Tracking Trump's Criminal Liability Post-Presidency 2

Manhattan DA convenes new grand jury in Trump Org. case to weigh potential charges
Shayna Jacobs, David A. Fahrenthold and Jonathan O'Connell | 11/4/2021

NEW YORK — The Manhattan district attorney has convened a second long-term grand jury to hear evidence about the Trump Organization’s financial practices and potentially to vote on criminal charges, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

An earlier grand jury — convened this spring in Manhattan — returned felony indictments against two Trump companies and Trump’s longtime chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg, charging them with tax evasion. It is unclear whether that grand jury is still hearing evidence about the Trump Organization.

The new grand jury is assigned to meet three days a week over six months, people familiar with the matter said.

...the second grand jury was expected to examine how former president Donald Trump’s company valued its assets...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/manhattan-da-convenes-new-grand-jury-in-...

Republicans will have to decide if their presidential hopes in 2024 are going to be pinned on Trump the Candidate or Trump the Convict.

Just like in this Florida congressional election of Jason Mariner, 36, of Palm Beach Gardens, an advertising executive and self-described “America First” conservative candidate, a Trump-loving ex-felon who won Republican CD20 is ineligible to hold office.

Mariner had served roughly two years total in the Palm Beach County Jail over 2007 and 2012 on charges that included felony theft, burglary, cocaine possession, obstruction and violently resisting arrest, records show.

. . .ex-felons are automatically entitled to have their rights restored — including the right to hold political office — but must submit to a formal process administered by the Florida Commission on Offender Review and Office of Executive Clemency.

Mariner neglected to undergo that process before running for office. Oops! Looks like Mariner set sail but forgot to weigh his anchor.

>1 margd:

Compared to this new investigation into Trump Org. keeping "double books," Weiselberg's personal troubles seem like small beans. The monetary fraud of his wrong doing is nearly nothing compared to what is allegedly the subject in this new Manhattan DA's latest Grand Jury's purvey.

Evidently, prosecutors no longer give a damn if Weisselberg doesn't flip. They're going after Trump and kids' crime family head-on.

BREAKING!!! TRUMP TO BE INDICTED on RACKETEERING by MANHATTAN DA

Indications are that DA Cyrus Vance's Grand Jury has been paying close attention during the last 7 months to the testimony and evidence presented regarding Michael Cohen's sworn testimony that Trump was inclined to exaggerate the value of his properties when seeking a loan and to down grade the value on the same properties when paying taxes. According to Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist David Cay Johnston, the charge is criminal racketeering under NY state law.

MSNBC host Yasmin Vossoughian then pressed Johnston to confirm that he is certain about an impending indictment.

"Oh, yeah," Johnston responded. "They would not have done all of this and know how much they know ... if they weren't going to to do this. Yeah, they will indict him. Exactly when? I don't know. I don't expect it will be on a straight tax charge. I think there will be a tax charge, but the key charge will be racketeering."

The timing of the indictment will depend on how long it takes the prosecution team to finish going through the 5M documents Trump was forced to turn over to it by the SCOTUS last Feb. My guess it won't be months but probably weeks, if a RICO charge is the likely outcome of what started as a tax fraud investigation.

While not a hint of a smoking gun ever emerged to the public from that stockpile of evidence, it would surprise me if there wasn't sufficient smoke smoldering among those pages to start a wildfire of criminal charges.

NY State Rico Law

An ultra brief intro what it is to help readers understand what the pending indictment means.

Criminalizes the offense referred to as "enterprise corruption."

A person is guilty of enterprise corruption when, having knowledge of the existence of a "criminal enterprise" and the nature of its activities, and being employed by or associated with such enterprise, he or she:

Intentionally conducts or participates in the affairs of an enterprise by participating in a pattern of criminal activity;
Intentionally acquires or maintains an interest in or control of an enterprise by participating in a pattern of criminal activity; or
Participates in a pattern of criminal activity and knowingly invests any proceeds derived from that conduct, or any proceeds derived from the investment or use of those proceeds, in an enterprise.

Statutory Definition: A "criminal enterprise" is "a group of persons sharing a common purpose of engaging in criminal conduct, associated in an ascertainable structure distinct from a pattern of criminal activity, and with a continuity of existence, structure and criminal purpose beyond the scope of individual criminal incidents."

Sentence: Considered a Class B felony: Up to 25 yrs. in prison and a fine of either $5,000 or double the amount of the defendant's gain from the crime (whichever is greater)

Nice!

Fulton County DA Says, "expect results" First Half of 2022

Fani Willis, the Georgia DA, says she has enough testimony, evidence, and documents from voluntary submissions to make a case already. But there are strategies she's considering that will finalize the charges she will bring against Trump's 2020 election corruption. However, she is in the process of deciding whether or not to ask the Superior Court judge to empanel a special grand jury that would enable her investigation to compel reluctant witnesses to testify and strengthen the case against Trump's election interference and attempted election fraud.

WaPo reports that she is "leaning" toward doing so. The added benefit of such a move is it will speed up the conclusion of the investigation since subpoenas would not be required.

Willis declined to speak about the specifics, but she confirmed that the investigation’s scope includes — but is not limited to — a Jan. 2, 2021, phone call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a November 2020 phone call between U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham and Raffensperger, the abrupt resignation of the U.S. attorney in Atlanta on Jan. 4, 2021, and comments made during December 2020 Georgia legislative committee hearings on the election.

BEAKING Rachel Maddow: Previously Unreported --Trump's Attorneys Met with Fulton County Prosecutors

The meeting involved the phone calls that Trump made to the governor and secretary of state demanding that they change the 2020 election results.

The calls, which were recorded and released to the press, revealed Trump's demand, "I just want to find 11,780 votes."

Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger was told by the president this total represented "one more than we have" and then claimed the votes must be found because "we won."

You may recall back in mid-December Last Year, Trump released an unhinged rant about "Democrat DAs, AGs, an law enforcement." From out of the blue he attacked nameless Democrats a few days later. Why?

"All the Democrats want to do is put people in jail. They are vicious, violent and Radical Left thugs," Trump said in his statement. "They are destroying people's lives, which is the only thing they are good at."

As it happens, that rant came on the heels of the previously unreported (until tonight) meeting between Trump's lawyers and the investigation team of Futon County Georgia DA, Fani Willis, the only "prosecutor" or DA binging a criminal case against Trump for attempted subversion of a legitimate state election in 2020.

Well guess what -- Trump's attorneys are scrambling again and met in person TODAY with the Fulton County prosecutorial team. AGAIN. Now why is that? Perhaps the news earlier that DA Fani Willis that she's considering submitting a motion for the empaneling of a special grand jury that doesn't require subpoenas in order to compel testimony from witnesses.

Stay tuned.

Watch Rachel Maddow's report on YouTube

Britting Schicks

Georgia DA Near Trump Indictment for Criminal Conspiracy to Commit Election Fraud

Former federal prosecutor, Glenn Kirschner, tells MSNBC tonight,

When I heard Donald Trump's unhinged statement (see Post #6 above). . .the first thing this old prosecutor heard, and I said it back then, is someone just told Donald Trump's defense team he's about to be indicted."

Kirschner spent 24 years as a prosecutor with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. Speaking to host Joy Reid, he went on to support his thinking based on personal professional experience.

"What we do is, right before we take that final trip into the grand jury and ask them to vote on criminal charges and return an indictment, we invite the defense team in.

"We say, 'Listen, maybe we're looking at this wrong. If you have any exculpatory evidence, if you have any evidence that could exonerate your client, if we're barking up the wrong tree, maybe we didn't hear what we heard on the recorded call with (Secretary of State) Brad Raffensperger — unlikely, but still — we are inviting you to provide that exonerating information.

"'And then, you know what, we'll look at it and we'll assess it before we walk into the grand jury that one last time and ask them to indict Donald Trump.'

"That likely happened, as we've now seen based on the reporting. That's what set Trump off. And it feels like the Georgia state prosecutors might be the first ones out of the blocks on the race for justice against Donald Trump."

4 big points from the N.Y. attorney general’s Trump allegations
Aaron Blake | Jan 19, 2021

Eric Trump and Weisselberg invoked the Fifth more than 500 times
Trump’s alleged involvement
Linking his children
‘It seems like they are hiding something’

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/01/19/big-points-trump-allegations/

Fulton County Prosecutor Seeks Grand Jury in Trump's Election Fraud Attempt

Citing Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) as an example, DA Fani Willis stated that. . .

". . .the move was needed because a “significant number of witnesses and prospective witnesses have refused to cooperate with the investigation absent a subpoena requiring their testimony.”
(SNIP)
In her letter to Christopher S. Brasher, chief judge of Fulton County’s Superior Court, Willis cited several advantages to impaneling a rarely used special purpose grand jury.

Among them: It could sit for a longer period of time than a normal grand jury and it would focus solely on the matter at hand, which she called “appropriate to the complexity of the facts and circumstances involved.”

Willis noted that the type of grand jury she is requesting would not have the authority to return an indictment but could make recommendations concerning criminal prosecutions.

The investigation centers on Trump's phone call to Raffensberger telling him to "find" the votes needed to overturn the state's electoral results.

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-kids-2656458808/
Trump may let his kids take the fall as the legal net tightens around him: DC insider

***
Who believes Ivana will sit quietly as her kids go to jail for their lunatic father's actions???

Georgia prosecutor granted special grand jury in probe of Trump’s efforts to overturn state’s election results
Amy B Wang and John Wagner | Jan 24, 2022

...Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis...will be allowed to seat a special grand jury on May 2...

The special grand jury can continue for a period “not to exceed 12 months,” Christopher Brasher, chief judge of Fulton County Superior Court, wrote in an order.

“The special purpose grand jury shall be authorized to investigate any and all facts and circumstances relating directly or indirectly to alleged violations of the laws of the State of Georgia, as set forth in the request of the District Attorney referenced hereinabove,” he added. “The special purpose grand jury … make recommendations concerning criminal prosecution as it shall see fit.”...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/01/24/georgia-prosecutor-granted-sp...

Daniel Goldman (staff to House Judiciary Committee during 1st impeachment) @danielsgoldman | 11:19 AM · Feb 6, 2022:
This is a crime.
And would be pretty easy to prove with a few grand jury subpoenas to witnesses of his document destruction.
Add it to the list.

Quote Tweet
Philip Rucker @PhilipRucker · Feb 5
"He never stopped ripping things up": Inside Trump’s relentless document destruction habits, which were far more widespread and indiscriminate than previously known, by @AshleyRParker @jdawsey1 @thamburger @JaxAlemany
https://washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/02/05/trump-ripping-documents/

From the Seattle Times:

Aides carry boxes to Marine One as Trump leaves for the last time.

Couldn't that desk blotter contain impressions? Maybe it should have gone to Archives? Security should have checked for staplers and copy paper belonging to the government.

https://www.mediaite.com/news/more-than-two-thirds-of-canadians-believe-u-s-demo...
More Than Two-Thirds Of Canadians Believe U.S. Democracy ‘Cannot Survive’ if Trump is Reelected: New Poll Finds

***
Canadians know a life-long grifter when they see one because they haven't been influenced by wingnut TV, radio and podcast hosts who are raking in the moolah while on their missions to spread misinformation far and wide.

https://www.mediaite.com/print/mi-prosecutor-claims-rudy-giuliani-asked-him-to-g...
MI Prosecutor Claims Rudy Giuliani Asked Him to Gather Voting Machines, Hand Them Over to Trump’s Team

“I never expected in my life I’d get a call like this,” Rossiter said.

***
This turned out to be 'par for the course' during the Trump era.

https://www.axios.com/maggie-haberman-book-trump-papers-2d59d593-8b89-4edd-8623-...
Haberman book: Flushed papers found clogging Trump WH toilet

While President Trump was in office, staff in the White House residence periodically discovered wads of printed paper clogging a toilet — and believed the president had flushed pieces of paper, Maggie Haberman scoops in her forthcoming book, "Confidence Man."

***
This is the lunatic Twilight-Zone voters want to return to the WH and a majority of GOP reps defend 24/7. America is on the road to becoming a democracy in name only.

POTUS “exclusively responsible” to preserve his WH records, 44USC1303;
“remove/destroy”is fed crime that “disqualifies” from “holding any office,” 18USC2071.
This alone demands prosecution and disqualification.
AG cd toss in seditious conspiracy & insurrection for good measure.

- Laurence Tribe tribelaw | 1:58 PM · Feb 10, 2022
-----------------------------------------------------

No enforcement for Presidential Records Act.
But there’s another law that punishes destruction of federal records with 3 years in prison and disqualification from office. https://law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2071

- On Point News @OnPointNews | 2:06 PM · Feb 10, 2022

Trump accountants say financial reports unreliable (BBC)

Donald Trump's accounting firm has cut ties with the former president and said a decade of financial reports should "no longer be relied upon". The firm, Mazars, said in a letter to the Trump Organization that it could not stand behind statements it had prepared for Mr Trump from 2011-20. But Mazars said it had not concluded they contained material discrepancies...

NBC legal analyst Glenn Kirschner tweeted: “Trump Org. tries to spin it as a complete exoneration (& G. Orwell blushes).”

Cringe demonrats fantasizing that some hearsay about clogged ducts will hurt President Trump.

One could call that...
...a pipe dream.

>22 Kuiperdolin:

Good one!

The evidence is clear: it’s time to prosecute Donald Trump (Guardian)

On 8 March, a jury took three hours to render a guilty verdict against Guy Reffitt, a January 6 insurrectionist. Donald Trump could not have been pleased. DC is where Trump would be tried for any crimes relating to his admitted campaign to overturn the election.
    Jurors there would have no trouble finding that the evidence satisfies all statutory elements required to convict Trump, including his criminal intent, the most challenging to prove. That is our focus here.

Laurence H Tribe is the Carl M Loeb university professor emeritus of constitutional law at Harvard University. Follow him tribelaw. Dennis Aftergut is a former federal prosecutor, currently of counsel to Lawyers Defending American Democracy

I'm unconvinced that, from any practical standpoint, Biden is an improvement on Trump, though I will admit he is quieter, which is better.

Certainly from a foreign policy angle, Biden's continuation of Trump's "America First" stance means there isn't room to get a fag-paper between how the White Hose relates to abroad now than say four years ago.

NYT | March 23, 2022
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/23/nyregion/mark-pomerantz-resignation-letter.ht...

The following is the full text of the resignation letter by Mark Pomerantz, who had investigated former President Donald J. Trump, but left after the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, halted an effort to seek an indictment...
-------------------------------------------------------

Dear Alvin,

I write to tender my resignation as a Special Assistant District Attorney and to explain my reasons for resigning.

As you know from our recent conversations and presentations, I believe that Donald Trump is guilty of numerous felony violations of the Penal Law in connection with the preparation and use of his annual Statements of Financial Condition. His financial statements were false, and he has a long history of fabricating information relating to his personal finances and lying about his assets to banks, the national media, counterparties, and many others, including the American people. The team that has been investigating Mr. Trump harbors no doubt about whether he committed crimes — he did.

In late 2021, then-District Attorney Cyrus Vance directed a thorough review of the facts and law relating to Mr. Trump’s financial statements. Mr. Vance had been intimately involved in our investigation, attending grand jury presentations, sitting in on certain witness interviews, and receiving regular reports about the progress of the investigation. He concluded that the facts warranted prosecution, and he directed the team to present evidence to a grand jury and to seek an indictment of Mr. Trump and other defendants as soon as reasonably possible.

This work was underway when you took office as District Attorney. You have devoted significant time and energy to understanding the evidence we have accumulated with respect to the Trump financial statements, as well as the applicable law. You have reached the decision not to go forward with the grand jury presentation and not to seek criminal charges at the present time. The investigation has been suspended indefinitely. Of course, that is your decision to make. I do not question your authority to make it, and I accept that you have made it sincerely. However, a decision made in good faith may nevertheless be wrong. I believe that your decision not to prosecute Donald Trump now, and on the existing record, is misguided and completely contrary to the public interest. I therefore cannot continue in my current position.

In my view, the public interest warrants the criminal prosecution of Mr. Trump, and such a prosecution should be brought without any further delay. Because of the complexity of the facts, the refusal of Mr. Trump and the Trump Organization to cooperate with our investigation, and their affirmative steps to frustrate our ability to follow the facts, this investigation has already consumed a great deal of time. As to Mr. Trump, the great bulk of the evidence relates to his management of the Trump Organization before he became President of the United States. These facts are already dated, and our ability to establish what happened may erode with the further passage of time. Many of the salient facts have been made public in proceedings brought by the Office of the Attorney General, and the public has rightly inquired about the pace of our investigation. Most importantly, the further passage of time will raise additional questions about the failure to hold Mr. Trump accountable for his criminal conduct.

To the extent you have raised issues as to the legal and factual sufficiency of our case and the likelihood that a prosecution would succeed, I and others have advised you that we have evidence sufficient to establish Mr. Trump’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and we believe that the prosecution would prevail if charges were brought and the matter were tried to an impartial jury. No case is perfect. Whatever the risks of bringing the case may be, I am convinced that a failure to prosecute will pose much greater risks in terms of public confidence in the fair administration of justice. As I have suggested to you, respect for the rule of law, and the need to reinforce the bedrock proposition that “no man is above the law,” require that this prosecution be brought even if a conviction is not certain.

I also do not believe that suspending the investigation pending future developments will lead to a stronger case or dispel your reluctance to bring charges. No events are likely to occur that will alter the nature of the case or dramatically change the quality or quantity of the evidence available to the prosecution. There are always additional facts to be pursued. But the investigative team that has been working on this matter for many months does not believe that it makes law enforcement sense to postpone a prosecution in the hope that additional evidence will somehow emerge. On the contrary, I and others believe that your decision not to authorize prosecution now will doom any future prospects that Mr. Trump will be prosecuted for the criminal conduct we have been investigating.

I fear that your decision means that Mr. Trump will not be held fully accountable for his crimes. I have worked too hard as a lawyer, and for too long, now to become a passive participant in what I believe to be a grave failure of justice. I therefore resign from my position as a Special Assistant District Attorney, effective immediately.

Sincerely,
Mark F. Pomerantz

>26 margd:

TRUMP is a control freak. He knew about everything that went on in his behalf in his mob organization.

John Dean Responds

Former Republican and once Nixon White House Counsel who was disbarred in NY and in the D.C. for his involvement in the Watergate coverup after pleading guilty to obstruction of justice pipes up . https://twitter.com/JohnWDean/status/1506767171304636416

Then he went on to say the Feds, meaning Merrick Garland's troop of lawyers, should pick up and prosecute the case since Trump is guilty of crimes as stated in Pomerantz's resignation letter.

...Southern District of New York (SDNY) office should take over the investigation from Alvin Bragg and “indict Trump,” suggesting the former president’s crimes might also be federal.

“Time for SDNY to step up and indict Trump. Rarely are state crimes not also federal crimes.”

DoJ, step up and finish the job. Others have already done all the work for you.

>25 NickDuberley: If President Biden is acting in ways that suggests he should face criminal investigation or prosecution anywhere close to the extent former President Trump should, then please know you're welcome to create a new topic on that.

How to Revive the Trump Investigation in Manhattan
David Cay Johnston | March 25, 2022

...There is no reason for Bragg’s cold feet to be the end of the efforts to prosecute Trump and perhaps his confederates because the New York Constitution and state statutes provide a simple way to revive this moribund criminal investigation. And there is nothing Bragg can do to stop it.

All Gov. Hochul needs to do is exercise her authority under Article 63, Section 2 of New York’s executive law to remove Bragg and appoint state Attorney General Letitia James to take over the case.

Although such action is rare, the governor’s authority to replace any county district attorney with the state attorney general is nearly unfettered…

https://www.dcreport.org/2022/03/25/how-to-revive-the-trump-investigation-in-man...

Not my favorite sources, but informative....

"Trump to pay $750K fine for 'misspent' inaugural funds that enriched the Trump family, DC AG Karl Racine says" (Business Insider by way of MSN)
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-to-pay-dollar750k-fine-for-misspen...

The Trump Organization and his 2017 inaugural committee have agreed to pay $750,000 to settle allegations that Donald Trump improperly poured inauguration donations into his Trump International Hotel at inflated prices, thereby enriching his family.

Other Updates:

In November, Summer Zervos, who had accused Trump of sexual assault following her appearance on "The Apprentice," dropped her lawsuit against him before he was forced to sit for a deposition. At around the same time, a New York state judge dismissed a lawsuit from Michael Cohen seeking to have the Trump Organization reimburse his legal fees for work he did on Trump's behalf.

Reminders of What Remains in Litigation:

The Trump Organization is the subject of a sprawling investigation from the Manhattan district attorney's office and the New York attorney general's office into alleged financial misconduct.

In Atlanta, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is weighing charges over his conduct in the 2020 election. Those investigations are proceeding as the Justice Department comes up on the five-year deadline to prosecute Trump over acts of possible obstruction that former Special Counsel Robert Mueller III scrutinized as part of his investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration is sending a steady stream of Trump's White House records to the House committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. And Trump — along with many of his allies — face federal investigations and lawsuits stemming from the January 6 insurrection.

Trump Proposed Launching Missiles Into Mexico to ‘Destroy the Drug Labs,’ Esper Says
Maggie Haberman | May 5, 2022

...Mr. Esper, the last Senate-confirmed defense secretary under Mr. Trump, also had concerns about speculation that the president might misuse the military around Election Day by, for instance, having soldiers seize ballot boxes. He warned subordinates to be on alert for unusual calls from the White House in the lead-up to the election.

...“(Trump) is an unprincipled person who, given his self-interest, should not be in the position of public service.”

...Mr. Trump said that “we could just shoot some Patriot missiles and take out the labs, quietly,” adding that “no one would know it was us.” Mr. Trump said he would just say that the United States had not conducted the strike...

...In October 2019, after members of the national security team assembled in the Situation Room to watch a feed of the raid that killed the Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, (policy adviser Stephen) Miller proposed securing Mr. al-Baghdadi’s head, dipping it in pig’s blood and parading it around to warn other terrorists, Mr. Esper writes. That would be a “war crime,” Mr. Esper shot back.

...Mark Meadows, Mr. Trump’s final White House chief of staff,...often threw the president’s name around when barking orders...

...Robert C. O’Brien, Mr. Trump’s national security adviser in the final year,...advocat(ed) a bellicose approach to Iran without considering the potential fallout...

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/05/us/politics/mark-esper-book-trump.html
_____________________________________________

“No One Would Know It Was Us”: Trump Thought He Could Fire Missiles Into Mexico and Blame It on Another Country
Bess Levin | May 6, 2022

...in the summer of 2020, Trump asked, on at least two occasions, if the military could “shoot missiles into Mexico to destroy the drug labs,” saying, “They don’t have control of their own country.” Told all the various reasons this idea was a non-starter, the then president insisted that they could do it “quietly,” adding: “no one would know it was us.” Apparently informed that yes, in fact, people would know it was the U.S., Trump responded that he would simply lie and say we didn’t do it. While this obviously sounds absolutely insane, Trump has actually floated similar ideas in public. (In a speech to Republican donors in March, Trump suggested that the U.S. should “put the Chinese flag” on its military planes, “bomb the shit” out of Russia, “and then we say, China did it, we didn’t do it, China did it, and (let them) start fighting with each other.”)...

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/05/donald-trump-mexico-missiles-mark-esper

If only this was worst thing Trump has done... Still, because he maintains that he is still president, it it is more problematic than most misuses of the Presidential seal.

Fourth Trump Golf Course Appears To Be Violating Law By Using Presidential Seal
Zach Everson | Jun 6, 2022

...It is against the law to use the presidential seal in a way that could convey the impression of government approval or sponsorship of private-sector businesses. The West Palm Beach golf club is the fourth Trump property to feature the seal in possible violation of the statute, following a trend set at courses in the Bronx, New Jersey and Jupiter, Florida.

Violations of the law can result in prison sentences of up to six months, although prosecutors have never prioritized charging people who misuse the seal...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacheverson/2022/06/06/fourth-trump-golf-course-app...

Chris Anderson @ChrisA0213 | 11:38 AM · Jul 7, 2022:
Columnist for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.

TRUMP NEWS: Donald Trump removed himself from the board of his media company on June 8, a few weeks before the SEC and a grand jury in Manhattan issued federal subpoenas to the company. Also removed was Donald Trump, Jr. More coming in the @HeraldTribune

Small potatoes in the larger scheme of this, but, more crimes against the Government of the United States...a hill of potatoes now.

George Conway🌻@gtconway3d | 12:07 PM · Jul 29, 2022:
"It is against federal law to use the presidential and vice-presidential seals in ways that could convey 'a false impression of sponsorship or approval by the Government of the United States.'"

Also, coups d'état may be against the law but who's keeping score?

Quote Tweet
The Washington Post @washingtonpost | 2h
The seal was plastered on towels, golf carts and other items as the former president participated at the pro-am of the Saudi-sponsored tournament Thursday.
https://wapo.st/3cQBYqr

>35 margd: He's so embarassing, I marvel at how many people want him to be POTUS again.

President Obama was loudly criticized as "unpresidential" for not wearing suit jackets on hot days in his own office, just as Republican presidents have (sensibly) done, but then there's this guy. I doubt President Trump got through so much as an entire day meeting the bare minimum expectations for his position--the one he publicly swore to serve in, anyway.

Trump still not only acts clueless about the huge difference between running a massive government and sitting at the head of a pre-existing business, he acts as if there's no difference between formerly being the CEO and currently being the CEO. Worse, he's playing this game with the country's reputation alongside people not only the USA but the world has a terrible history with.

It's obvious he's still trying to bring the federal government down while making himself look good to his dictator friends.

We can only keep watching to see how well it works, I guess.

I read that Mark Meadows has his own lawyer, a pretty good one.

Trump’s Lawyers Are Preparing Legal Defenses Against Criminal Charges
Asawin Suebsaeng & Adam Rawnsley | 31 July 2022

...effort intensified after former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson’s June testimony before the House committee investigating Jan. 6.

...In their preparations, Trump’s team has discussed strategies that involve shifting blame from Trump to his advisers for the efforts to overturn the election, per the three sources, reflecting a broader push to find a fall guy — or fall guys. “Trump got some terrible advice from attorneys who, some people would argue, should have or must have known better,” says one of the sources with knowledge of recent discussions in Trumpland. “An ‘advice of counsel’ defense would be a big one.”...

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-lawyers-planning-for-c...

Salty language.

MeidasTouch @MeidasTouch | 5:03 PM · Jul 31, 2022:
In a new low even for Donald Trump, tax experts believe that Donald Trump is exploiting the death of his ex-wife Ivana to evade paying taxes on his Bedminster property. Texas Paul breaks it down.

youtube.com
Texas Paul EXPOSES how Trump is Exploiting Ex-Wife Ivana’s Death...
Texas Paul exposes how Donald Trump is exploiting the death of his ex-wife Ivana Trump in order to protect his criminal exposure and evade taxes...

3:45 ( https://twitter.com/MeidasTouch/status/1553848888519319553 )

Breaking news

Federal Bureau of Investigation agents have executed a search warrant at former president Donald Trump’s Palm Beach, Florida home at his Mar-a-Lago club, the ex-president said in a statement Monday evening.

Mr Trump said his Florida residence was “currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents” who, among other things, “broke into” a safe belonging to the ex-president.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-mar-a...

Looking for documents some of which may be related to January 6 which the Donald absconded with after he was forced out of office. That is illegal per laws put into place post Watergate……or at least that would be my guess. Possibly some related to all the communications that have gone missing or weren’t preserved by court order of secret service agents, Trump appointees and Donald himself etc. etc. Apparently there might be as many as 15 boxes…..whether or not in the time between his departure and now he’s destroyed any or all of that.

Hearing also that DoJ OIG might be on the cusp of indicting Trump’s lawyer John Eastman with multiple conspiracies. They have Eastman’s phone and missing communications that should be on file linking up Eastman and Trump on or around January 6 may be among missing documentation they’re looking for. Just a guess.

Trump by the way stating that he’s been cooperative—WTF!

So in a Twitter by a Marc E. Elias he points out:

18 U.S. Code 2071 paragraph b which says in full:

(b) Whoever, having the custody of any such record, proceeding, map, book, document, paper, or other thing, willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies, or destroys the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both; and shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the zUnited States. As used in this subsection, the term “office” does not include the office held by any person as a retired officer of the Armed Forces of the United States.

Republicans rush to Trump's defense after FBI executes search warrant at Mar-a-Lago
Alex Rogers and Melanie Zanona | August 9, 2022
https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/09/politics/republicans-congress-reaction-trump-fbi-...
_________________________________________

Christian Vanderbrouk 🇺🇸🇺🇦🌻 @UrbanAchievr | 8:41 PM · Aug 8, 2022:
I don’t remember many people crying and wailing about “civil war” when a Republican FBI Director announced a criminal investigation of the Democratic nominee 11 days before the 2016 election.

Remember?

Some records taken by Trump are so sensitive they may not be described in public
Jacqueline Alemany and Tom Hamburger | February 25, 2022

Some of the presidential records recovered from former president Donald Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago are so sensitive they may not be able to be described in forthcoming inventory reports in an unclassified way...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/02/25/trump-oversight-records/

"The FBI’s Raid on Mar-a-Lago Is Just the Beginning for Trump" (Slate today) by Martin J. Sheil, former investigator at the IRS and supervisory special agent in its Criminal Investigation Division who has also held leadership positions such as special agent in charge in San Antonio, Texas; director of forensics in Chicago, Illinois; and director of asset forfeiture in Washington, D.C.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/08/fbi-raid-mar-a-lago-trump-criminal-l...

The search warrant executed at Mar-a-Lago opened Pandora’s Box with regard to Donald Trump’s potential criminal liability. This search warrant was likely reviewed up and down the supervisory ladders at both the FBI, whose present director was hired by Trump, and the Department of Justice, where the attorney general himself likely reviewed the search warrant affidavit before signing off and sending it to a federal judge to review. There is also just a little more than 90 days before the midterm elections, which may have presented a compelling factor in the timing of this search warrant. Will we learn more about that timing?

Finally, what often happens in my experience in supervising federal investigations—one search warrant leads to another.

He’s an existential threat to our democracy. If he were to take power again he would not let it go. The next time he will lock up DoJ, the military, homeland security and every federal police agency. He’ll put his guys in place in every key position to make sure he’ll never have to leave. He will go after his enemies.

Haberman shares photos of Trump-era White House toilet clogged with wads of paper
Dominick Mastrangelo - 08/08/22
https://thehill.com/homenews/3592447-haberman-shares-photos-of-trump-era-white-h...
_______________________________________________

The Washington Post @washingtonpost | 3:38 PM · Dec 6, 2019:
"We have a situation where we're looking very strongly at sinks and showers, and other elements of bathrooms," Trump says.

"People are flushing toilets 10 times, 15 times, as opposed to once."
1:22 ( https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/1203050997423255553 )
From Zach Purser Brown

Highly speculative, but interesting. Timing, given Saudi investment in Jared co., expensive golf tournament at Trump property. Among comments, several links to previous articles: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/03/trump-admin-eager-to-hand-the-saudis-nuc... , https://twitter.com/jospoke1/status/1557225018450485256/photo/1 .

Randi Rhodes @RandiRhodes | 7:52 PM · Aug 9, 2022:
https://twitter.com/RandiRhodes/status/1557152832914178048

Trump stole nuclear secrets.

That's why the Export Control Section and a Counterintelligence Agent were sent to Mar-a-Lago to seize the documents. It also explains why Wray and Garland agreed to get a warrant. Nothing less.

Trump has a copy of the warrant
#ReleaseTheWarrant

The search of Mar-a-Lago in Florida has me curious about the status of other court cases.

Primary source for the following cases: https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/3512897-where-trumps-long-list-of-l... (June)

Jan 6 and 2020 election investigations

Other than the FBI investigation, Donald Trump is facing several lawsuits related to the events of January 6, 2021, and the 2020 presidential election.

1. Criminal investigation by the Fulton County, Georgia, district attorney’s office into Trump's actions for the 2020 election.

2. NAACP lawsuit against Trump for allegedly interfering with the 2020 election in violation of the Voting Rights Act and the Ku Klux Klan Act. (There's a KKK Act?! Okay then.)

3. Lawsuit from Congressional Representative Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) over the Jan 6 Capitol attack.

4. thru 6. Three lawsuits filed by U.S. Capitol Police officers against Trump for allegedly inciting the Jan 6 rioting that injured more than 100 officers. (Four officers committed suicide afterward and one died from a stroke related to injuries shortly after.)

7. Two officers from Washington, D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department filed a separate lawsuit against Trump seeking compensation for physical and emotional damages associated with the Capitol attack.

Additionally, D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine said his probe into those who incited Jan 6 could result in charges against Trump. Has it?

Probe by New York Attorney General Letitia James into Trump Organization’s real estate property valuations

Trump was expected in court today for this.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/trump-expected-testify-wednesday-york-ag-probe/story

Other probes by New York officials into Trump Organization’s property valuations

1. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg was leading a similar probe into potential tax fraud and financial crimes. (The case previously resulted in charges against former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg for his alleged role in a 15-year tax fraud scheme.)

2. The Westchester County, New York, district attorney’s office also launched an investigation last year into whether Trump Organization misled officials about the property value of Trump National Golf Club Westchester.

Federal investigation looking at whether Trump mishandled classified documents

The National Archives asked the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate whether the former president mishandled classified documents after 15 missing boxes of official records Trump was legally required to turn over to the Archives were recovered from Mar-a-Lago in January.

And 12 more boxes of documents belonging to the federal government were recovered from the personal winter residence this week!

https://www.yahoo.com/now/fbi-agents-took-around-12-105054712.html

(More to come after I give my hand a break.)

Post edited for minor cleanups and clarification about the recovered archival documents

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/10/trump-says-he-refused-to-answer-ny-attorney-gene...
Trump says he refused to answer New York attorney general’s questions in probe of his business

Trump said he decided he had “absolutely no choice” but to plead the Fifth in James’ deposition following the FBI raid at Mar-a-Lago “because the current Administration and many prosecutors in this Country have lost all moral and ethical bounds of decency.”

***
He had no choice ~ his lying gene is much more powerful than his long-dormant truth gene.

>49 aspirit: continuation of cases

Additional reference: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/donald-trump-s-docket-the-latest-on-key-...

Mary Trump v. Donald Trump

The lawsuit against him for allegedly defrauding his niece from the family inheritance of at least $10 million is ongoing in the New York Supreme Court.

Class-action complaint against Trump for for hiking up rent prices

This case appears to be a response to discoveries in research for Mary Trump's lawsuit. Filed in the New York Supreme Court, the complaint by tenants who lived in a building once owned by Trump's father say the family engaged in a rent schemes by inflating prices for appliances. The complaint was amended in March.

Trump Tower lawsuit

Six people are suing Trump for allegedly directing his security guards to assault them outside Trump Tower during a 2015 protest. Trump sat for a four-hour deposition for this case in October 2021. Jury selection has been scheduled for next month (September).

Michael D. Cohen v. Trump Organization

Also in a New York federal court, Trump's former personal attorney Michael Cohen is suing him, the federal government, and other officials for allegedly retaliating with imprisonment for speaking to the press and writing a tell-all book, Disloyal: A Memoir: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump. (He was originally sent to prison for financial crimes and lying to Congress about Trump's dealings.)

Doe v. Trump Organization

Another class-action lawsuit, this one alleging the Trump Organization scammed investors into supporting false or worthless business opportunities. The case has been in a U.S. District Court of New York.

Copyright lawsuit

Creator of "Electric Avenue" Eddy Grant is suing Trump and his campaign in a New York federal court for copyright infringement of the 1983 song during the 2020 campaign. Grant is seeking compensation of $300,000. Depositions are due this month.

E. Jean Carroll v. Donald J. Trump

The writer who says Trump sexually assaulted her in the 1990s during an interview is suing him for defamation. His defamation counter suit has been thrown out. Carroll's lawsuit is pending in New York, as arrangements are made for the sharing of evidence, possibly including Trump's DNA to compare to what was found on the dress she was wearing during the alleged rape attempt.

>50 Molly3028: He'd incriminate himself if he talked. Of course he has to stay silent in court.

Now if he could only bring himself to do that on social media, the world would be a better place.

Oh, yes, this is relevant to the topic.

I was watching Trevor Noah joking about how Donald Trump is an impressive criminal multi-tasker, as in he's constantly managing multiple crimes at one time. In the comments to the video, someone pointed out that Trump can't even talk about criminal charges against him without bringing up another of his crimes.

His "beautiful home, Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida" that was "raided" (aka legally searched after he refused to return stolen documents)? Turns out, that "home" is zoned so that only employees of the private club / resort may live there. Club members may not stay there for more than 21 days per year or more than seven days at a time. That's according to a use agreement with the city.

His attorney is arguing that Trump is an employee. He's an employee of his own business. Seriously, that's the argument.

Note that to vote legally in Florida, a resident must live in the state for at least six months of the year. Trump claims Mar-a-Lago as his residence when voting in elections.

ETA: additional info

The absurdity of this to me is partially because I see "Trump Organization, LLC" on records while poking around for more details of news. While there are different types of limited liability corporations, the most consistent are the sole proprietorships and partnerships for which the owners aren't legally recognized as employees of their companies. That distinction comes up frequently. It matters to people handling business records.

(For context, I grew up helping with paperwork for my parents' LLC, used to own an LLC myself, and have also worked in government administration of business contracts.)

Looking into Mar-a-Lago (with Florida maintaining some of the most accessible business records in the country), anyone can see that the club is not a limited corporation. That does open up a gray area. An owner of an incorporated business can be considered an employee in some legal dealings. So the attorney's argument is not entirely as ridiculous as it sounds.

... as long as we ignore that Donald Trump is listed in the business filings as "President, Director, Chairman, VP, Secretary, Treasurer" of the club and that his attorney is comparing him to, for example, his non-American, temporary guest workers who have to live there.

https://www.mediaite.com/news/paranoia-trump-goes-on-hunt-for-fbi-rat-convinced-...
‘PARANOIA’: Trump Goes on Hunt for FBI ‘Rat’ – Convinced He’s Being Wiretapped ‘By Biden’ Says New Report

***
And, unfortunately, so-called news outlets, like FOX, are feeding his paranoia. A few people in Trump's orbit still maintain functioning moral compasses.

Interesting: pleading 5th apparently has different ramifications in civil case than criminal?

George Conway🌻@gtconway3d | 11:23 AM · Aug 10, 2022:
Recovering lawyer with autogolpe derangement syndrome. Contributing columnist, @WashingtonPost.

...in any civil case that AG James may bring against Trump, the finder of fact is free to draw adverse inferences from his (Trump's)invocation of the Fifth Amendment's protections.

So her case against Trump became immeasurably stronger today.

"Criminal charges—one would think—would be among the most damaging outcomes. After all, a criminal prosecution of a former president would be a singular event in American history. No former president has ever been indicted, much less convicted."

https://www.justsecurity.org/75032/litigation-tracker-pending-criminal-and-civil...

That word, indicted, is big in the news.

"When a person is indicted, they are given formal notice that it is believed that they committed a crime. The indictment contains the basic information that informs the person of the charges against them."

https://www.justice.gov/usao/justice-101/charging

So Donald Trump hasn't been formally charged with a crime since President Biden's inauguration? Is he not being prosecuted for crimes currently? I'm confused about the legal definition of "crime".

For most of us, I guess it doesn't matter. Trump supposedly lost presidential immunity from indictment on Jan 20, and the investigations into his legal affairs expose the truth of his and his organization's actions even when he's not prosecuted.

Peter Strzok @petestrzok | 2:04 PM · Aug 10, 2022:
26 year FBI and Army veteran. Georgetown School of Foreign Service adjunct professor and alum. NYT/WP bestseller: Compromised
🧵 https://twitter.com/petestrzok/status/1557427667951128576

I used both consent and search warrants dozens of times over the course of my career to recover classified govt info - but never a subpoena. Let’s talk subpoenas and why they’re not used to recover classified material from those not authorized to have it. /1

I’m talking here about information produced by the USG (US Govt) containing national defense information and appropriately classified in accordance with EO 13526. Not someone’s after-the-fact book, or classified information in a news article.
https://archives.gov/isoo/policy-documents/cnsi-eo.html
2/

Someone not authorized to possess it, in this thread, refers to former President Trump. Presidents (do) not “get” security clearances. They gain access to classified info by virtue of their election, and are the USG’s ultimate classification (and declassification) authority. 3/

...That goes away the moment their successor is sworn in. By tradition, incumbent Presidents extend access to classified info, as needed, to their successors. Notably, Biden did not, citing Trump’s “erratic behavior.”
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/02/05/politics/biden-trump-intelligence-briefing/in...
4/

At least 3 reasons make a subpoena inappropriate to recover classified docs. First, classified documents are the property of the USG (US Government). In the hands of an unauthorized person, they are contraband. Imagine using a subpoena to demand the return of $10k stolen by a bank robber. 5/

In the words of @AshaRangappa_, a subpoena implies the recipient is the lawful custodian or bailor of the property. That’s why the govt has to clear a hurdle and provide a reason to get it. If you are an unauthorized possessor, you are simply a thief holding stolen property. 6/

Second, by definition, the disclosure of classified information could reasonably be expected to cause damage to national security. A subpoena does not limit the receiving party’s use additional people (attorneys, clerks, mail rooms) to fulfill the production. 7/

Third, the govt may need to prove the expected damage. A defense attorney might argue, well, if these documents are so sensitive, why did you allow my client and all these other unauthorized people to sort through them? They’re obviously not really that potentially damaging. 8/

Additionally, a similar argument might apply to the speed of the government’s action: you say these documents are so terribly sensitive? Then why did you wait a year to come and get them when you believed they were in an unauthorized place?
https://nytimes.com/2022/08/09/us/politics/trump-classified-records-timeline.htm...
9/

...

Tom Nichols @RadioFreeTom | 9:57 PM · Aug 10, 2022:
Staff writer at @TheAtlantic .

The thing I've wondered throughout the months that Trump's been holding boxes and boxes of classified stuff: Why would the dumbest POTUS ever, a man who didn't read anything - not even the PDB - feel the need to walk off with that much classified info? /1

So, yeah, I'm curious why he - or his minions - would take a van's worth of classified, steal it, and store it in Florida. What's in it that they didn't have time to destroy, or couldn't shred? What would be the point? /2x

https://www.mediaite.com/trump/breaking-attorney-general-merrick-garland-announc...
BREAKING: Attorney General Merrick Garland Says Trump Search Warrant Will Be Unsealed, Blasts ‘Unfounded Attacks’ on Law Enforcement

https://www.mediaite.com/tv/fbi-sought-documents-related-to-nuclear-weapons-in-t...

FBI Sought Documents Related to Nuclear Weapons in Trump Raid: ‘Highest Levels of Classification’ – Report

Selling or already sold the shit to the Saudis. How cozy Trump and the Saudis are these days. Who knows who was behind the 9-11 attacks? People ask—Trump doesn’t know. He use to know. Now he doesn’t. His big golf business deal with them. Also why did Biden travel to Saudi Arabia recently? Fact finding trip? A warning to MBS?

Oh great, imagine MBS--the butcher, already at wars in the Middle East--with the bomb...
(Isn't passing on nuclear secrets the kind of crime that got Julius and Ethel Rosenberg executed?)

Serious stuff, mishandling / handing over nuclear weapon secrets... When one considers how US Govt goes after Reality Winner, Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning, Ehel and Julius Rosenberg...

Mark Hertling @MarkHertling | 10:06 PM · Aug 11, 2022:
(Retired general & frmr head of US Army in Europe)
https://twitter.com/MarkHertling/status/1557911337468133377

In the past few hours many of us have watched the discussion regarding classified documents & their appropriate storage.
Since like most senior officers I had some experience in this area, I thought it would be helpful to povide some BASIC info.
So, this new 🧵is born! 1/21
_____________________________________________

18 U.S. Code § 794 - Gathering or delivering defense information to aid foreign government

...shall be punished by death or by imprisonment for any term of years or for life, except that the sentence of death shall not be imposed unless the jury or, if there is no jury, the court, further finds that the offense...directly concerned nuclear weaponry...

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/794
______________________________________________
:/

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman | 9:10 PM · Aug 11, 2022:
So the FBI raid on Mar a Lago was just a fission expedition?
----------------------------------------------------------------

Thor Benson @thor_benson | 9:40 PM · Aug 11, 2022:
Writer. Featured in @TheDailyBeast, @TheAtlantic, RollingStone, WIRED, @NBCNews, @PopSci
and elsewhere. I write about politics, tech and science.

Sure stealing nuclear secrets is bad but have you considered the threat of a gender-neutral Mr. Potato Head
------------------------------------------------------------------

David Rothkopf @djrothkopf | 11:21 PM · Aug 11, 2022:
...CEO, TRG, host, Deep State Radio; next book-"American Resistance"; columnist, Daily Beast, board of contributors, USA Today

Supreme Court will rule that since nuclear weapons did not exist at the time the Constitution was written that a.) there can be no prohibition against presidents keeping documents about them at their beach house and b.) the 2d amendment guarantees everyone the right to have one.

>59 margd: Are you kidding? Trump may not be smart, but he can figure out that that stuff's worth a lot of rubles.

> 65 His one talent, you're right...

In the months the documents were sitting without proper security in Mar-a-Lago's basement, how easy would it have been for one of Trump's contacts to make copies and return the originals to pretend they weren't sold?

(Also... "basement"? In Palm Beach, Florida? That's been confusing me, but turns out, the island is made of natural coquina that can be harder and more water resistant than what makes up most of the state. So the documents probably weren't waterlogged during every storm.)

"Trump Must Turn Over Tax Returns to House Panel, Court Rules" (Bloomberg | Aug 9)

Highlights:
■ Congressional panel expects to receive documents immediately
■ House Democrats could vote to make Trump’s tax details public

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-09/trump-s-tax-returns-can-be-re...

"Trump is the only president in the last 40 years to not release his taxes, and the documents have been sought after by legislators and voters since he announced his run for the White House in 2015."

https://www.npr.org/2022/08/11/1116800904/trump-investigations

https://www.mediaite.com/online/matt-drudge-glues-fbi-shooter-to-trump-with-deva...

Matt Drudge Glues FBI Shooter to Trump with Devastating MAGA Nickname

“MAGA MANIAC SHOT DEAD IN OH…”

https://www.mediaite.com/donald-trump/fbi-found-top-secret-classified-documents-...
FBI Found Top Secret Classified Documents at Mar-a-Lago, According to Inventory Obtained by WSJ

The Wall Street Journal obtained the inventory list from the raid on former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in South Florida, which included 11 sets of classified material, some documents marked with the highest level of secret classification.

>67 aspirit: Apparently, documents of that nature are printed on paper similar to what is used for checks/cheques.

"The EURion constellation (also known as Omron rings1 or doughnuts2) is a pattern of symbols incorporated into a number of secure documents such as banknotes and ownership title certificates designs worldwide since about 1996. It is added to help imaging software detect the presence of such a document in a digital image. Such software can then block the user from reproducing banknotes to prevent counterfeiting using colour photocopiers."

There are other mechanisms for preventing photocopying.

Also, "Christina Bobb,Trump’s attorney tonight reveals that Trump and his family were watching the FBI conduct the search from NY inside Mar-a-Lago on the security camera feed."

So the attorney knows there was no 'planting' of material by the FBI.

Those documents are going to be worked for fingerprints and any unauthorized individual found is going to be talking to the FBI. Also there is going be a damage assessment on each article.

Dr. Kristy Parker @KPNatsFan | 10:18 PM · Aug 12, 2022 from South Run, VA
Always playing 11-dimensional chess.

Quote Tweet
Catherine Rampell @crampell · 14h
Took a lot of advanced planning for Trump to declassify the documents that FBI agents would later plant at his home
------------------------------------------------------

charles zarrell @rustyztwo
If he didn't declassified those documents, the FBI wouldn't be able to steal them in order to plant them.

Uncle Bob @zdebb
Shh … you’ll give Rand Paul a talking point….

Julia Davis @JuliaDavisNews | 4:18 PM · Aug 9, 2022:
Columnist @TheDailyBeast, creator of the Russian Media Monitor, sanctioned by Russia, member of @TheEmmys . I watch Russian state TV, so you don't have to.

The search of Mar-a-Lago triggered shockwaves across Russia, with outraged Kremlin propagandists claiming that hundreds of FBI agents and packs of dogs were involved in the raid of Trump's estate, predicting civil war in the US and threatening to pitch in:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/a-trump-indictment-over-mishandling-classified-doc...
-------------------------------------------------------------

Julia Davis @JuliaDavisNews | 11:08 PM · Aug 12, 2022:
Meanwhile in Russia: Putin's mouthpieces on state TV are taunting America about "Top Secret" documents sought during the raid of Trump's estate, which they claim had to do with the newest nuclear weapons developed by the US and gleefully imply that Moscow already got to see them.

0:22 ( https://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/1558289365004128264 )

George Conway🌻 @gtconway3d | 10:26 PM · Aug 12, 2022:
"They're alleging actions on behalf of this ex-president, and things that he has done. That can only be coming from informants."

Quote Tweet
Acyn @Acyn | 10:17 PM · Aug 12, 2022
“These are heavyweight statutes… This is a much more serious case than just possession of classified documents”
1:07 ( https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1558276464889454595 )

Joyce Alene @JoyceWhiteVance | 12:08 AM · Aug 13, 2022:
@UALawSchool |@MSNBC & @NBCNews |Podcasts #SistersInLaw & Cafe Insider|Obama US Atty |25 year fed'l prosecutor

Sort of interesting that the TS/SCI documents were in a leather box, almost as though they were considered special.

Mar a Lago Warrant (7p)
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/22131383-post

Laurence Tribe (Harvard Law) tribelaw | 9:16 PM · Aug 12, 2022:

This is utterly disgusting and should make Trump liable for any harm that comes to the FBI agents as a result. No First Amendment shield should apply.

Trump Just Named the FBI Agents that Searched Mar-a-Lago, Effectively Putting Out ‘MAGA Hit List’
Jason Miciak | August 12, 2022
https://www.politicalflare.com/2022/08/trump-names-fbi-agents-that-searched-mar-...
http://dlvr.it/SWXX8B

Potentially useful blackmail for Trump's BF? I always wonder when people like Graham and McCarthy do such fast, public reversals to support Trump. Then there's Alan Dershowitz.

Mark Hertling @MarkHertling | 3:48 PM · Aug 13, 2022:
(Retired general, head of US Army in Europe)

Okay, everyone’s discussing the TS-SCI docs…fewer focused on the “French President info.”
Before visits, leaders get in-depth/confidential assessments on foreign leaders from the intel community.
Those reports can be “juicy” & need to be kept very “close hold.”

Receipt for property ( https://twitter.com/Jaymemaskup/status/1558542405871304704/photo/1 )

Fred Wellman @FPWellman | 5:07 PM · Aug 12, 2022:
Pro-Democracy advocate. Army veteran. Host of ‘On Democracy’ Podcast. Cofounder @beerhallproject. Senior advisor @marcus4georgia @LukeMixonLA & @voterstomorrow

I think everyone is sleeping on the fact that before they got the warrants the DOJ was given surveillance footage of the rooms in which the documents were stored.
They got video of who looked at them THEN went in.
Chew on what that implies for a second. It tastes like treason.

How much would Putin pay to know informants and intelligence methods? $$$$$$$?

Exclusive: Trump Raid Documents Could Reveal Informants on U.S. Payroll
William M. Arkin | 8/12/22

In pursuing the unprecedented search of Donald Trump's residence on Monday, the FBI was seeking to retrieve Top Secret and "compartmented" documents dealing with intelligence "sources and methods," two federal government sources tell Newsweek—documents with the potential to reveal U.S. intelligence sources, including human sources on the American government payroll.

"Compartmented" is a specific term meaning "classified information concerning or derived from intelligence sources, methods, or analytical processes, which is required to be handled within formal access control systems established by the Director of National Intelligence." It includes a variety of different access categories—for example, human, intercept, satellite sources—each of which limits how many people can know the nature of the compartment. One of the government sources says that "special access program" information was involved in the Mar-a-Lago case, a further category of information limited to an even smaller group of people...

https://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-trump-raid-documents-could-reveal-intel-sourc...

FBI will want to disable plane? Most people in Trump's position would be a flight risk, but perhaps not the narcissist? Could there be another box of documents--or flash drives--on the plane?

Robert Costa @costareports | 1:46 PM · Aug 13, 2022:
Spoke to three people today close to Trump. Asked them what he's been talking about privately in the wake of search.

They all mentioned the 757 plane.

Amid legal tumult, he's been talking to associates about how to show off its refurbishing, potentially part of a 2024 announ.

In the raid by the FBI of Mar-a-Lago, they sold three of Donal Trump's passports (one expired) along with everything else. This is an assault on a political opponent on a level never seen before in our Country. Third world!

>84 Kuiperdolin: They sold? Do you mean confiscated? Is it legal to have more than one active passport?

Ah! I see:

https://www.newsweek.com/why-donald-trump-has-three-passports-1733779

And when you quote someone, it’s polite to use quotation marks and a citation.

>84 Kuiperdolin: What?

>85 2wonderY: Let's see...

"Why Donald Trump Has Three Passports" (speculation)
https://www.newsweek.com/why-donald-trump-has-three-passports-1733779

Okay, so Kuiperdolin was repeating what Trump posted on his Truth Social social media site.

Newsweek posted, "Trump's passports were not listed among the itemized property receipt that was unsealed on Friday at the request of the Justice Department, but they may have been inside one of the 26 boxes that were described as being seized by FBI agents."

Twenty-six boxes. OMG.

I deeply doubt Trump knew what exactly was in all those boxes. Perhaps someone else moved his passports when he wasn't paying attention. Because why would his personal affects be mixed in with government property after he and his people promised to increase security for the requested files, hmm?

Anyway, Newsweek asserts, "it is not uncommon for presidents and some government workers to have more than one passport."

That's because there are different types of passports: diplomatic, official (for other government work), and tourist. I wouldn't be surprised if he had learned about that himself today.

What I'm now curious is why he would have left all three passports in Florida, in his "winter home", especially so soon after leaving the country for Saudi Arabia. He's been living in New England this season, hasn't he? All of his passports being in Mar-a-Lago makes less sense the more I think about it.

Ha! 2wonderY, we went to the same article at the same time. I'm just slow at posting.

>85 2wonderY:

Given the source, why would we consider even for a moment that the passports are even missing, let alone that the FBI seized them?

By the way, I love the suggestion that the FBI sold them!

"Wow! In the raid by the FBI of Mar-a-Lago, they stole my three Passports (one expired), along with everything," Trump reportedly said on his site.

NBC News has stated that the FBI picked up his passports and returned them. Trump was apparently confused about the act of returning something that belongs to someone else.

https://www.mediaite.com/news/maggie-haberman-trump-source-blames-meadows-for-no...
Maggie Haberman: Trump Source Blames Meadows for Not Returning Documents Before Leaving Office

***
A bullseye was going to appear on Mark's back sooner or later ~ it was just a matter of time in Trump world.

I am looking forward to reading Maggie's book ~ Confidence Man ~ in October.

>83 margd: >84 Kuiperdolin: >85 2wonderY:

Why preoccupation with plane and passports, hmm?

"Why preoccupation" with framing opponents in a rigged witch hunt when there's an actual traitor criminal ruling the country de facto?

With the diverse mob baying for his blood the Donald is right to think of protecting his life and his family by escaping to a neutral country - as many coup victims did throughout history.

https://www.mediaite.com/tv/giuliani-nervous-over-georgia-investigation-former-a...
Giuliani ‘Nervous’ Over Georgia Investigation, Former Aide Says: His Goal Now ‘Is To Die a Free Man’

.....Frydman called it “a big deal” for his old boss, adding that “Rudy flew too close to the sun, he got too close to Trump, he got burned.”

“He knows how the DOJ works. He knows how the FBI works. He knows these are meticulous investigations,” Frydman said. “I know he’s nervous. He could have flown to Georgia. You know, he flies all over the world. So, that’s just a typical tactic to try to postpone the inevitable.....

“Nobody protects someone else to stay out of jail. That’s human nature,” Fyrdman said. “If this is a RICO case, Trump’s at the top of the pyramid and Rudy is one brick below, so they’re obviously squeezing him for anything that could incriminate the president.”

Trump’s secrets: How a records dispute led the FBI to search Mar-a-Lago
Josh Dawsey, Rosalind S. Helderman, Jacqueline Alemany and Devlin Barrett | August 13, 2022

...Government officials worried as Trump left office that he presented the perfect profile of a security risk: He was a disgruntled former employee, with access to sensitive government secrets, dead set on tearing down what he believed was a deep statE...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/08/13/trump-mar-a-lago-sea...

“You know what we used to do in the old days when we were smart? Right?
The spies and treason, we used to handle it a little differently than we do now.”
~ Donald Trump, September 2019

Via
Don Lewis @DonLew87 | 12:36 PM · Aug 13, 2022
Attorney Quoted in New Yorker, CBS News, USA Today, Forbes and more.

>92 Kuiperdolin: To paraphrase what you're saying; Donald Trump might be a flight risk if one of the federal investigations leads to criminal charges.

I thought the same up to today, but I now suspect he would be too embarrassed after recent talks with his favorite rulers, such as King Salman and Vladimir Putin, to live in one of the few countries where he had significant political support. He's afraid of being seen as weak. Look at how he's talked about refugees; that's undoubtedly not how he wants people talking about him.

What he currently seems focused on is trying to stir up a civil war, regardless of how any violence he instigates can worsen his stance in courts and decrease his chances in a legitimate campaign for reelection as POTUS. he seems to want the entire country to change so he stay on top.

But whatever his thinking about risks, there doesn't appear to be a judge at this time saying Trump must remain in the country. That's why the FBI did not hold on to his passports. He's trying to make the federal investigators look bad for his own personal gain yet again.

(That said, I'm still curious why the passports were in Florida while he's been elsewhere. Don't the rich take ID with them when they move homes? Does he have more than three passports?)

>92 Kuiperdolin: Checking the official scorecard: Biden 81,268,924 Trump 74,216,232 voters for a Biden +7,052,770 net voter advantage. On the electoral college front it was Biden 306 Trump 232. Pretty clear which candidate won both the popular vote and the electoral college so maybe you might explain how the Donald is a coup victim. It would be a real easy case on the other hand to describe Trump as a coup instigator and a coup plotter. His evidence-less allegations about voting machine or ballot rigging in any number of variations have lost time after time in the courts and ballot recounts when they've happened have hardly moved the final tallies in those states at all. He lost. He's not big enough to admit it. Apparently many of his voters aren't either.

>96 aspirit: so what? So was Solzhenitsin and eventually he flew, it's wise and normal to escape persecution by the oiks by any mean necessary.

Even the DBI agrees the passports were wrongfully seized and returned them : https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna43192
Would they have done so if vigilant citizens had not raised a fuss? We'll never know

>98 Kuiperdolin:

Not sure what's being said here. When did Solzhenitsyn flee legal proceedings? Or, indeed, flee at all?

>98 Kuiperdolin: If Trump feels he's being persecuted, by all means, let him escape it. That goes for his followers as well, by the way. Here's your hat, what's your hurry?

Finally, conspiracy theory for the rest of Us :D

Twitter conspiracy theorists have wild ideas about Ivana Trump's burial
Mike Kilpatrick | 15/08/2022

...But it's what's in the coffin that's now attracting most attention on Twitter, with many copying the FBI into their musings.

Core to the conspiracy theory is the fact that Ivana was cremated - something that has been widely reported, although finding independent confirmation has proven difficult.

Still, that hasn't stopped those with too much time on their hands from indulging in rampant speculation about why Ivana's ashes would need a coffin that size.

After the FBI's raid on Mar-a-Lago last week, there's obviously one reason why - all the classified documents and other assorted sundry Trump literally needs to disappear.

"So you're telling me that Ivana Trump was buried in a huge casket, with 10 pallbearers, despite being cremated?" JewishResister tweeted...

There may be one reason why the coffin is so heavy - all the gold that adorns it.

According to the Daily Mail, the gold coffin cost an astonishing US$125,000 and was prepared by the famous Frank Campbell's Funeral Home...

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/technology/2022/08/twitter-conspiracy-theorists-h...

Seems that Trump ishaving trouble hiring lawyers

Surprisingly enough, there are not a whole lot of competent lawyers willing to represent the disgraced former chief executive.

https://www.mediaite.com/trump/trumps-legal-team-includes-a-former-oan-host-a-la...
Trump’s Legal Team Includes a Former OAN Host, a Lawyer for a Parking Garage Company, and Kash Patel Selling Tank Tops and Beanies

Plea Deal Requires Weisselberg to Testify at Trump Organization Trial

The chief financial officer of the former president’s business is expected to admit to 15 felonies on Thursday and to take the stand at the company’s trial.

Ben Protess, William K. Rashbaum and Jonah E. Bromwich | Aug. 17, 2022

Allen H. Weisselberg, who for decades was one of Donald J. Trump’s most trusted executives, has reached a deal to plead guilty on Thursday and admit to his role in a long-running tax scheme at the former president’s family business — a serious blow to the company that could imperil its chances in an upcoming trial on related charges.

The plea deal will allow Mr. Weisselberg, who was facing up to 15 years in prison, to spend as little as 100 days behind bars, according to people with knowledge of the matter. And it does not require Mr. Weisselberg, the Trump Organization’s longtime chief financial officer, to cooperate with the Manhattan district attorney’s office in its broader investigation into Mr. Trump, who has not been accused of wrongdoing.

But Mr. Weisselberg will have to admit to all 15 felonies he was charged with and if called as a witness at the company’s trial will have to testify about his role in a scheme to avoid paying taxes on lavish corporate perks, the people said. That requirement will put the Trump Organization at a disadvantage and make Mr. Weisselberg a central witness at the October trial, where the company will face many of the same charges...

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/17/nyregion/weisselberg-trump-plea-testify.html

https://www.mediaite.com/trump/trump-made-millions-off-the-fbi-raid-of-mar-a-lag...
Trump Made Millions Off the FBI Raid of Mar-a-Lago

***
I doubt that Trump is a gift from God to his clueless cult followers. It does appear, however, that his clueless cult followers could be a never-ending gift to Trump from the devil.

https://www.mediaite.com/tv/former-trump-lawyer-says-dont-worry-trump-can-run-fo...
Former Trump Lawyer Says Don’t Worry: Trump Can Run For President From Prison

Former Donald Trump campaign attorney Joe diGenova and Newsmax host Greg Kelly emphasized in a Greg Kelly Reports segment Wednesday that, should the ex-president wind up in prison, he can still run for office.

***
A felon can run for office so keep sending more of your hard-earned money to the billionaire.

>106 Molly3028: Sure, it's an old tradition.

Logistics would be interesting. I imagine if he won, he'd have to wait for his inauguration before he could pardon himself.

>107 kiparsky: But only if it’s a federal crime he serves time for. The logistics of Secret Service protection get more interesting too.

David Frum (The Atlantic) @davidfrum | 7:50 AM · Aug 22, 2022:
https://twitter.com/davidfrum/status/1561682130001960962
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1561681892289781764.html

Trump-Russia a hoax? Except for the part where candidate Trump publicly beseeched Russian intelligence to purloin and publish his opponent's emails - and then Russia intelligence immediately did so. 1/x

Trump-Russia a hoax? Except for the part where Trump's campaign manager shared proprietary campaign polling information so that Russian intelligence could target Facebook advertising more effectively. 2/x

Trump-Russia a hoax? Except for the part where Trump's campaign team met with Russian agents in hope that those agents would share clandestine information about their campaign opponent. 3/x

Trump-Russia a hoax? Except for the part where the Russians dangled a huge real-estate payoff in front of Trump during the 2016 election campaign, and Trump repeatedly lied about it. 4/x

Trump-Russia a hoax? Except for the part where one of Trump's closest confidantes - who'd eventually receive a pardon from Trump - reached out to Julian Assange in prison to coordinate the timing another round of purloined Clinton emails just before voting day. 5/x

Trump-Russia a hoax? Except for the time when he met the Russian ambassador and foreign minister in the Oval Office, banned all US press, and then blabbed to them that Israel was running a super-secret operation inside ISIS. 6/x

Trump-Russia a hoax? Except for the part where Trump's first nominee for attorney general, Jeff Sessions, lied to the Senate about meeting Russia's ambassador, even though he himself had no reason to lie, because he knew something bad was happening, but he didn't know what. 7/x

Trump-Russia a hoax? Except for the part where Kevin McCarthy, then the Republican number 2 in the US House, joked in a private meeting that "we all know" Russia pays Trump. The attendees laughed, until Paul Ryan hushed them. 8/x

Trump-Russia a hoax? Except for the part where President Trump's aides kept trying to prevent him from meeting alone with Putin, he did it anyway, and then Trump seized the translator's notes and destroyed them. 9/x

Trump-Russia a hoax? Except for the part where he said on TV that he fired FBI director Comey to shut down the investigation of Trump-Russia. 10/x

Trump-Russia a hoax? Except for the part where on TV he denounced Montenegrin accession to NATO as likely to provoke World War III, even though Montenegro is more than 2000 km from Russia, because Russian oligarchs liked to park yachts and launder money in Montenegro. 11/x

Trump-Russia a hoax? Except for the part where Trump's son said that the family business was kept afloat during the global financial crisis of 2008-2009 by Russian money. 12/ x

Trump-Russia a hoax? Except for the part where Trump tried to sabotage weapons deliveries to Ukraine. 13/x

Trump-Russia a hoax? Except for the part where the Department of Justice indicted a dozen Russian intelligence officers for helping the Trump campaign in 2016. 14/x

Trump-Russia a hoax? Except for the part where senior Trump aides - including Trump's national security adviser - lied to the FBI about their contacts with Russian intelligence. 15/x

Trump-Russia a hoax? Except for the part where ex-president Trump - surely mindful of his reputation as a Russian stooge and aware that a few empty words would commit him to nothing - still could not bring himself to condemn Putin's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. 16/x

Trump-Russia a hoax? Except for the part where it's become a test of Trump-loyalty in the GOP to oppose military aid to Ukraine so Ukrainians can defend themselves against Russian invasion. 17/x

Trump-Russia a hoax? Except for the part where Trump's most intense supporters also intensely support the network of European far-right political parties subsidized and coordinated by Russia. 18/x

Trump-Russia a hoax? Except for the part where Russian TV regularly assures viewers that their country's best hope for winning in Ukraine is Trump's return to office in 2024. 19/x

Trump-Russia a hoax? Except for the part where Trump's own top security aides almost unanimously agree he'd have tried to withdraw from NATO in a second term, abandoning eastern Europe to Putin.

END FOR NOW.
-------------------------------------------------------------------

Jay Rouse @JayRouseDC · 1h
Trump-Russia a hoax? Except for the part where Trump pulls out of Open Skies making Russia less accountable and Ukraine and others more vulnerable

Check his (cremated?) ex-wife's coffin at Trump golf course, seat cushions of his 757, Putin's dacha, etc...

Trump Had More Than 300 Classified Documents at Mar-a-Lago
Maggie Haberman, Jodi Kantor, Adam Goldman and Ben Protess | Aug. 22, 2022

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....

...Mr. Trump went through the boxes himself in late 2021, according to multiple people briefed on his efforts, before turning them over.

The highly sensitive nature of some of the material in the boxes prompted archives officials to refer the matter to the Justice Department, which within months had convened a grand jury investigation.

Aides to Mr. Trump turned over a few dozen additional sensitive documents during a visit to Mar-a-Lago by Justice Department officials in early June. At the conclusion of the search this month, officials left with 26 boxes, including 11 sets of material marked as classified, comprising scores of additional documents. One set had the highest level of classification, top secret/sensitive compartmented information.

The Justice Department investigation is continuing, suggesting that officials are not certain whether they have recovered all the presidential records that Mr. Trump took with him from the White House.

Even after the extraordinary decision by the F.B.I. to execute a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago on Aug. 8, investigators have sought additional surveillance footage from the club, people familiar with the matter said...

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/22/us/politics/trump-mar-a-lago-documents.html
_______________________________________________
ETA:

Trump Kept More Than 700 Pages of Classified Documents, Letter From National Archives Says
an Feuer | Aug. 23, 2022

President Donald J. Trump took more than 700 pages of classified documents, including some related to the nation’s most covert intelligence operations, to his private club and residence in Florida when he left the White House in January 2021, according to a letter that the National Archives sent to his lawyers this year.

The letter,* dated May 10 and written by the acting U.S. archivist, Debra Steidel Wall, to one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, M. Evan Corcoran, described the state of alarm in the Justice Department as officials there began to realize how serious the documents were.

It also suggested that top department prosecutors and members of the intelligence community were delayed in conducting a damage assessment about the documents’ removal from the White House as Mr. Trump’s lawyers tried to argue that some of them might have been protected by executive privilege...

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/23/us/politics/trump-classified-documents-fbi-le...

ETA:
* https://justthenews.com/government/courts-law/full-text-national-archives-letter...

https://www.mediaite.com/news/amazing-own-goal-dc-press-mindblown-by-team-trump-...
‘Amazing Own Goal’: DC Press ‘Mindblown’ By Team Trump Thinking Leaked Letter Would Damage Biden and Help Trump

Former Fox News contributor and pro-Trump founder of “Just the News” John Solomon published what he said were damning documents about the search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort home, which is part of an investigation of Trump for crimes involving the Espionage Act.

Solomon wrote that memos and letters show “the Biden White House worked directly with the Justice Department and National Archives to instigate the criminal probe into alleged mishandling of documents, allowing the FBI to review evidence retrieved from Mar-a-Lago this spring and eliminating the 45th president’s claims to executive privilege.”

But leading Washington, DC journalists were baffled by the leak, which they say had the opposite effect of showing that Biden deferred to independent agencies, that Trump and his team were given plenty of opportunities to comply but drew out the process, that the seized materials in question are “hair on fire” serious, and otherwise picking it apart.

***
Trump and his enablers will do anything to keep his clueless cult followers riled up this election season.

https://www.mediaite.com/tv/incredibly-damning-ex-fbi-general-counsel-declares-m...
‘Incredibly Damning’: Ex-FBI General Counsel Declares Mar-a-Lago Classified Docs Reveal a ‘Substantial Criminal Case’ Against Trump

Former FBI General Counsel Andrew Weissman explained in great detail why Monday was a momentous news day for the allegedly purloined classified documents retrieved from former President Donald Trump from his Mar-a-Lago home two weeks ago.

In a Tuesday morning appearance on Morning Joe, the former FBI exec turned MSNBC analyst noted that one particular sentence in a New York Times report was “incredibly damning” for the former president and added that — if the reporting is accurate — the Department of Justice is looking at a “substantial criminal case” against Trump.

***
The mountain of damaging info coming out is slowly, but surely, chipping away at Trump's support.

George Conway🌻 @gtconway3d | 11:48 PM · Aug 23, 2022 :
There’ll be no Roger Stone, no Allen Weisselberg, no Mark Meadows — no one to take the fall this time.

Quote Tweet
Maggie Haberman @maggieNYT · 9h
Trump appears to be the only person at MAL who knows what was in the boxes, which he went through himself late last year amid efforts by archives to retrieve material. There is no known inventory of what was there among his current aides.
https://nytimes.com/2022/08/23/us/politics/trump-investigation-strategy.html

>113 margd: I hear Trump's already looking for a ghostwriter for his next book. Working title: Co-Defendant No More!

https://www.mediaite.com/donald-trump/trumps-lawyers-messed-up-their-motion-to-r...
Trump’s Lawyers Messed Up Their Motion to Represent Him in Florida So Badly the Court Sent Them Instructions

Oops! Former President Donald Trump’s bedraggled legal team tripped over their feet again this week, making multiple errors in their legal filings, including: messing up a longstanding electronic filing procedure, botching the motions to get the few lawyers on the team with relevant legal experience admitted into Florida courts, and ending up with the court sending them instructions on how to file their motions.

***
Why don't dudes like Mark Levin, a lawyer, and his ilk jump at the opportunity to represent Trump in court? They spend hours making legal excuses for him on their TV and radio shows.

Intent.

Archives says documents were not returned even though White House counsel said Trump should hand them over
Jamie Gangel and Devan Cole | August 25, 2022

Trump-era records were not returned to the government during the waning days of Donald Trump's presidency despite a determination by his White House counsel that they should be, according to an email that National Archives and Records Administration chief counsel Gary Stern sent to Trump's lawyers in May 2021...

Stern wrote in the email, "It is also our understanding that roughly two dozen boxes of original presidential records were kept in the Residence of the White House over the course of President Trump's last year in office and have not been transferred to NARA, despite a determination by Pat Cipollone in the final days of the administration that they need to be. I had also raised this concern with Scott in the final weeks."

"Scott" refers to Scott Gast, another Trump attorney who was copied on the message...

https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/24/politics/national-archives-email-cipollone-trump-...

Affidavit to search Trump’s Mar-a-Lago says 184 classified files found in January
Devlin Barrett and Perry Stein | August 26, 2022
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/08/26/trump-affidavit-rele...

38p redacted affidavit
https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/22267190/read-the-affidavit-in-support-of...
___________________________________________________________

Mark Hertling @MarkHertling | 12:43 PM · Aug 26, 2022:
Retired genera. Frmr head US army in Europe.

For those interested:

-ORCON =“originator control”
-NOFORN = “no foreign nationals” (should see these documents)
-HCS = HUMINT (human intelligence) Control System.
-SI = COMINT (communication intelligence, or intercepts) Special Intelligence

Just wow. This is jaw dropping.
.
.
.
For the record…

I thought/knew what they found was gonna be bad when it was released. I didn’t think it would be this bad.

Now I’m just pissed it took DOJ this long to generate a search warrant. It should’ve been a “raid.”
.
.
.
Context: as a senior commander in Europe I read these kinds of documents. Often, my reaction was “holy crap, that’s great & surprising intel.”

This is what Trump had in the basement of his friggin’.

Infuriating. Anyone who defends this is criminal scum.

>117 margd: Anyone who defends this is criminal scum.

No. This is hate speech and dehumanising language, and I don't think it is helpful for LT to propagate it. It is not necessary for an understanding of the good general's substantive point and I don't understand why it was felt necessary to include it in the quoted text.

"Anyone who defends this" is perhaps criminal, and certainly disagrees with the retired general, but is a human being, not "scum". And however reprehensible any crime is, an accused person has the right to be defended in court, so Trump will presumably be defended by a lawyer who is simply doing their job and is not "scum".

I decided that the general was probably not referring to legal defence but rather to others who may explain away, justify, or trivialize the alleged crimes.

>119 librorumamans:

Indeed. But even someone "who may explain away, justify, or trivialize the alleged crimes" is perhaps a disturbed, unpleasant, misguided, malicious or criminal human being, not "scum".

>119 librorumamans: That was my take, too.

>120 John5918: disturbed, unpleasant, misguided, malicious or criminal human being, not "scum".

Twitter has a limit on key strokes. ;)

>121 margd: Twitter has a limit on key strokes. ;)

But not, apparently, on hate speech. And LT doesn't, so there is no need to repost hate speech here.

I'm thinking someone who defends Assange would be particularly sensitive to the general's language.
People may have died. May still be at risk.

Classified Material on Human Intelligence Sources Helped Trigger Alarm
Julian E. Barnes and Mark Mazzetti | Aug. 26, 2022

Documents related to the work of clandestine sources are some of the most sensitive and protected in the government. F.B.I. agents found some in boxes retrieved from Donald J. Trump’s home.

...Last year, a top-secret memo sent to every C.I.A. station around the world warned about troubling numbers of informants being captured or killed ( https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/05/us/politics/cia-informants-killed-captured.ht... ), a stark reminder of how important human source networks are to the basic functions of the spy agency...

...An intelligence document marked HCS ( >117 margd: ) will contain details about the source of the information. Often such descriptions are very general, noting if a “clandestine source” has direct or secondary knowledge of the intelligence presented. But sometimes there are more direct descriptions to help policymakers properly assess the information, details that could allow people reading the document to identify the source — a prime reason the spy agency seeks to tightly control HCS documents...

The HCS designation is “used to protect exceptionally fragile and unique” human intelligence operations and methods “that are not intended for dissemination outside of the originating agency,” according to a 2013 directive from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

According to former officials, documents marked HCS have special handling requirements to make sure they are stored properly and not reviewed by people who are not cleared to see them...

In addition to the HCS markings, some of the documents were marked FISA, indicating information collected under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

“What this tells us is that there was possibly something from human beings, from spies, possibly something involving foreigners who are the only ones targeted under FISA and potentially there is very sophisticated sensitive information involved here,” said Glenn S. Gerstell, the former general counsel of the National Security Agency.

Ultimately, Mr. Gerstell said, understanding how sensitive any of the documents are, and what sources might be compromised, requires the documents to be examined by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

...“It appears, based on the affidavit unsealed this morning, that among the improperly handled documents at Mar-a-Lago were some of our most sensitive intelligence,” (Senator Mark Warner, the Virginia Democrat who leads the Senate Intelligence Committee) said.

Until more about the nature of the documents is publicly known it is impossible to tell what, if any damage was done. But former officials stressed that counterintelligence experts often will take measures to protect sources or change collection methods if they believe a classified document could have been viewed by people not authorized to see it...

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/26/us/politics/trump-affidavit-intelligence-spie...

>123 margd:

Not sure what Assange has to do with the topic at hand, but yes, a lot of people have died as a result of the activities of western intelligence agencies - think of Latin America, the School of the Americas, the training of torturers, etc. Thank God for courageous investigative journalists who have exposed their activities and forced some degree of oversight and control by their democratically elected governments. Lives have undoubtedly been saved.

>124 John5918: Not sure what Assange has to do with the topic at hand

Worry was that material Julian Assange blanket-released put people (and procedures) at risk, and that is one of the fears with Trump's handling of documents.

>125 margd:

Hm. I think a bigger worry is when states harass (and in this case seek to imprison for life) investigative journalists. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

I can perhaps be convinced otherwise, but to me Assange is not an investigative journalist, rather a
disturbed, unpleasant, misguided, malicious or criminal human being.
___________________________________________

The Intellectualist @highbrow_nobrow | 11:30 AM · Aug 27, 2022:
The Intellectualist is an online community dedicated to the human experience. “You must accept the truth from whatever source it comes.” - Maimonides

Known Timeline:
1. 7/31/2019: Trump spoke with Putin (NYT)
2. 8/3/2019: Trump issued a request for a list of top US spies (The Daily Beast)
3. 10/5/2021: "CIA Admits to Losing Dozens of Informants". (NYT)
4. 8/26/2022: Documents at MAL Could Compromise Human Intel (NYT) 1/5
Photo- Trump & Putin Helsinki 2018 ( https://twitter.com/highbrow_nobrow/status/1563549407299383304/photo/1 )

1. 7/31/2019: Trump spoke with Putin (NYT)
"Trump and Putin spoke by phone to discuss wildfires in Siberia and trade between the two nations, according to the Trump White House."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2019/10/04/trump-has-spoken-privately-with-...
2/5

2. 8/3/2019: Trump issued a request for a list of top US spies (The Daily Beast)
"The Trump administration is taking inventory of many of America’s top spies, The Daily Beast has learned."
https://www.thedailybeast.com/white-house-asks-for-list-of-top-intel-officials-a...
3/5

3. 10/5/2021: "CIA Admits to Losing Dozens of Informants". (NYT)
"Officials said in a top secret cable to all stations and bases around the world that too many of the people it recruits from other countries to spy for the U.S. are being lost."
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/05/us/politics/cia-informants-killed-captured.ht...
4/5

4. 8/26/2022: Documents at MAL Could Compromise Human Intel (NYT)
"The search of former President Trump’s Florida home was spurred by the discovery that he had kept classified material related to the use of human sources in intelligence gathering."
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/26/us/politics/trump-affidavit-warrant.html
5/5
-----------------------------------------------------------

NaomiOMy 🌻💛🐝 of House Moderna @NaomiOMy_· 1h
Don’t forget 11/2020:
Trump suddenly installed Kash Patel at the DOD.
—formerly worked for Devin Nunes
—served as Principal Deputy to the Acting DNI, “overseeing” the ops of all 17 intelligence agencies 🤨

AdaminChicago @AdaminChicago · 1h
That same week not only did Kash Patel get a promotion so did Michael Ellis for NSA General Counsel a position he held when he worked for Devin Nunes. Flynn protege Ezra Cohen-Watnick was also promoted to UDI he oversaw DOD’s intelligence apparatus which includes the NSA.

>126 John5918: Where's the line between "investigative journalist" and "agent of a hostile foreign country" helping to put another agent into a high government position in a target country through publications? What should the worry be when there is (or possibly is) no line, only an overlap of roles, especially after the person's action have been involved in a chain of events leading to many deaths?

https://www.politifact.com/article/2019/mar/18/wikileaks-russias-useful-idiot-it...

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/russian-tv-trump-agent/ (Mar 2019)

https://www.thedailybeast.com/russian-state-media-declares-our-agent-donald-trum... (this month)

>128 aspirit:

Two of those articles are about Trump, who quite clearly is not an investigative journalist, so I have no comment on his decision to keep hold of documents which he should have turned in. It's also very unlikely that he could claim he was keeping them to use as a "whistleblower".

Assange, on the other hand, is widely recognised, at least outside the USA, as an investigative journalist. He may well be an unpleasant person (>127 margd:), but that's irrelevant to his role in exposing things which might embarrass governments. I don't know the provenance of polifact.com, but virtually all those it quotes who are critical of Assange are US voices, and even then it can still only use words like "maybe" and "circumstantial" as to whether or not he acted knowingly or unwittingly as a "Russian agent". Obviously anything which embarasses the US government will be welcomed by its enemies, but that doesn't make the journalist a spy. Investigative journalists are never going to be popular with the people and institutions whom they expose, and in order to obtain the information which they share with the general public, they may break some laws in a particular nation. Threatening a journalist with 175 years in prison is hardly in keeping with freedom of speech, freedom of information, or democratic principles. It would, however, be commonplace in some of the USA's enemies.

>129 John5918: This topic is about Trump. The links were references to different parts of my statements.

ETA: I feel as if to go into this further, we would need to make sure everyone participating understands some of the basics of US politics and the freedoms of the press in the country that is the focus of this thread. (The focus, because, you know, Trump is a multi-generational American currently living in the USA and is a former POTUS, currently under investigation in many courts within the USA.) That seems to be better suited for another topic, especially as it will inevitably bring up with Trump did to press while in The White House.

US Latin American and Middle Eastern policies have for a long time been abysmal. Post WWII polices such as the CIA setting up stay behind armies all over Europe (many of them havens for former Axis military personnel and including the rehabilitation of former fascist and Nazi bureaucrats and military officers) and the ratlines as well as ferrying Nazi scientists into certain scientific projects of our own like our rocket program or even into all the shit that turned into things related to MK Ultra are some for instances. Almost all of this runs under the radar and I'm sure there is plenty more that is more recent to these times.

What Trump was doing or what he was planning doing with all these documents though was and could not be a good thing. Not everyone we have working for us is bad or evil by a long shot and potentially he's put a lot of lives in danger. Whatever he does has always been to serve himself.

>130 aspirit:

Thanks, yes, I completely agree with you that this thread is about Trump and I apologise for being off topic. I was not the one who brought up Assange but I felt moved to respond when he was mentioned.

David Frum @davidfrum | 7:35 AM · Aug 27, 2022
The Julius and Ethel Rosenberg case was also a "dispute over documents."
Text ( https://twitter.com/davidfrum/status/1563490477617205248/photo/1 )

Ron Pitts-MOTUS™️ @RonLPitts · 8h
FUN FACT: From the time they figured out it was then to conviction was NINE months

https://www.mediaite.com/politics/brown-lives-matter-kash-patel-rages-that-doj-j...
‘Brown Lives Matter’: Kash Patel Rages That DOJ ‘Jeopardized His Safety’ By Leaving His Name Unredacted in Mar-a-Lago Affidavit

***
Who is this dude afraid of ~ Trump, Trumpers, anti-Trumpers???

It’s not some quid pro quo thing. DOJ is protecting its own witnesses…..not the people who may be part of the investigation who are the one’s really to worry about as far as threats and witness intimidation and enablement of bringing in outside actors to bring random violence into the mix. Patel is on the wrong team.

>134 Molly3028: >135 lriley: In the warrant, Patel is named as a former Trump official quoted in a published Brietbart article that was discussed in other publications. He wasn't named for anything that wasn't already public, and he's been continuing to make the same statements about declassification since this month's search. Hasn't he?

So yes, this looks like a pathetic attempt to equate himself with the direct witnesses and the legal team actually at risk of attacks and death threats because of the investigation.

(Correction: It looks like an attempt to cover up news of his ABC interview in June.

https://www.justsecurity.org/82723/trump-associates-stated-plan-to-publicly-rele...

While attention is on Patel, thanks to his loud distraction, maybe we should look again at the National Security Council he served on. The extremely high turnover could not have been good for national security.

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2020/01/21/crippling-the-capacity-of-the-n...

Possibly, the working conditions under President Trump were so terrible, no one wanted to stay in their positions. That view aligns with reports from other agencies. But certain people such as Patel continue to be highly vocal Trump loyalists. They support a suspicion that Trump was ensuring a large number of people would be granted security clearance for a short time... long enough to request access to classified records... with enough burden in oversight positions to make it harder for Trump resisters to identify security breaches.

>136 aspirit: Odd. You’d think the way to get that information Patel keeps referencing out to the public would have been to formally declassify it (before Trump left office) and then bring a FOIA request.

WaPo Bombshell: Trump Took Boxes of Material on Trips Around the World for ‘No Reason’
Jason Miciak | August 27, 2022

...there were many people aware of the very “odd” fact that Trump liked to keep top secret compartmentalized information in the residence and were acutely aware of the danger that he might take them.

...Then the Washington Post buried the lede a bit. This paragraph is simply shocking in light of all we’ve read to this point:

"Boxes of documents even came with Trump on foreign travel, following him to hotel rooms around the world — including countries considered foreign adversaries of the United States...There was no rhyme or reason — it was classified documents on top of newspapers on top of papers people printed out of things they wanted him to read. The boxes were never organized,” Grisham said. “He’d want to get work done on long trips so he’d just rummage through the boxes. That was our filing system.”

...We do not know any more than what is printed above but what is printed above just screams that Trump has been selling secrets or sharing things he finds “cool” or something while on the road in “adversarial countries.” Someone has to say it!! That behavior demands an explanation, and just “Because he was the president” isn’t good enough anymore.

One suspects that if we knew the entire truth, it would open the guts of an otherwise unthinkable security breach.

https://www.politicalflare.com/2022/08/wapo-bombshell-trump-took-boxes-of-materi...

My understanding of declassification is that if a POTUS wanted to declassify say a document relevant to intelligence he/she would go to the relevant agency (cies) CIA/NSA/FBI/HS and get their opinion on it and then take it to both the House and Senate Intelligence committees and if they decide yes after all that that document is then made public for journalistic FOIA requests. You just don’t wave your hand say some magic words like a priest absolving someone of their sins and don’t tell anyone. This is why Biden mocked Trump the other day.

It’s not surprising that the Donald even after 4 years doesn’t seem to know anything about how things are supposed to work. He’s careless, doesn’t care at all unless something benefits him personally and thinks rules don’t apply to him and he much preferred the following activities—golfing, being on Twitter slamming his enemies and perceived enemies and watching TV all day long to actually doing his job.

Laurence Tribe tribelaw | 9:22 AM · Aug 28, 2022:
Excellent analysis of all possible executive privilege claims underlying Trump’s special master request
----------------------------------------------------------

Assessing Trump’s Claim of ‘Executive Privilege’ on FBI Access to MAL Docs
Michael Stern | August 28, 2022

...A Court Must Decide a Former President’s Privilege Claim
Finally, longstanding executive branch doctrine makes clear that the archivist, as a subordinate executive branch official, has no authority to countermand the sitting president’s decision on whether to honor the former president’s invocation of executive privilege. Indeed, NARA regulations provide that it cannot honor the former president’s invocation of privilege unless the incumbent president affirmatively decides to support it. The only viable option for a former president to challenge an access request by the sitting president is to file suit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, which the PRA vests with jurisdiction “over any action initiated by the former President asserting that a determination made by the Archivist violates the former President’s rights or privileges.”

However, Trump (who is hardly shy about filing legal actions to protect his rights, real or imagined) chose not to challenge the archivist’s decision through the manner prescribed. This suggests perhaps that his true objections are more political than legal in nature.

If the federal court in Florida grants his application for appointment of a special master, he will have the opportunity to make the case for applying executive privilege to a different set of documents—those seized by the FBI during its search of Mar-a-Lago—but will face similar obstacles to success.

https://www.justsecurity.org/82873/assessing-trumps-claim-of-executive-privilege...
_______________________________________________

ETA:
Mark S. Zaid @MarkSZaidEsq | 10:50 AM · Aug 29, 2022:
Attny handling cases re: national security, security clearances, govt investigations, Freedom of Information Act & whistleblowing.

Trump's request for Special Master wasn't unreasonable. It was untimely.
@TheJusticeDept predictably tells federal judge this morning that review of all docs has already been completed.
I don't understand Trump legal teams' strategy.

Bradley P. Moss @BradMossEsq | 11:59 PM · Aug 30, 2022:
“The most active national security lawyer on Twitter.” - Above the Law

I have read the entire Government filing. I spend all day, every day, litigating against the Government, so some of this is familiar stuff to see. This particular brief is very well-done.

Here are the highlights:
1) The facts. NARA negotiated in 2021 for the missing records. They finally got 15 boxes. After going through them and finding all kinds of classified records (not organized at all), they raised the alarm. They wanted to make a referral to the FBI but had to first consult with Trump's team, per the PRA procedure. Trump's team delayed for weeks and weeks, and never substantively responded. Finally, NARA told Trump's team they were making the referral and rejected the "protective" assertion of Executive Privilege.

2) At no time did Trump's legal team file an action *at that point* to prevent the referral to FBI.

3) The FBI reviewed the records and the criminal inquiry was opened. A grand jury subpoena was issued to Trump's team. Again, they delayed and delayed in complying. Finally, in early June they agreed to a meeting at MAL to comply. They turned over more classified records, and swore out a statement that they had done a diligent search, they had not found any more classified records, and any records that remained were in the storage room. They refused to let the FBI agents look at the boxes in the storage room.

4) The FBI gathered new evidence that there were in fact more classified records at MAL, including in locations outside of the storage room. They got the search warrant and found approximately 100 additional classified records, some located in Trump's own office.

5) That is straight up obstruction and concealment of classified records, and willfully retaining them in an unauthorized location.

6) Now come the legal arguments. First, DOJ says Trump lacks standing. The records are not his: they are the property of the US. Even if he wanted to claim them as personal records, he never did so. He did not do so in 2021, he did not do so when subpoenaed, he never did it. He has no possessory interest in the records.

7) Second, they argue Trump is not entitled to any injunctive relief. Again, these are not his records, he waited way too long to even try to stop the FBI from getting the records, he's not entitled to relief given Executive Privilege would not apply, and even if it did the criminal investigative need outweighs it.

8) Third, the Special Master is moot. The A/C privilege records were already separated and are set to be evaluated by the magistrate. The records Trump claims are covered by EP (Executive Privilege) are not his anyway, and the Nixon precedents make clear he cannot invoke it to override the need to conduct a criminal investigation.

9) To sum it up, Trump took PLAINLY MARKED classified records to MAL, he delayed, obstructed and resisted Government efforts to recover them, he (or his staff) concealed the records from investigators, and they got caught doing so.

/end
___________________________________

Sara Azari @azarilaw | 12:33 AM · Aug 31, 2022
White Collar & Criminal Defense Attorney | Legal Analyst| TV Host| Author

It’s past my bedtime but I’ll say this: I read the entire DOJ filing. I litigate against the government ever damn day so I know a few things beyond google lawyering 😉 and this platform. This is a robust well-substantiated brief. Trump is screwed. 🚨
___________________________________

margd: One guy I know who is cleared to talk about WIDGETS, for God's sake, can only do so in a special room--and nowhere else!

Justice Dept. says Trump team may have hidden, moved classified papers
Devlin Barrett | August 31, 2022

...When agents conducted their court-ordered search on Aug. 8, they found material so sensitive that “even the FBI counterintelligence personnel and DOJ attorneys conducting the review required additional clearances before they were permitted to review certain documents,” the filing says.

...Among the most potentially incriminating details in the government filing is a photograph, showing a number of files labeled “Top Secret” with bright red or yellow cover sheets, spread out over a carpet. Those files were found inside a container in Trump’s office, according to the court filing. A close examination of one of the cover sheets in the photo shows a marking for “HCS,” a government abbreviation for systems used to protect intelligence gathered from secret human sources.

The 36-page filing also reveals, for the first time, the text of a written assurance given to the Justice Department by Trump’s “custodian of records” on June 3. It says Trump’s team had done a thorough search for any classified material in response to a subpoena and had turned over any relevant documents...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/08/31/trump-documents-remo...
___________________________________

Laurence Tribe tribelaw | 9:19 AM · Aug 31, 2022:
If Trump’s lawyer, EVAN CORCORAN, and his custodian of records, CHRISTINA BOBB, are charged with obstructing justice, as DOJ’s midnight 8/30 filing implies they should be, the question is: Will they lie again or will they point their fingers at their boss, the former president?

Irishrygirl @irishrygirl | 10:10 AM · Aug 31, 2022:
I’m not sure why this point isn’t being made. None of Trump’s lawyers or aids have security clearance, so even if they went through those documents, wouldn’t that be a crime in and of itself?

GoGoGroove @GoGoGroove | 10:22 AM · Aug 31, 2022:
#TFG is also among those WITHOUT a security clearance... #Biden stripped it from him...

____________________________________

Laurence Tribe tribelaw | 9:07 AM · Aug 31, 2022
This DOJ filing claims recovered documents showed that “certain pages of presidential records had been torn up” in violation of 18 U.S. C. § 2071, a crime that purports to “bar anyone from ever again holding a political office in the United States.”

Justice Department’s Scathing Response: Trump Brought This on Himself
Jose Pagliery | Aug. 31, 2022
The former president shouldn’t be able to get back records that aren’t even his, the department said in a filing late Tuesday—adding that he also can’t ask for a special master.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/justice-department-offers-scathing-response-to-tru...
____________________________________

RNC cuts off Trump and makes him pay for his own lawyers in Mar-a-Lago documents mess: report
Sarah Burris | August 30, 2022

GOP donors footed the bill in past Trump investigations but he's on his own in classified documents scandal

https://www.salon.com/2022/08/30/rnc-cuts-off-and-makes-him-pay-for-his-own-lawy...

Russia, if you're listening, release the pee tapes!

Trump Bragged He Had ‘Intelligence’ on Macron’s Sex Life
Adam Rawnsley, Asawin Suebsaeng | August 29, 2022

The FBI seized a document with “info” on the French president during the Mar-a-Lago raid, and that has officials in both countries hunting for answers.

...the latest incident isn’t the first time Trump has fixated on salacious gossip about the private lives of foreign leaders, associates, and hangers-on...

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/donald-trump-emmanuel-macron...

https://www.mediaite.com/tv/george-conway-stunned-by-trumps-insane-special-maste...

George Conway Says It Was ‘Insane’ for Trump’s Lawyers to Request a Special Master: ‘Basically, They Asked for the DOJ to Punch Them in the Face’

".....And that is what the Justice Department did in this brief.”

Trump's seized passports could be a problem for him, legal experts say
Dareh Gregorian | Sept. 1, 2022

...Consistent with the terms of the search warrant, the Justice Department said in the (Tuesday night court) filing that "the government seized the contents of a desk drawer that contained classified documents and governmental records commingled with other documents."

"The other documents included two official passports...The location of the passports is relevant evidence in an investigation of unauthorized retention and mishandling of national defense information."

NBC News legal analyst Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. attorney, said the reason the passports are "relevant evidence" is clear — they point directly to Trump.

“In most searches you look for identity documents to tie a suspect to the evidence you’re looking for — photographs, IDs, utility bills. If you find the contraband in the same room as the identity documents, there’s a fair inference that person had dominion and control over the documents,” said McQuade, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School....

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trumps-seized-passports-problem-le...

>144 margd: and Trump can't say with any believability that he didn't know about those documents in his very own desk when they're sitting next to his own passports. It undercuts once again his lies.

This cult leader can do no wrong

A Trump lawyer recently said this in a TV interview~ espionage is a mundane matter

A Trump lawyer said this in court today ~ the unreturned documents are the equivalent of an overdue library book

This era's scary cautionary tale continues!

https://www.mediaite.com/news/breaking-fbi-reveals-contents-seized-from-trump-in...
BREAKING: FBI Reveals Contents Seized from Trump Included 48 ‘Empty Folders With Classified Markings’

The article includes one of the 33 charts ~ it appears to list the stuff that was purposely spread out on the carpet in his office

ABC News reports the unsealed list also “describes hundreds upon hundreds of U.S. government documents collected by investigators without any classification markings that were grouped in some cases with only a few documents that bore classification markings ranging from Confidential to Top Secret/SCI.”

In addition to four dozen empty document folders marked “CLASSIFIED” found during FBI raid of former President Donald Trump’s residence at his Mar-a-Lago club, another 42 empty folders marked “Return to Staff Secretary/Miliary {sic} Aide,” were also found by the FBI during the Aug. 8 raid!!!

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/02/trump-fbi-raid-documents-about-mar-a-lago-search...

LOCK HIM UP!
__________________________________________
ETA:

https://twitter.com/MuellerSheWrote/status/1565710675531337728/photo/1

>148 margd:

People who collect stamps and sports memorabilia treat those possessions with much more care than Trump and his aides treated our nation's most important records.

>148 margd: Can it get any worse? Of course it can. Every day almost it seems to get worse. Wondering just for one thing if there are missing documents relating to some of his friends like Giuliani, Stone, Manafort that may be in their hands. 1) some perhaps sold to foreign actors 2) 'loaned to his friends 3) flushed down the toilet or destroyed 4) at other of Trump's properties 5) all of the above and maybe even something else. My guess is 5) is the correct answer.

Yeah--LOCK HIM UP!

We are now down in the sub-basement of the Trump era foisted upon us by angry people who craved chaos.

Where are the Trump residences? I feel as if that information will soon be helpful in understanding news of the investigation into the missing government records.

• Florida: Mar-a-Lago (where only staff are allowed to reside per municipal laws)
• New Jersey: Trump National Golf Club Bedminster (where he buried his first ex-wife)
• New York: Seven Springs (part of which is associated with the ketchup-making Heinz family)

The penthouse of Trump Tower (a building known for structural neglect) was sold to a suspected Chinese political agent in 2017 (prior to Ivanka Trump's strange trademark filing for voting machines in China.)

In Maps: Trump properties around the world, 2015
https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/in-maps-trump-properties-around-the-world-1.2693887

Seventeen (17) domestic properties were listed. I have no idea who's been living in most of those or how many his family continues to own.

https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/buildings-real-estate-projects-outside-the-u...

Toronto, Canada: Trump International Hotel and Tower
Vancouver, Canada: Trump International Hotel & Tower
Punta Cana, Dominican Republic: Trump at Cap Cana
Seoul, South Korea: Trump World
Mumbai, India: Trump Tower
Pune, India: Trump Tower
Ramat, Israel: Trump Plaza Tower
Baja, Mexico: Trump Ocean Resort
Panama City, Panama: Trump Ocean Club International Hotel and Tower
Manila, Philippines: Trump Tower Manila
Istanbul, Turkey: Trump Towers
Dubai, United Arab Emirates: The Palm Trump International Hotel and Tower

Note that the Trump name might have been removed from the property names during his presidency. Also, some of these are likely overseen by Donald Trump's children instead of himself. Still, as the rumor is that Trump wanted to haul the records he stole on his trips, which would likely include checks on his family's commercial properties, I think it'll help to watch for places and names that come up.

Remember:

Russia's Trump Raid Tantrum is a Spectacle You Don't Want to Miss
The Daily Beast \ 9 Aug 2022
https://www.thedailybeast.com/russian-state-medias-response-to-the-mar-a-lago-ra...

Trump is a flight risk!
LOCK HIM UP!

>150 lriley:

My take is that any speculation must presume that there's a monetary gain involved.

>152 aspirit: Better exhume that casket at Bedminster. There were already rumors about it.

Deleted.

>153 aspirit: There are several golf clubs, too. Bedminster, Doral, Los Angeles, West Palm Beach (associated with Mar-a-Lago), Washington, DC, Charlotte, NC, Jupiter, FL, Ferry Point, New York, Doonbeg, Ireland, Turnberry, Scotland, Aberdeen, Scotland, Dubai, Colts Neck, NJ, Hudson Valley, NY, Westchester, NY, Lido City, Indonesia, Bali, Indonesia.

All of the courses in the United States are suspect and need to be searched. I think he'd been to Doonbeg and Turnberry when he was pretending to be president, and possibly Dubai. I don't think he managed to go to either course in Indonesia whilst presidenting.

And if not him, Jared and Ivanka could have dropped off documents.

moved to correct thread