US Politics Thread

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Reality Winner took one single document in an attempt to blow the whistle on Russian interference in the 2016 election and was charged with 'gathering, transmitting or losing national defence information'. She was sentenced to 5 years and three months in prison.

Private citizen Donald Trump took hundreds of highly classified documents for who knows what for and dumped them in a unsecure store room at his golf resort.

Am I missing something?
 
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Trevor Morley's Tache said:
Reality Winner took one single document in an attempt to blow the whistle on Russian interference in the 2016 election and was charged with 'gathering, transmitting or losing national defence information. She was sentenced to 5 years and three months in prison.

Private citizen Donald Trump took hundreds of highly classified documents for who knows what for and dumped them in a unsecure store room at his golf resort.

Am I missing something?
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What about the emails! And the laptop from hell! LOL.
 
Trevor Morley's Tache said:
Surprise!!!

www.reuters.com

Document seized from Trump home described foreign govt's nuclear capabilities -Washington Post

A document describing a foreign government's military defenses, including its nuclear capabilities, was found in the FBI's search last month of former President Donald Trump's Florida home, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday.
www.reuters.com www.reuters.com

​

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That's pretty fucking bad. What purpose could he possibly have with that kind of document.....
 
One wonders if the DOJ will appeal the district court's ruling with regard to Trump's motion for the made up reasons cited as "Judicial Oversight and Additional Review." According to numerous legal experts, the motion makes no sense at all and sets a dangerous precedent. Moreover, it impedes the ongoing investigation into Trump's conduct. Appointment of a special master could take months. And who knows what Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, might rule in the future.

On the other hand, there's no guarantee that an appeal would succeed regardless of merit. The appeal process could also take months - and if it fails, the DOJ is back to square one.

Make no mistake, Aileen Cannon's ruling is a major victory for Trump.

Trump's litigious behavior- which is to never admit guilt, and to sue, sue, sue... to appeal, appeal, appeal... in order to confound and delay legal proceedings against him pays off yet again.

Thanks to a corrupt judge - one willing to overlook precedent and law on the books, and indeed to reject an Amicus briefing filed by Republicans, simply to grant favor to her favorite political benefactor - Trump has temporarily derailed the investigation into his mishandling of documents and into obstruction of justice.
 
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BlueMoonAcrossThePond said:
One wonders if the DOJ will appeal the district court's ruling with regard to Trump's motion for the made up reasons cited as "Judicial Oversight and Additional Review." According to numerous legal experts, the motion makes no sense at all and sets a dangerous precedent. Moreover, it impedes the ongoing investigation into Trump's conduct. Appointment of a special master could take months. And who knows what Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, might rule in the future.

On the other hand, there's no guarantee that an appeal would succeed regardless of merit. The appeal process could also take months - and if it fails, the DOJ is back to square one.

Make no mistake, Aileen Cannon's ruling is a major victory for Trump.

Trump's litigious behavior- which is to never admit guilt, and to sue, sue, sue... to appeal, appeal, appeal... in order to confound and delay legal proceedings against him pays off yet again.

Thanks to a corrupt judge - one willing to overlook precedent and law on the books, and indeed to reject an Amicus briefing filed by Republicans, simply to grant favor to her favorite political benefactor - Trump has temporarily derailed the investigation into his mishandling of documents and into obstruction of justice. Next he'll declare that he's running for President - and with a bit of luck on his part - he'll possibly delay the document investigation for months and months more - and with even more luck - maybe he'll delay until 60 days before the Presidential election when perhaps he's the Republican nominee - meaning that the DOJ almost certainly won't act - and then, if he's elected President - the investigation is over. This is obviously a very worst case scenario - but it might happen (personally I think it unlikely, but certainly it's something that must have crossed Trump's mind and will motivate his future behavior).
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Its a bit of a side show. Nothing stops them arresting and charging him now. This might delay a trial but that is far less significant. It might suit the DOJ to let the public think this is delaying things. The mid terms will be over in 3 months. It might suit them to wait until then to arrest / charge (if they are willing to do it). That delay would help to dampen the political side of it. The only significant question now is are they willing to charge him.
 
With regard to Trump's mishandling of classified documents - one has to wonder WTF is going on at the National Archives? How is it even possible that they don't know exactly what documents Trump refused to turn over?

I used to work in the nuclear industry in the USA. Due to concerns for safety and the need to ensure that all engineers were working against the most up-to-date revision of documents including all the latest field and other changes - document control was exceedingly strict. To get a document you had to check it out. And once in possession you would automatically receive all updates, until such time as you turned the document back in.

The point being, in the nuclear industry, Document Control knows exactly who has copies of safety-related documents at all times.

The US National Archives seems to have - IMO - a huge, huge, document control problem. Not knowing who has "checked out" a copy of a controlled document - even if that person is the President of the United States - is a grave mistake.

Those empty folders marked "classified" discovered at Mar-a-Lago and the fact that National Archives is concerned but unsure about what may be missing - is frankly unacceptable.

Legislation clearly needs to be passed to ensure that all classified documents are tracked.

Yes, illegal copies of classified documents might be made and that's much harder to discern. But, for example, if it should come to light that secrets unique to a document were revealed to an adversary, then proper document control will reveal just who had access to the leaked information.

In my experience as a nuclear engineer - what seems to be going on with the National Archives - would, by analogy, have been immediately put to a halt - the Nuclear Regulatory Agency would have issued an immediate stop-order against virtually all activity by the National Archives until such time as it could demonstrate that it had effective procedures in place to track and enforce document control.
 
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Gaudion M said:
Its a bit of a side show. Nothing stops them arresting and charging him now. This might delay a trial but that is far less significant. It might suit the DOJ to let the public think this is delaying things. The mid terms will be over in 3 months. It might suit them to wait until then to arrest / charge (if they are willing to do it). That delay would help to dampen the political side of it. The only significant question now is are they willing to charge him.
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>> Nothing stops them arresting and charging him now.
The DOJ will not act until after the midterms. No chance at all of him being charged now.

Moreover, on what bases will charges be brought? My understanding is that any evidence gathered so far is in limbo - as it might be ruled inadmissible under "executive privilege" by the special master. My understanding is that there's an injunction to this very effect - no go on the docs until after special master review (inexplicably a national safety damage assessment might occur meanwhile according to the ruling but legal analysists seem to be unclear as to how this would occur).

I'm not a lawyer, but I've been paying close attention to reports on this matter. I've found no one at all other than far right leaning pundits claiming that the current ruling is a "side show" at all. Nor has any pundit at all - right or left - suggested that the ruling is "no big deal" - carry on as you were.

Best case - the ruling is appealed and overturned - 3 or 4 months delay in evidentiary review?

Slightly worse - somehow (I think this exceedingly unlikely) the DOJ and Trump's lawyers agree to a special master. Again, a big delay.

Likely outcome 1 - the DOJ and Trump can't agree on a special master. Aileen Cannon then appoints a special master. Based on her conduct so far, the special master appointed by Aileen will have a strong bias for Trump.

Likely outcome 2 - the DOJ appeals. I think that the next level of appeal is some sort of random collective of judges chosen - as it turns out - from among Judges appointed by Trump. My guess is that the appeal fails. From there, who knows? Further appeal? Or back to Likely Outcome 1? Either way, huge delay.
 
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