Write Alan Feuer and Maggie Haberman in "Indictment Presents Evidence Trump’s Actions Were More Blatant Than Known/The accounts in the 49-page indictment provide compelling evidence of a shocking indifference toward some of the country’s most sensitive secrets" (NYT).
June 10, 2023
"The indictment also showcased the bedrock elements of the former president’s personality: his sense of bombast and vengeance..."
"... his belief that everything he touches belongs to him and his admiration of people for their underhanded craftiness and gamesmanship with the authorities. It recounts, for instance, how Mr. Trump had only praise for an unnamed aide to Hillary Clinton who — at least in his narration of the story — helped Mrs. Clinton destroy tens of thousands of emails from a private server.
'He did a great job,' the indictment quotes Mr. Trump as telling one of his lawyers.
Why? Because, in Mr. Trump’s account, the aide ensured that Mrs. Clinton 'didn’t get in any trouble.'"
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47 comments:
Yep. Shocking like a secret server in a bathroom in Colorado or shocking like accepting a $5 million dollar bribe.
Shocking.
Phony outrage. What I have learned is that no one in the upper levels of government takes classification and secrecy seriously, it's a joke.
“…shocking indifference…”
I am shocked, shocked that the NYT can pretend to being shocked.
That said, the transcripts —as transcripts of informal conversations often do— do not help Trump.
Surely this time the walls are closing in? Except will a Florida jury ever vote to convict?
Trump is the magic inarticulate dick-stepper.
His biggest mistake was not going after Private Server Hillary.
He and his GOPe - they didn't touch her, either. Sad.
If you don't kill the snake - the snake kills you.
Hillary belongs in prison for the destruction of offical classified documents, for setting up and using a Private Server to hide what she did behind the scenes as Obama's Secretary of State, (and not to mention her Benghazi f-up and lies - that got our good men killed)
But most of all all her private family pay to play enrichment deals were kept hidden - with the use of her PRIVATE SERVER.
Cash Flowed to Clinton Foundation Amid Russian Uranium Deal
Pardon me while I ignore people that for 3 years told us the Steele Dossier was real, that Hunter Biden's laptop was Russian Disinformation, and still insist Trump is Putin's puppet. Their credibility, including those pushing this prosecution, is blown with the American people.
Stuff like "He did a great job" can be taken out of context. "He did a great job destroying the servers", which is what the paraphrasing context suggests could simply be acknowledging it was thoroughly destroyed. And "Mrs. Clinton 'didn’t get in any trouble.'"" is pretty much a fact so far. For all the damning that is claimed by these quotes, a reasonable person can conclude that Trump is flabbergasted that Hillary's aides could destroy classified material, evidence of mishandling of classified material, and do so blatantly while Hillary gets away without even an indictment. Try being a submariner and doing what Hillary and her aides did.
Jack Smith threatened to indict Trump’s lawyers. That’s why they ratted him out.
Trump’s main two lawyers just quit.
The best defense is to indirectly ask for jury nullification. Let’s hope there is at least one holdout.
But the indictment confirms what I have thought for a long time: Trump has exceptionally poor judgment.
The GOP will nominate Trump. Trump will lose the general election. We are fucked.
>"...Mr. Trump quickly realized that he should not have been displaying the map and told the representative to “not get too close.”<
Well, there ya go - espionage, flat out.
Jonathan Turley, who has a pretty good political bullshit detector, says while there maybe a political element to it, the charges are damning, serious and well presented. While the prosecutor, and the Administration, could probably have handled the optics of this differently, to avoid the specter of a Banana Republic, this is serious and Trump may yet be hoisted on his own petard.
Should be “The indictment also showed Trump’s bombast and taste for vengeance”
Too wordy. Like the indictment.
"Selective Prosecution More Blatant Than Known."
Had all those boxes been discovered in Hillary's basement , or next to Biden's corvette - a big phat nothing.
Would Brandon & Co be willing to call this off if our president emeritus withdrew from the race?
Someone needs to ask Brandon this in public.
John LGBTQ Henry
We now live in a police state.
Jonathan Turley seems to think this indictment is bad for Trump. Surprising, coming from Turley. I think Trump will, as usual, not suffer anything from this.
There is no evidence that the president retained sensitive documents in insecure storage, let alone redistributed them to domestic or foreign parties hostile to the republic, national interests, and American people.
They got to put him in jail before he gets the nomination.
The indictment is quintessential Trump. A self inflicted wound that was easily avoided.
Why did Trump tempt fate like this? All he had to do was follow the advice of his attorneys and return the documents. Instead, for reasons that are inexplicable to normal people he decided to feed the beast.
He is George Costanza.
You might believe that sort of drivel, Althouse, because it’s been published in the New York Times. For the same reason sensible people are inclined to discount it.
According to Paul Sperry at RCI, "Sources say Special Counsel Smith does not actually have the supposed "smoking gun" doc Trump is heard on an audio talking about, which means he cannot prove it is classified and thus prove Trump knew it was classified. Prosecutors have no real evidence to show jurors."
What a farce of a indictment! The obvious political prosecution and indictment by the DOJ shows the corruption in that agency is worse than previously thought (and I previously thought it was bad!). I really hoped cooler heads would prevail, especially after the investigation for classified documents against Pence found that he broke no laws and had no criminal intent by possessing those documents.
The divide in our country is growing wider and the DOJ simply took a look at the bridge that would created a pathway between the two sides, and deliberately kicked that bridge into the chasm. The special counsel could have announced, much as it did with Pence, that Trump did not deliberately break any laws and thus showed no "intent" (let's call it the Hillary precedent). He is a braggart but there are no laws against a Presidency being such. They could have dismissed the investigation against Biden under the same theory of no intent (but I have my doubts there). Instead they chose to practically publicly state that it depends upon which side of the political chasm you reside as to whether nor not laws and precedent applies to your actions.
I sincerely hoped that the parties could meet half way and decide to put aside differences and work towards governing from the middle. Nope. That's not to be. Now, it is much as Mark Antony said in Act III of Julius Caesar, "Cry Havoc, and lose the dogs of war"!
Looks like they've got the entire hoax russia collusion and hoax dossier liars band back together for a reunion tour.
Well, Maggie Haberman. And why the continual emphasis on how many pages and how many counts? It's almost like someone is trying to blow up a toy balloon to the size of the Goodyear blimp.
Bombast and Vengeance. I will name my cats thusly.
Think: Hillary Clinton, Huma Abedin, Anthony Weiner, Joe Biden, Hunter Biden. Then think: Bathroom, Laptops, Garage. Then think: Consorting with Russians, Ukrainians, The CCP.
Then wonder: What, exactly, does this kind of hearsay bullshit have to do with an indictment other than to provide mediaswine like Haberman with fodder for hyperbolic speculation? Wonder also: What happened to attorney/client privelege in QuidProJoe's Amerika?
I'm embarrassed to have been a prosecutor. I'm even more embarrassed to have been a Democrat.
We’re prosecuting “personality” now are we?
Editors at The Wall Street Journal are crying in crying in their beer about the political implications of indicting TFG over 31 violations of the Espionage Act and 6 other indictments.
Sadly, the real issue is that normal citizens would already have been in jail for the same charges but Donald Trump deliberately played government political games to delay the inevitable. Trump played the same games to enrich himself in spite of the Emoluments Clause and to obtain Trump's private business contracts with foreign interests.
Interestingly, Trump has, in recent times, lost every time a new Grand Jury investigates his crimes - one in Florida, three in DC, two in Georgia, and more than four in New York.
The NY Times deals in bullshit daily. The indictment has a whole new theory of Trump's crimes. The issue of secret documents has been dropped. Now he's a spy.
No indifference lowered inflation and made USA energy dominant. Taking massive ChiCom bribes while effectively banning oil and gas drilling here is true indifference for sale.
Good Lord, what a stupidly literal reading of the quote. To interpret "He did a great job - kept his boss out of trouble" as approval for the aide is like saying a person who comments, "He's an honest politician - he stays bought" actually believes that staying bought is the definition of honesty.
But I'll tell you what, if my father-in-law were to read that article, he would definitely use it as yet more "evidence" of what a crook Trump is. I'm just so tired of it all.
I have no interest in the opinions of the Deep State's media organ.
We continue to play this game where we are supposed to take seriously people who are established liars. The prosecutor outright lied claiming no one is above the law, because obviously lots of people are above the law as long as they are not Trump. Yet, I'm supposed to believe that these charges are legitimate and this is a most serious matter, despite it being brought forth by an established liar who works for an established liar who works for another established liar.
We have witnessed the government lie to us about so many topics that it is hard to keep them track of them all. We have had law enforcement organizations railroad obvious political targets, lie to courts, and lie to the American people. We have had independent investigations that went on for years despite everyone involved well knowing that it was based on lies. We have prosecutors gleefully keeping grandmothers in solitary confinement for years for the gall of "parading" and law enforcement organizations monitoring Christian organizations for no other reason than they are Christians, yet criminals are released to commit more crimes time and time again, rioters are not only not prosecuted but praised, and organized crime thieves are protected by an apathetic ruling class. The government has been revealed to be engaging in outright censorship. They now undermine our elections.
Dear sir, go to hell. The sooner, the better.
Because, in Mr. Trump’s account, the aide ensured that Mrs. Clinton 'didn’t get in any trouble.'
Like the Russian collusion hoax, for which she received a Pulitzer for advancing, appears like Haberman is once again trying to hold Trump somehow culpable for what Hillary Clinton actually did.
In that respect, Trump could have also "praised" Haberman and the NYT for helping ensure that Mrs. Clinton 'didn’t get in any trouble.'
On front page of our local rag, a pic showing long view of wall stacked floor to ceiling with cardboard file boxes, probably four dozen at least.
The caption: 'This image, contained in the indictment against former President Donald Trump, shows boxes of records in a storage room at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla., that were photographed on Nov. 12, 2021. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT | AP
A word not found in the caption is "classified."
House down-sizing here; last week I emptied and tossed three full file drawers of tax reports and other government required paperwork 1995-2010 for just a few rental properties and a 12-15 employee business we ran.
Could it be the Associated Press writers are being a bit slippery with the truth and all them boxes in DJT's closet are just ordinary business records?
Projections from ChatNYT hoping to change another election perchance to progress a low trust society.
8:26 AM: "The GOP will nominate Trump. Trump will lose the general election. We are fucked."
Exactly.
8:26 AM: "The GOP will nominate Trump. Trump will lose the general election. We are fucked."
Exactly!
"The GOP will nominate Trump. Trump will lose the general election. We are fucked."
Sweet summer child. Elections are no longer won and lost. They're stolen.
Democrat's motto: "It worked, didn't it?"
You know that the charges are contrived because the Indictment shifts back and forth between documents marked classified, and classified documents. Throughout, there is the implied assumption that documents marked classified, are indeed classified. But, of course, with a current, or exp former, POTUS, with plenary and unfettered declassification authority while in office, that is not necessarily, and likely is not, the case.
Something else. A point was made in the Indictment that Trump was no longer authorized to have or view classified documents. That’s quite convenient. However, former Presidents, Cabinet officials (like Crooked Hillary), and other top officials routinely retain their security clearances after leaving office. I expect that Obama, GW Bush, and Bill Clinton still have top secret security clearances. Why doesn’t Trump? We know the answer to that – it was apparently removed on orders of Biden (or at least using his power). Why would the Biden WH have ordered that? In retrospect – in order to file this case.
Something else. Notice what wasn’t in the Indictment – any mention of the documents marked classified that Trump formally ordered declassified. The documents that implicated the Counterintelligence Division of the FBI and National Security Division at the DOJ for their malfeasance (as disclosed by 2 Special Counsels and the DOJ .IG) and illegal actions, in their RussiaGate “investigations”. These were almost assuredly the documents marked classified that they knew that Trump had when they raided MAL. They knew that he had them, and they knew that they hadn’t been marked as declassified. They knew all this because it is very obvious that the NSD and CD were driving the raid in the first place, and were involved all the way through, because they are the ones with the security clearances to review the documents for classified information.
Also, remember the close working relationship between them and the LawFare Group, and esp it’s head, Benjamin Weiss. It was his creative misinterpretation of the same §1001 Obstruction of Justice statute cited against Trump here, in order to prevent any investigation or review of their RussiaGate “investigation”, including the AG, IG, and Congress. And used against LTG Flynn and several others. You can see their fingerprints here, by the eliding over the two Obstruction requirements that they read out of the §1001 statute earlier – Intent and Materiality. As many here remember, it was only when Barr was confirmed as AG, that this deliberate misreading of that statute was shut down, and after that, the Mueller Investigation, that was relying totally on it to stay open, having determined the year before that there had never been any collaboration between Trump and the Russians. It had morphed completely into a §1001 perjury trap witch hunt, which wasn’t in the Mueller Investigation mandate.
Here are what I think are the major weaknesses to the case (so far).
1. There is a fairly obvious (at least to me) intent to blur the distinction between documents marked classified and classified documents. This blurring could almost be justified in the search warrant, since it described what was to be searched for, and when the FBI found any, they immediately turned them over to the CD agents there (at which time they presumably disappeared the documents Trump had that implicated their malfeasance in their Crossfire Hurricane, etc investigations). But Jay Bratt (the Asst Special Counsel) doesn’t have that excuse.
2. At least the Espionage Act and §1001 Obstruction charges require both Materiality and Intent. Bratt essentially assumes both. As I noted earlier, this shows the obvious LawFare roots to the Indictment. One big problem with the Flynn case was that the prosecutors had negligently failed to have him stipulate to materiality - esp since his alleged misstatements could never have been material, since the FBI agents interviewing him had the transcripts of his conversation with the Russian Ambassador, and he did not.
3. The PRA gives the Archives some power over Presidential Records, but at least impliedly, former Presidents have absolute discretion on deciding what is a Presidential Record and what are personal papers, and not the Archives (under control of a subsequent President), and esp not the FBI, which was almost assuredly the agency making the demands for records. Remember, the FJB WH had ordered the Archives to cooperate with the FBI, which meant that the Archives requested from Trump whatever the FBI wanted, and what the FBI wanted were documents to support this Indictment. But, if they were instead, personal papers, and not Presidential Records (the determination of which has traditionally been at the discretion of the former President), these charges also fall apart. Again, we have Intent issues, esp since Presidents have, always before, had complete discretion in this area.
Trump has exceptionally poor judgment.
That is a valid point. I'm tired of fighting these stupid battles for Trump, they are a distraction. We could use a better general.
Kid Rock and Tucker Carlson were yucking it up on the Tucker Carlson show last year regarding Trump showing him maps of North Korea and asking him how he should handle North Korea. How many more people did the moron Trump show classified maps and documents to? It’s almost unbelievable that a POTUS could be this reckless and stupid, but it’s on the embedded video of the segment on the Tucker Carlson show.
People Are Remembering The Time Trump Showed Kid Rock A Bunch Of Probably Classified Material In Light Of The Former’s New Indictment
“Kid Rock and Donald Trump go way back. In the early days of his presidency, Trump invited the rap-rocker, real name Robert Ritchie, to the White House. There, Ritchie alleged, Trump busted out a bunch of probably classified maps, asking him how to handle North Korea. Ritchie told this story last year in a chat with Tucker Carlson. Now that Trump has been federally indicted for his handling of classified documents, people are wondering if Kid Rock will one day be asked to take the stand.
On Friday, the Department of Justice unsealed their indictment of the former president. Among the shocking details is that Trump allegedly showed a “classified map related to a military operation” to an unnamed member of his political action committee at his Bedminster, New Jersey golf club who did not have security clearance.
This person, obviously, was not Kid Rock, who is neither a representative of Trump’s PAC nor was, far as we know, at Bedminster in 2021. But because Ritchie’s story also involves Trump showing classified materials to someone without clearance, it came back in the news.
Indeed, and again, Ritchie told the story — with clear bewilderment — last year to Tucker Carlson, while Trump was still holding onto hundreds of government documents.“
Something else. I knew that the name Jay Bratt rang a bell in my head. He was the one who signed the Indictment, not Smith. He’s the Chief at Counterintelligence and Export Control Section, National Security Division, U.S. Depart. of Justice, along with being an Assistant Special Counsel in this investigation. The key word in his job title is “Counterintelligence”. This is the organization that works with the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division. They, along with the CD were responsible for Crossfire Hurricane, the RussiaGate investigation, and the four fraudulently acquired FISA warrants on Carter Page. And incriminating evidence on their perfidy was in the binder that Trump formally declassified his last day in office, as insurance, and were the previously classified documents that the FBI knew Trump had.
Something else there - a whistleblower in the FBI complained to a House committee that the MAL raid violated FBI policy, by being run out of DC HQ (by Jay Bratt), instead of the appropriate field office. See the letter from Chairman Jim Jordan to AG Garland:
FBI Official In Charge Of Mar-A-Lago Raid Said Feds Breached Protocol In Repeat Russia Collusion Hoax Fashion
Think: Hillary Clinton, Huma Abedin, Anthony Weiner, Joe Biden, Hunter Biden. Then think: Bathroom, Laptops, Garage. Then think: Consorting with Russians, Ukrainians, The CCP.
That’s a lot of thoughts to keep in your head, especially for someone as allergic to the very embarrassing evidence in this indictment as you seem to be.
mediaswine like Haberman…
Don’t you mean “luegenpresse?” Or were you thinking “judensau?” You seem to be mixing metaphors from your preferred source for these calumnies.
I'm embarrassed to have been a prosecutor. I'm even more embarrassed to have been a Democrat.
You should be more embarrassed to have absorbed the political values of a state and party corrupt enough to have inflicted scumbags as scurrilous as Ken Paxton and Ted Cruz onto the governments of Texas and America. But that would require you to take a rational perspective.
“It recounts, for instance, how Mr. Trump had only praise for an unnamed aide to Hillary Clinton who — at least in his narration of the story — helped Mrs. Clinton destroy tens of thousands of emails from a private server. 'He did a great job,' the indictment quotes Mr. Trump as telling one of his lawyers.
Hee— so now the bad stuff Hillary did is just taken as more evidence against Trump.
Blogger Inga said...
Kid Rock and Tucker Carlson were yucking it up on the Tucker Carlson show last year regarding Trump showing him maps of North Korea and asking him how he should handle North Korea. How many more people did the moron Trump show classified maps and documents to? It’s almost unbelievable that a POTUS could be this reckless and stupid, but it’s on the embedded video of the segment on the Tucker Carlson show.
The dullard and puddinghead seem to be running a tag team match today. The IQ level is dropping silently.
"Don’t you mean 'luegenpresse?' Or were you thinking 'judensau?' You seem to be mixing metaphors from your preferred source for these calumnies."
The spectacle. Godwin's Law invoked. Argument lost.
"We now live in a police state."
You didn't figure that out at least when Ed Snowden revealed the wholesale and boundless surveillance of all Americans by our intelligence agencies? That was way back when George W. was president. (That doesn't mean it started under Bush...it's been growing for decades.)
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