief said:

t should  be in the Tate Gallery

You mean, it's not? Of course, at MoMA, it wouldn't sand out.

 

56 minutes ago, MigL said:

That would be Ivana, who is dead and buried.

They wouldn't need a search warrant. But it's not too late for an exhumation order.

Now, I wonder... would that legally cover a look under the mattress? 

[Alex_Krycek]

Not to worry - none of the classified information had pictures so Trump wasn't interested.

[Janus]

We could find out as early as today what exactly was in the warrant. That is, unless Trump objects to it being unsealed. And even that may only delay things. He could object, the Judge issues a stay to give his attorneys time to present their arguments, and then he'd rule on that objection.  He could very well overrule Trump's objections. (For example, if Trump tried to argue privacy issues, the judge could rule that it's too late for that since he is the one that made the warrant public knowledge in the first place.)

 All these Republicans were howling about "Show us what was in the warrant!",  And Garland's response was, "Well Trump has copies, and he is free to make them public if he wishes.  We were just trying to respect his rights. But, if that's what you really want, okay."    But that's not what they really wanted. They just wanted to howl about the warrant not being unsealed. 

In addition, If Trump objects, and his objection is upheld, then it will be Trump keeping it secret, not the DOJ. (Garland did the legal equivalent of "I am rubber, and you are glue...")

[Peterkin]

17 minutes ago, Alex_Krycek said:

Not to worry - none of the classified information had pictures so Trump wasn't interested.

Should you admit to knowing this?

[geordief]

14 minutes ago, Janus said:

We could find out as early as today what exactly was in the warrant. That is, unless Trump objects to it being unsealed. And even that may only delay things. He could object, the Judge issues a stay to give his attorneys time to present their arguments, and then he'd rule on that objection.  He could very well overrule Trump's objections. (For example, if Trump tried to argue privacy issues, the judge could rule that it's too late for that since he is the one that made the warrant public knowledge in the first place.)

 All these Republicans were howling about "Show us what was in the warrant!",  And Garland's response was, "Well Trump has copies, and he is free to make them public if he wishes.  We were just trying to respect his rights. But, if that's what you really want, okay."    But that's not what they really wanted. They just wanted to howl about the warrant not being unsealed. 

In addition, If Trump objects, and his objection is upheld, then it will be Trump keeping it secret, not the DOJ. (Garland did the legal equivalent of "I am rubber, and you are glue...")

According  to the BBC Trump does not oppose  the bid to unseal the search  warrant.

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-62512360

 

I expect the judge will  very likely release them now in the coming hours.

 

Should be interesting. 

[Peterkin]

37 minutes ago, Janus said:

In addition, If Trump objects, and his objection is upheld, then it will be Trump keeping it secret, not the DOJ. (Garland did the legal equivalent of "I am rubber, and you are glue...")

He's already withdrawn the objection, trying to pretend it was his idea all along to make it public. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-12/trump-calls-for-release-of-search-warrant-documents-used-in-raid

...And it came to pass, in those final days, that the affairs of powerful nation-states were conducted in the idiom of schoolyard taunts...

Edited August 12, 2022 by Peterkin
stupid spell-check

[TheVat]

57 minutes ago, Janus said:

 

 All these Republicans were howling about "Show us what was in the warrant!",  And Garland's response was, "Well Trump has copies, and he is free to make them public if he wishes.  We were just trying to respect his rights. But, if that's what you really want, okay."    But that's not what they really wanted. They just wanted to howl about the warrant not being unsealed. 

 

Yep.  He called the bluff.  And if the warrant stayed sealed, the Republican Right could push conspiracy theories from now up till the midterm elections in November.

I would speculate that Jared is very relieved that the affidavits (the documents that you present to the magistrate judge in order to obtain a warrant) are staying sealed, since they would reveal witnesses.  That could have made for some awkwardness at family dinners.

 

[swansont]

3 hours ago, Peterkin said:

Sold? Likely. Shared? Never!

They may have, at some point in the past, offered to pay someone on Tuesday for a nuclear cheeseburger today. Maybe $2 billion?

What are the odds that TFG secretly tells his lawyers to object, and then when the DoJ says they can't release the warrant owing to the objection, he lies about it and screams coverup?

[Peterkin]

Seems we're already down to finger-waving in the usual direction:

Quote

"President Barack Hussein Obama kept 33 million pages of documents, much of them classified," Trump said. "How many of them pertained to nuclear? Word is, lots!"https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-news-live-warrant-time-update-fbi-raid-unsealed-nuclear-1733106

 

[TheVat]

The National Archives exploded that lie promptly.  Wish all TFG's lies could be handled so quickly.

 

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) assumed exclusive legal and physical custody of Obama Presidential records when President Barack Obama left office in 2017, in accordance with the Presidential Records Act (PRA)," NARA said in a statement.

"NARA moved approximately 30 million pages of unclassified records to a NARA facility in the Chicago area where they are maintained exclusively by NARA. Additionally, NARA maintains the classified Obama Presidential records in a NARA facility in the Washington, DC, area. As required by the PRA, former President Obama has no control over where and how NARA stores the Presidential records of his Administration," the statement from National Archives said.