Classified Documents

[Peterkin]

17 minutes ago, exchemist said:

True. But the boil must be lanced.

Yeah. Apt metaphor!

[Phi for All]

1 hour ago, exchemist said:

True. But the boil must be lanced. 

Drain the Boil! Make America Non-infectious Again! Lance him up! Give him four more years and he'll take the 5th again!

[exchemist]

29 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

Drain the Boil! Make America Non-infectious Again! Lance him up! Give him four more years and he'll take the 5th again!

Interesting that Liz Cheney is the one wielding the lance. From her concession speech it looks as if this will be her big project for the next year or so. She's using all the language that has been deafening by its absence. At last someone is prepared to say it. The Republican party has indeed been reduced to "a cult of personality". I do hope she gets some traction with the more sensible segment of Republican voters.  

Edited August 19, 2022 by exchemist

[Phi for All]

24 minutes ago, exchemist said:

Interesting that Liz Cheney is the one wielding the lance. From her concession speech it looks as if this will be her big project for the next year or so. She's using all the language that has been deafening by its absence. At last someone is prepared to say it. The Republican party has indeed been reduced to "a cult of personality". I do hope she gets some traction with the more sensible segment of Republican voters.  

American politics in general is a cult of personality, imo. The Republicans want to bomb more brown people than the Democrats do, and Liz Cheney and her dad were the old epitome of that tradition. The new Republicans are mostly split between the Reaganites like Liz who don't care for TFG, the Christian Nationalists who back him, and the Anti-Democracy Extremists who adore him, and none of them want to listen to anything progressive or liberal from anybody, or any kind of compromise even if it's the best thing for everybody. I don't see how she has a chance to bring the party back together, but she could be effective as a spoiler for TFG's chances (if he's eligible to run again).

I'm hoping this is what keeps TFG from running again. You always know he's lying when he uses his trademarked brand of kettle logic. "There are no classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. Documents are automatically declassified by my order. I don't need permission to declassify documents I want to keep." Remember Omarosa and the N-word? "I never called her the N-word. I've been told there's no tape of me calling her the N-word. You can't trust what she says because she's wacky and deranged. The media shouldn't listen to her because they didn't listen when she praised me." It really burns me that so many people are duped by this.

[iNow]

It’s not a problem isolated to the US. Factions are forming globally 

[Peterkin]

27 minutes ago, iNow said:

It’s not a problem isolated to the US. Factions are forming globally 

Oh, scary boy, are the next-door neighbours aware of that!

[iNow]

I don’t understand your post 

[Peterkin]

21 minutes ago, iNow said:

I don’t understand your post 

Mine? I'm in Canada. We have agitators, "guest speakers", new extremist political parties forming, the existing conservatives shuffling relentlessly rightward and being ever less guarded in their rhetoric and affiliations, open, unfounded attacks on elected representatives, anti-vaxxers and other lunatic fringes not only making noise, but death threats against legitimate public figures, attempting to stifle the press, intimidating and physically attacking health-care personnel, and self-avowed Trumpists.

[iNow]

12 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

Mine? I'm in Canada.

Thx for clarifying. I follow now. 

[Peterkin]

And I forgot to mention the marginal, but growing, right-ass holity faction - the pseudo Christians who hope to transport us back to the clean, bright family values of 12th century Europe. https://www.bchumanist.ca/the_rise_of_the_christian_right_in_canada They're not a political force yet, except in that they push the Catholics and Anglicans toward their ... less tolerant side.   

Edited August 19, 2022 by Peterkin

[toucana]

“I am very worried for our agent Trump. They found everything at Mar-a-Lago, they got packages of documents. In all seriousness they say he should be executed as a person that was ready to hand off nuclear  secrets to Russia”  -(Vladimir Solovyov - ‘Evening with Vladimir Solovyov’)

Vladimir Solovyov is a pro-Putin Russian propagandist who hosts a satirical  TV show called ‘Evening with Vladimir Solovyov’ on Russia-1 every Sunday. It’s not exactly meant to be taken seriously - one episode  earlier this year suggested that the Russian army should invade Great Britain and seize Stonehenge. The adage about ‘many a true word spoken in jest’ does however come to mind when reading some of their more outre attempts at SNL style humour about the classified documents raid at Mar-a-Lago.

Earlier this week NYT reporter Maggie Haberman speculated in a podcast that some of the documents Trump stole and took with him to Mar-a-Lago pertained to the Russia investigation led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller between 2017-19.

https://www.businessinsider.com/maggie-haberman-trump-could-have-taken-mueller-probe-documents-2022-8?r=US&IR=T

[toucana]

Two recent news stories that deserve to be read together:

“Investigators may even check for fingerprints on seized Trump documents to determine who accessed  them” https://www.rawstory.com/mar-a-lago-documents/

“Mr Trump went through the boxes himself in late 2021 according to multiple people briefed on his efforts” https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/22/us/politics/trump-mar-a-lago-documents.html     

Unless Trump took the precaution of wearing nitrile gloves whilst rummaging through his personal trove of stolen TS-SCI and CNWDI restricted data, this means that his fingerprints will quite literally be all over said boxes and documents.

This should dispose of any possible legal fudging in court over the distinction between ‘Actual’ and ‘Constructive’ ownership of the contraband, as well as any suggestion that “The Butler did it”.

[CharonY]

3 hours ago, toucana said:

This should dispose of any possible legal fudging in court over the distinction between ‘Actual’ and ‘Constructive’ ownership of the contraband, as well as any suggestion that “The Butler did it”.

I think if they do it, it is more likely to see whether there has been unauthorized access. 

[swansont]

4 hours ago, toucana said:

Unless Trump took the precaution of wearing nitrile gloves whilst rummaging through his personal trove of stolen TS-SCI and CNWDI restricted data, this means that his fingerprints will quite literally be all over said boxes and documents.

That's a non-starter. His fingerprints would be on them if he handled them for legitimate purposes in the course of his presidency or in packing them up. If the fingerprinting shows anything meaningful, it would be to point toward someone unauthorized to handle documents.

The issue with TFG is not whether he handled the documents, it's with him having the documents after Jan 21, 2021, when he was no longer supposed to have them. That they were improperly kept from the government and improperly safeguarded.

[Peterkin]

I don't imagine known spies would neglect to wear gloves - or even touch the paper themselves while photographing. However, the FBI may be collecting evidence of specific crimes by persons other than Trump, against whom they intend to bring separate charges. 

[toucana]

15 minutes ago, swansont said:

That's a non-starter. His fingerprints would be on them if he handled them for legitimate purposes in the course of his presidency or in packing them up. If the fingerprinting shows anything meaningful, it would be to point toward someone unauthorized to handle documents.

The issue with TFG is not whether he handled the documents, it's with him having the documents after Jan 21, 2021, when he was no longer supposed to have them. That they were improperly kept from the government and improperly safeguarded.

Why would his fingerprints be on the storage boxes the documents were found in at Mar-a-Lago, especially given that the FBI apparently have CCTV footage showing staff at Mar-a-Lago repackaging documents and moving them to new boxes *after* NA and DoJ officers had already visited the premises at least once to insist upon their return ? There would be no innocent explanation for that.

[iNow]

4 minutes ago, toucana said:

Why would his fingerprints be on the storage boxes the documents were found in at Mar-a-Lago

Who cares? It’s irrelevant. 

[swansont]

53 minutes ago, toucana said:

Why would his fingerprints be on the storage boxes the documents were found in at Mar-a-Lago, especially given that the FBI apparently have CCTV footage showing staff at Mar-a-Lago repackaging documents and moving them to new boxes *after* NA and DoJ officers had already visited the premises at least once to insist upon their return ? There would be no innocent explanation for that.

I'm talking about the documents.

Fingerprints could be on boxes from before anything was stored in them. I saw a report that Trump boxed some of the things up himself, so that's why his prints would be on them. 

 

[MigL]

3 hours ago, iNow said:

Who cares? It’s irrelevant. 

A little 'short' today, aren't we 🙂 ?
 

It's a good thing someone had the foresight to ask what 'TFG' stands for, and someone else explained 'tThe Former Guy', as I was under the impression it referred to 'The Fu*king Goof'..

[swansont]

1 hour ago, MigL said:

A little 'short' today, aren't we 🙂 ?
 

It's a good thing someone had the foresight to ask what 'TFG' stands for, and someone else explained 'tThe Former Guy', as I was under the impression it referred to 'The Fu*king Goof'..

I use the latter, myself.

[J.C.MacSwell]

12 hours ago, swansont said:

I use the latter, myself.

The latter guy would be TLG...

and I'll see myself out...

[toucana]

The redacted affidavit says that 184 classified documents were found unfoldered in the first tranche of 15 boxes returned by Trump in January 2022. The classification markings on them included;

HCS - (Human Control System) - These are CIA field reports that relate to secret agent debriefings.

SI  - (Signals Intelligence) - These are NSA intercepts from eavesdropping and codebreaking sources.

NOFORN - (No Foreign) -  Sensitive material not to be shared even with friendly allied intelligence agencies.

ORCON - (Originator Control) - The original source agency must consent to its wider dissemination.

None of these documents should ever be found outside of a SCIF.

The affidavit also seems to imply that the DoJ had not one but multiple sources telling them that there were further boxes of classified documents still being concealed at Mar-a-Lago. If I were a betting man, I would put £5 on the likelihood that they were tipped off by members of the other law enforcement agency who were present at Mar-a-Lago, namely the Secret Service agents serving as the protective detail to the FPOTUS.

 

[TheVat]

I also wouldn't rule out Jared as possible Mar A Mole.  Emphatic denials notwithstanding.  His remarkable two billion dollar check from the Saudis suggests he could have been in fairly deep and needed to provide something big to flip on TFG.  

The Guardian, earlier this month, reported that multiple Trump aides believe it was a family member who tipped off federal law enforcement about the classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.  And Michael Cohen sees Jared as a possible mole.  

 

[paulsutton]

On 8/12/2022 at 2:09 PM, toucana said:

It was widely reported that Jared Kushner usually read this rather than Trump himself.

 

So is this standard procedure with other presidents or just with Donald Trump,  as in would Obama, Clinton, or Kennedy have asked someone else to read a document of such importance.

it seems as commander in chief you have responsibilities htat if you pass these to others it would for a lot of normal jobs amount to a gross dereliction of duty and result in dismissal.

The police chief in Uvalde was sacked for not going in to the school,   but his reaction is to try and say lack of evidence,  which given there is video footage of police standing by and it ends up being another team going in to deal with the situation,  this seems typical of those in power,   never their fault.

We get the same nonsense here in the UK social workers / police fail to act,   as a result children come to harm, but these officials try and wriggle out of accepting some responsibility and find some other person to blame.

I wonder how other countries see the USA right now over all this,   esp countries such as China, North Korea and Russia,  they must be laughing at you over all this.

The US needs a strong ROBUST  leader and as trump said "clear the swamp" and restore the US as a country that can lead by example and stand up to bullies at home and abroad.

 

[iNow]

2 hours ago, paulsutton said:

is this standard procedure with other presidents or just with Donald Trump,  as in would Obama, Clinton, or Kennedy have asked someone else to read a document of such importance.

Negative