The following info was in the affidavit released Friday and I didn’t hear a single reporter on ANY channel (except ONE time above on Fox) report about it, because it falls under the category of exculpatory evidence:
Under the U.S. Constitution, the President is vested with the highest level of authority when it comes to the classification and declassification of documents. See U.S. Const., Art. II,§2 ( The President [is] Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States[.] ). His constitutionally-based authority regarding the classification and declassification of documents is unfettered. See Navy v Egan, 484 U.S. 518, 527 (1988) ( [The President’s] authority to classify and control access to information bearing on national security flows primarily from this constitutional investment of power in the President and exists quite apart from any explicit congressional grant. ).
Any attempt to impose criminal liability on a President or former President that involves his actions with respect to documents marked classified would implicate grave constitutional separation-of-powers issues. Beyond that, the primary criminal statute that governs the unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material does not apply to the President. That statute provides, in pertinent part, as follows: Whoever, being an officer, employee, contractor, or consultant of the United States, and, by virtue of his office, employment, position, or contract, becomes possessed of documents or materials containing classified information of the United States, knowingly removes such documents or materials without authority and with the intent to retain such documents or materials at an unauthorized location shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than five years, or both.18 U.S.C. §1924(a). An element of this offense, which the government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt, is that the accused is an officer, employee, contractor, or consultant of the United States. The President is none of these. See Free Enter. Fund v Pub. Co Acct. Oversight Bd.,561 U.S. 477, 497-98 (2010) (citing U.S. Const., Art.II, §2cl. 2) ( The people do not vote for the ‘Officers of the United States. ‘);see also Melcher v Fed Open Mkt. Comm., 644 F. Supp.510, 518-19 (D.D.C. 1986),aff d,836 F.2d561(D.C. Cir. 1987) ( [a]n officer of the United States can only be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, or by a court of law, or the head of a department. A person who does not derive his position from one of these sources is not an officer of the United States in the sense of the Constitution. ). Thus, the statute does not apply to acts by a President. Case 9:22-mj-08332-BER Document 102-1 Entered on FLSD Docket 08/26/2022 Page 35 of38
This proves that the former president has broken no laws, and that all claims to the contrary are the result of a political witch hunt.
46 comments:
Actually, all it means is the judge took Trump's former power to declassify documents under consideration, and STILL found grounds for probable cause to issue the warrant.
None of the laws cited in the warrant require anything to actually be classified. It's a moot point and dead argument.
Trump needs better lawyers, and even better arguments.
Whoever, being an officer, employee, contractor, or consultant of the United States, and, by virtue of his office, employment, position, or contract, becomes possessed of documents or materials containing classified information of the United States, knowingly removes such documents or materials without authority and with the intent to retain such documents or materials at an unauthorized location shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than five years
This actually makes it worse, as Trump wasn't an officer, employee, contractor, or consultant of the US when he took the documents and kept them.
It's just the same as me and you taking documents from the US government illegally, except for some reason the FBI neglected to bash Trump's face in with a rifle butt as they would have you or I.
The very fact that Trump isn't slurring through a wired-shut broken jaw undermines my confidence in the FBI's enforcement of national security laws. That should have been step one, printing the warrant on the butt end of a rifle stock and stamping it into his forehead.
"play stupid games, win stupid prizes."
Whoever, being ....It doesn't make it worse, it's just further proof that the law it applies to ("Whover, being...") was misapplied. :)
Doesn't fly. If Trump was authorized to possess the documents while President, classified or not, he lost that authorization at noon on January 20, 2021.
Do you really think Biden's power to classify and reclassify documents is not as potent?
Trump fuct up. No sympathy. He's lucky not to have broken bones in his face.
He *should* have broken bones in his face.
"Whoever" applies to those authorized to access said classified documents, and how they should be handled, and the penalty for mishandling them.
Citizen Trump wasn't authorized to handle them.
Bash his fuggin face in.
There does need to be a new law, though.
Any law enforcement officer serving a search warrant on a national security matter that neglects to crush the facial bone structure of the person or persons being searched with blunt force trauma shall be put to death.
I suspect the veins in Melania's rectum spell out something really sinister in Arabic. These should have been ripped out and examined.
lol. The law only applies to " officer, employee, contractor, or consultant of the United States." The "uncleared" ex-president was none of the above. How do you spell "the law does not apply?"
No, they don't charge WaPo reporters for having them, either (ie- Pentagon Papers).
An element of this offense, which the government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt, is that the accused is an officer, employee, contractor, or consultant of the United States. The President is none of these. See Free Enter. Fund v Pub. Co Acct. Oversight Bd.,561 U.S. 477, 497-98 (2010) (citing U.S. Const., Art.II, §2cl. 2) ( The people do not vote for the ‘Officers of the United States. ‘);see also Melcher v Fed Open Mkt. Comm., 644 F. Supp.510, 518-19 (D.D.C. 1986),aff d,836 F.2d561(D.C. Cir. 1987) ( [a]n officer of the United States can only be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, or by a court of law, or the head of a department. A person who does not derive his position from one of these sources is not an officer of the United States in the sense of the Constitution. ). Thus, the statute does not apply to acts by a President.
Hillary Clinton was "an officer". Donald Trump was not.
I was an "officer" in the USNR. The President, who had appointed me, was not.
Minus: When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.
National security attorney Bradley P. Moss: "this case should and in my opinion will result in an indictment" :)
While we back away slowly from FJ as he stamps his feet and demands that it be undeniably recognized that he voted for Trump, twice, by saying things no reasonably intelligent person would ever say...
...let's imagine what happens to other people who aren't officers, employees, contractors, or consultants of the US government found to be in possession of classified military and intelligence documents.
Watch now in amusement as they argue in court that laws pertaining to the storage and accessibility of classified documents in fact do not apply to anyone that steals them as long as they're not employed by the US government that authorized certain people to access and store them.
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were FRAMED!
LOL, no.
Trump is worse than fuct. He's self-fuct.
When we wanted Trump to go fuck himself, we didn't mean for him to do it in a way that puts national security at risk.
There are laws dealing with theft, beamish. And there are laws dealing with National Archive records. The ones Trump "supposedly" violated had to do with the latter. And if you read the legislation, it doesn't apply.
Now if you want to charge Trump with "theft" of records, then have at it. But that doesn't explain why GSA packed all the boxes for him.
The only thing uncertain is if Trump gets five years in prison per classified document, per page, or per word. This is serious because we already know he's provided classified information to Russians before, perhaps he should get five years in prison for each classified punctuation mark as well.
I really don't know what we should due about his 74 million co-conspirators still running free and likely to vote for the next traitor that comes along as well. Fortunately they're still divided on if voting in elections actually matters and not having a traitor to vote for anyway, but that's still a simmering pot of crazy that could boil over at any time.
Some of the documents have notes written by tRump on them. He also said the documents are "his" and demanded they be returned. Both negate any "I did not know what was in the boxes" defense.
tRump could even have gotten a pass for stealing them -- if he had returned everything. Instead he returned some of the documents, kept a lot, then lied and said "that's everything".
That's all well and good, but we still have an FBI team tasked with recovering stolen classified data from a known Russian intelligence asset, and they failed to break faces with rifle butts. I want to know why the FBI is treating national security threats with kid gloves.
Are they afraid Lindsey Graham is going to lisp monkeypox at them?
In all seriousness though, I think that Trump's request for "special master" access to the documents to determine the criminality of their possession by Trump should be honored.
Have Kamala Harris look over everything since she would needs no higher security clearance level than what she already has, and have her determine precisely how many years in prison Trump is looking at. Take the guesswork out of it.
In all seriousness have either of you ever worked in a classified environment without the lights spinning?
I didn't think so.
I have, but I'd have to kill you if I told you about it. ;)
I am actually still under a couple of legal agreements not to share things I encountered and worked with while employed by the state and while employed by AT&T. Nothing "national security" level secret, but potentially useful in sabotaging emergency management communications systems, if some hacker asshole wanted to do that. Such knowledge is mostly useless, but still a puzzle piece most hackers would be able to use to get a little further in their endeavors than just guessing.
But I wouldn't rate that anywhere near the level of information Trump had ahold of and I'm guessing made available to anyone who asked him how to hurt America and kill Americans. Trump should cooperate with the FBI and let them know who John Barron sold NOC lists to.
The data at Mar-a-Lago is simply evidence that the Deep State is spying, and has spied upon, American citizens. That data doesn't hurt America or kill Americans. It free's them.
...and is why they need to give it back to him, lest you enjoy having your privacy violated and the FBI ginning up "parallel constructions" through Perkins Coie to make their case against you.
I confess. I used State of Missouri letterhead to take down an office lunch order and TRIPLE UNDERSCORED that there were to be no tomatoes on my burger because raw tomatoes don't belong any where near food and I then shredded this document.
I fear the parallel construction case that I may have folded office stationery into paper airplanes on occasion as well. I still have an ink pen I took home with me.
In seriousness, your "Trump is keeping Americans safe by stealing documents and storing them in a mop closet" argument is pretty self-refuting, don'tcha think?
Trump was going to be like "fuck you NSA I got a note from Epstein's Mom, signed by Epstein's Mom, that I never diddled kids on a island. All that shit happened on an airplane!"
Trump has evidence of a crime perpetrated by the same people responsible for solving crimes. You don't care that the "watchers" are corrupt? Not my problem.
Trump has evidence of what? Didn't he learn from over six dozen court attempts to subvert the 2020 election not to go to court without evidence? He was going to save America from itself by keeping da troof in a mop closet?
Sometime in the year 2063, an emaciated old man in a tattered MAGA hat is going to emerge from the Mark Twain National Forest clutching a rusty SKS rifle and shocked that the war is over, and that toothpaste won.
But for the rest of us, who knows and who cares what Trump stole from the White House. The people entrusted to keep America's secrets safe from foreign intelligence assets like Trump have recovered the goods, are assessing the damage, and hopefully will market his execution for espionage and treason at the Super Bowl.
Really not interested in what John Barron has to say in his defense.
donald tRump isn't standing against the corrupt "deep state". He isn't waiting for the right time to expose their corruption and take them down. donald tRump is bigly corrupt. He has been his whole life.
Numerous entities are gathering the evidence and building the cases that will lead to his downfall. donald has a greater chance of ending up in the big house than returning to the White House.
Hunter has DJT on the run! lol!
The only thing more frightening than Trump wanting us to believe red and yellow bordered classified documents in his desk were supposed to be there is that hideous carpet in his office. What was that like $3 a square foot?
Re "If they can cancel Trump's, they can certainly cancel yours"...
They can't. I didn't steal top secret documents that I'm currently keeping in my home.
You also didn't declassify them.
LOL. Neither did tRump.
Then what was that EO in the Federal Register from Jan 19, 2021? lol!
There was never an EO allowing an ex president to steal government documents.
Additionally, "...the processes for both classifying and declassifying national defense information [is] elaborately regulated. ... There are numerous... statutory and regulatory restrictions that prohibited Trump from doing what he now claims to have done".
lol! The very second on Jan 19, 2021, when Trump said that the documents were declassified, they became declassified. That's toothpaste that can't be squeezed back into a tube, no matter how hard you beat your chest or wring your hands. :)
You are full of shit. If the documents are declassified, why don't we know what the documents are? Someone would have filed a FOIA request to make them public already. Instead tRump suggests the special master he requested be given security clearance to view the documents he stole. You don't need a security clearance to view declassified documents.
Trump issued two executive orders on January 19, 2021. Neither have to do with declassifying documents.
You're better off with the Sudafed snorter defense.
"If those documents were in Trump's desk, they'd have ground up pseudoephedrine dust on them."
You know your anti-government clown show is bad when even hardcore Rothbardians give up on you.
In a monumental irony, both Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks journalist who exposed American war crimes during the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, and Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency employee who exposed criminal mass government surveillance upon the American public, stand charged with the very same crimes that are likely to be brought against Trump. On both Assange and Snowden, Trump argued that they should be executed. Fortunately for all three, these statutes do not provide for capital punishment.
The only person with actual knowledge of what the documents are is Trump.
So, to remain consistent with his stances on Assange and Snowden, Trump should demand the Department of Justice give him the death penalty.
Maybe Biden will sign legislation to that effect for the next anti-American spy caught red-handed.
The only person with actual knowledge of what the documents are is Trump.
Pretty sure the FBI agents knew what they were looking for in Trump's house when they went and got it. Trump just wants the FBI to dox whoever it was in Trump's circle that told them where to find it.
Maybe he can waterboard Rudy Giuliani until he confesses. Does Mar-A-Lago have a swimming pool?
The only person with actual knowledge of what the documents are is Trump.
Take two... So Trump won't throw anyone under the bus? 🤣
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