"It’s estimated that some fifty million new things get classified each year, and the more than two million people with security clearances, military and civilian, can potentially add to the pile..."

"... by one route or another. Presidents do not have the power to declassify documents psychically, as Trump has suggested, but their power to do so in other ways is surprisingly broad and ill-defined, governed largely by executive orders and precedent. That reality had complicated the legal case against Trump even before Biden’s lawyers found the first documents. The President has not yet said for sure if he will run again in 2024. The affair of the documents may prove something of a stress test. Republicans would no doubt like to see all these story lines—the documents, Hunter, the Corvette, Communists—merge into a lurid fog that obscures the real line between Trump’s case and Biden’s. They are not the same, and that is something worth emphasizing. But the fact that these two very different men, for different reasons, both had classified documents in their homes should be cause for reflection about our system of secrecy, too."

 
From "The Biden-Documents Mess House Republicans are ramping up conspiracy theories, but one thing seems clear: the government’s documents system has an overclassification addiction" by Amy Davidson Sorkin (The New Yorker).

"Biden’s Document Blunder Is Nothing Like Trump’s Crime."

 That's not sarcastic. It's sincere. It's Jonathan Chait (at New York Magazine).

Aggravating factors.

"Donald Trump’s retention of documents marked classified at his Mar-a-Lago resort has aggravating factors that might support his criminal prosecution unlike the discovery of some documents also marked classified stored at Joe Biden’s former institute from his time as vice-president, legal experts said."

I'm reading "In the case of the classified documents, it’s more serious for Trump than Biden" — in The Guardian —  and laughing.

The aggravating factor in the case of Donald Trump is that he's Donald Trump. 

"Trump is said to have told some allies that the idea of a special counsel infuriated him, given his experience with the length of the Mueller investigation."

"He believes it could hang over him for months. Nonetheless, it might make a prosecution more distant."

Writes Maggie Haberman, in "Live Updates: Garland Names Special Counsel for Trump Inquiries/The attorney general announced his decision to name Jack Smith, the former head of the Justice Department’s public integrity section, to to job just days after former President Donald J. Trump announced that he would seek the White House again in 2024" (NYT).

ADDED: Let me connect that with this WaPo piece from 4 days ago: 

"In his final days in the White House, Donald Trump told top advisers he needed to preserve certain Russia-related documents to keep his enemies from destroying them."

"The documents related to the federal investigation into Russian election meddling and alleged collusion with Trump’s campaign. At the end of his presidency, Trump and his team pushed to declassify these so-called 'Russiagate' documents, believing they would expose a 'Deep State' plot against him.... It’s unclear if any of the materials in Trump’s document trove are related to Russia or the election interference investigation.... 'I think they thought it was something to do with the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax,' Trump said during a Sept. 1 radio interview. 'They were afraid that things were in there — part of their scam material.'"

Rolling Stone reports.

The Washington Post fact-checker checks "Hillary Clinton’s claim that ‘zero emails’ were marked classified."

Here's Glenn Kessler (who does not assign Pinocchios on this one)(the boldface is mine):

During the contest between Trump and Clinton, we wrote 16 fact checks on the email issue, frequently awarding Pinocchios to Clinton for legalistic parsing. But in light of the Trump investigation, Clinton is trying to draw a distinction between Trump’s current travails and the probe that targeted her.... 

Clinton, in her tweet, suggests none of her emails were marked classified. That’s technically correct. Whether those emails contained classified information was a major focus of the investigation, but a review of the recent investigations, including new information obtained by the Fact Checker, shows Clinton has good reason for making a distinction with Trump. 

Hillary Clinton "did everything from trying to learn to tango to making acorn soup," she says.

Touting her new TV show, "Gutsy" on that old TV show, "The View."

If I understood correctly, this show consists of her and Chelsea getting together with some other celebrity mother and daughter — e.g., Goldie Hawn and Kate Hudson — and all 4 of them getting "out of their comfort zone" by doing something they hadn't done before. How far out of your comfort zone is a particular dance when you have danced or a particular soup when you have made soup?

They do move on to the serious topic of the documents seized in the Mar-a-Lago raid. Hillary is sharp and substantive, avoiding the display of animus toward Trump. Asked if she thinks he will be indicted, she says: "I don't want to judge. I've been prejudged — wrongly — enough."

She wants to know how it was possible that these documents could have been moved to Mar-a-Lago, when they were in a category that, when she was Secretary of State, she would read in a secured room, supervised by a person who carried the document in a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist. I wrote "when they were" and not "if they were" only because that's how she spoke. 

"Judge Grants Trump’s Request for Special Master to Review Mar-a-Lago Documents."

 The NYT reports.

In a 24-page ruling, the judge, Aileen M. Cannon of the Federal District Court for the Southern District of Florida, also enjoined the Justice Department from using the seized materials for any “investigative purpose” connected to its ongoing inquiry of Mr. Trump until the work of the arbiter, known as a special master, was completed.

The order would effectively bar federal prosecutors from using a key piece of evidence as they continue to investigate whether the former president illegally retained national defense documents at his estate, Mar-a-Lago, or obstructed the government’s efforts to get them back.

Cannon was appointed by Trump. 

"Our country’s going to hell. Our country is going to hell," said Donald Trump in his 2-hour Wilkes-Barre speech.

I found a transcript. So let's see if I can find some things to quote.

Our country’s going to hell. Our country is going to hell.

What a theme! We just saw Biden speechifying from what looked like hell (what with that red light), demanding that we join him there, and now here comes Trump, with his own hell theme.

This election is a referendum on skyrocketing inflation, rampant crime, soaring murders, crushing gas prices, millions and millions of illegal aliens pouring across our border, race and gender indoctrination perverting our schools, and above all, this election is a referendum on the corruption and extremism of Joe Biden and the radical Democrat party....

Biden characterized the MAGA Republicans as extremists, and Trump is throwing the "Extremist!" accusation right back at Biden and his party.

"It was not just my home that was raided… it was the hopes and dreams of every citizen who I've been fighting for since the moment I came down the golden escalator in 2015, wanting to represent the people."

Said Donald Trump, quoted in "Donald Trump: What we learned from his rally in Pennsylvania" (BBC).

Here's the NYT article about the speech: "Trump Lashes Out in First Rally Since F.B.I. Search/Donald J. Trump and President Biden have both made recent appearances in Pennsylvania, one of the key states in November’s midterm elections."

"The public (understandably) may wish to sidestep the minutia of the mandates of the Presidential Records Act, but..."

"... three top-line takeaways prove imperative to understanding the scandal of the Mar-a-Lago search. First, the Presidential Records Act is not a criminal statute, and violations of that federal law do not constitute a crime. Second, the Presidential Records Act does not reach broad swathes of documents retained by a former president, including 'official records of an agency,' 'personal records,”' and convenience copies of presidential records. And third, the courts have refused to question a former president’s conclusion that a record constitutes a 'personal record' and not a 'presidential record.'"

From "Redacted Mar-A-Lago Affidavit Confirms Biden’s DOJ Fished For A Crime To Pin On Trump" by Margot Cleveland (The Federalist).

"I’ve always maintained that, with Trump, there are no deep, dark secrets: His absolute awfulness always stares you squarely in the face, like a baboon’s backside."

Said Bret Stephens in his conversation with Gail Collins, printed in the NYT.

Just before that riposte, they were talking about the documents seized at Mar-a-Lago, and he'd said:

Donald Trump has only a vague idea of what’s in all of these documents. The notion that he read through boxes and boxes containing hundreds of documents with classification markings and chose to take these particular items strikes me as … unlikely.... 

"The investigation has raised expectations on the left of an event that Trump’s opponents have dreamed of for years: a criminal prosecution..."

"... of the reality-television star turned President.... But Stephen Gillers, a professor of legal ethics at New York University, cautioned me that a successful prosecution of Trump would likely need to demonstrate that his reckless handling of classified information caused actual harm—such as adversaries learning about American intelligence methods. Trump’s lawyers would argue that he was merely guilty of carelessness. Trump himself, of course, would make the case that he was being politically persecuted. 'I don’t think a jury would convict him without proof of harm. I’m not sure I would,' Gillers said. 'He’s a sloppy guy, and he couldn’t let go of the Oval Office, so he dumped a lot of stuff into boxes—souvenirs of his Presidency.' Gillers added that, fairly or unfairly, prosecuting a former President requires meeting a higher legal and political threshold. 'It has to be one-hundred-per-cent irresistible as a matter of law,' he said. 'There can be no fact, no event, no piece of evidence that could support any room for ambiguity.'... A rushed prosecution that results in an acquittal would only strengthen the former President. The judicial process can be maddeningly slow. The best option for Trump’s opponents is to wait and trust...."

Writes David Rohde in "The Dangers of Trump-Prosecution Syndrome/The evidence that the former President mishandled classified documents is growing, but the legal process can’t be rushed" (The New Yorker).

Gillers makes some good points, but I have trouble with this visual: "he dumped a lot of stuff into boxes." Who thinks he packed his own boxes?

"We aren’t defending Mr. Trump’s behavior in any of this. He brings much of his trouble on himself."

"But his political enemies make it worse when they break political norms themselves. They also help Mr. Trump by making him into a political martyr. If you’re going to indict a former President, you’d better have him dead to rights on something bigger than mishandling documents."

Writes The Editorial Board of The Wall Street Journal, in "The Mar-a-Lago Affidavit: Is That All There Is?/The redacted 38-pages add to the evidence that the FBI search really was all about a dispute over documents."

That's about what I'm thinking on the subject. I wouldn't use the phrase "dead to rights." I know it just means caught in the act/caught red-handed, but in America, even when you are caught red-handed and all the evidence is against you, you have rights. I know the "to rights" part of the phrase isn't a reference to legal rights (and "dead" doesn't mean not living), but it's distracting.

Wiktionary:

US, 1854, originally New York City criminal slang, thence entered general use. dead (“completely, utterly”) + to rights (“properly”)....

With sufficient evidence to establish responsibility definitively.

Anyway, the WSJ is saying you need a more important crime than mishandling documents, and even if you had it, you'd also need absolutely indisputable proof before you indict a former President. 

A very well designed graphic... except that it's hard to figure out what it's arguing.

Collab w/@grandoldmemes pic.twitter.com/DnaeUqlp32

— Silent Memejority (@memejority) August 26, 2022

Well, I guess we all have to read this thing now.

 I was about to eat lunch, but suddenly: The Affadivit!

ADDED: From the NYT:

The affidavit — including more than three dozen pages of evidence and legal arguments presented by the Justice Department’s national security division plus supporting documents — describes the government’s monthslong push to recover highly classified materials taken from the White House by a former president who viewed state documents as his private property....

"A federal judge in Florida on Thursday ordered that a redacted version of the affidavit used to obtain a warrant for former President Donald J. Trump’s Florida residence be unsealed by noon on Friday..."

"The decision by Judge Bruce E. Reinhart came just hours after the Justice Department submitted its proposal for extensive redactions to the document.... He appeared to accept the requested cuts.... [T]he order said that he... found them to be 'narrowly tailored to serve the government’s legitimate interest in the integrity of the ongoing investigation.'"

The NYT reports.

"Most judges would be a tad annoyed by the contradiction as the government continues to frame the public debate with its own selective leaks while using secrecy to bar other disclosures."

"That includes sections of the affidavit that detail the communications with the Trump team, information that is already known to the target. Someone is clearly lying. The Trump Team said that it was cooperating and would have given access to the government if it raised further objections. The Justice Department has clearly indicated that time was of the essence to justify this unprecedented raid on the home of a former president. Yet, Attorney General Merrick Garland reportedly waited for weeks to sign off on the application for a warrant and the FBI then waited a weekend to execute that warrant. It is difficult to understand why such communications could not be released in a redacted affidavit while protecting more sensitive sections. The latest leak to to the New York Times offers details on what was gathered from Mar-a-Lago...."

Writes Jonathan Turley.

Here's the NYT article he's talking about: "Trump Had More Than 300 Classified Documents at Mar-a-Lago/The National Archives found more than 150 sensitive documents when it got a first batch of material from the former president in January, helping to explain the Justice Department’s urgent response."

Turley: "It is litigation by leak where the government prevents others (including the target) from seeing key representations made to the court while releasing selective facts to its own advantage. It shows utter contempt for the court and the public."

"Donald Trump and his allies are reportedly talking about releasing Mar-a-Lago surveillance footage showing FBI agents searching the Florida resort."

"This will supposedly show jackbooted FBI thugs swarming over the former president’s home, graphically illustrating his long-running complaint of political persecution. Trump absolutely should release that footage. It would totally Own the Libs...."

WaPo's Greg Sargent snarks, in "Trump’s bizarre threat to release Mar-a-Lago footage is revealing."

"There can't be one rule for Democrats and another for Republicans. So the question 'What about her emails?' is an appropriate one."

"Mocking it is no answer. Neither is the cliche 'two wrongs do not make a right.' A second wrong doesn't justify or excuse the first, but unequal treatment of two comparable wrongs should raise concerns about fairness and equality. Unequal treatment of two equal wrongs is a third wrong. The 'whataboutism' argument applies as well to the manner in which Trump loyalists such as Peter Navarro, Roger Stone and Paul Manafort were arrested. In comparable cases involving similar charges, the defendants weren't handcuffed, shackled or subjected to restraints generally reserved for those who pose a risk of violence or flight.... It is often argued that presidents aren't above the law, but neither are they beneath deserving fair treatment, as Bill Clinton can attest.... Just as [Hillary's] actions don't excuse Mr. Trump's, his don't excuse hers.... [U]ntil Mr. Garland fully and specifically answers the hard questions about what appears to be unequal application of rules and practices, 'what about her emails?' will be a pertinent question."

 Writes Alan Dershowitz, in "'But Her Emails'? A Defense of 'Whataboutism'"/Mrs. Clinton should take her hat off. Treating like cases alike is crucial to the equal protection of the law" (Wall Street Journal).