Classified Documents

[toucana]

4 hours ago, paulsutton said:

So is this standard procedure with other presidents or just with Donald Trump,  as in would Obama, Clinton, or Kennedy have asked someone else to read a document of such importance.

 

 

Trump who is only marginally literate apparently disliked reading anything much at all. He was said to be particularly averse to reading PDF documents on a laptop, or any sort of Kindle type reader - which is  relevant here, because the PDB or ‘Presidential Daily Brief’ was delivered as an encrypted electronic ‘black book’ from 2014 onwards.

CIA and DNI staff apparently resorted to putting pictures and flattering references to the POTUS into the PDB to try and draw his interest. They also reportedly followed a proforma of - ‘No longer than one page and a maximum of 8 bullet points’.

Trump always preferred to have paper documents that he could scribble on with a sharpie, or rip up if they displeased him. As John Bolton who was his NSA recently recounted, the POTUS was also prone to simply walk out of briefings clutching whatever document he had just been given.

A Wikipedia article suggests that president G.W.Bush attended to 86% of his PDBs, Obama attended 43.8% of his PDBs, and Trump typically read his PDB about once a week.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President's_Daily_Brief

[paulsutton]

24 minutes ago, toucana said:

Trump who is only marginally literate apparently disliked reading anything much at all. He was said to be particularly averse to reading PDF documents on a laptop, or any sort of Kindle type reader - which is  relevant here, because the PDB or ‘Presidential Daily Brief’ was delivered as an encrypted electronic ‘black book’ from 2014 onwards.

CIA and DNI staff apparently resorted to putting pictures and flattering references to the POTUS into the PDB to try and draw his interest. They also reportedly followed a proforma of - ‘No longer than one page and a maximum of 8 bullet points’.

Trump always preferred to have paper documents that he could scribble on with a sharpie, or rip up if they displeased him. As John Bolton who was his NSA recently recounted, the POTUS was also prone to simply walk out of briefings clutching whatever document he had just been given.

A Wikipedia article suggests that president G.W.Bush attended to 86% of his PDBs, Obama attended 43.8% of his PDBs, and Trump typically read his PDB about once a week.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President's_Daily_Brief

And there are people who want him back in power,   I suppose to dictators he is the perfect 'useful idiot'

[swansont]

And now we can possibly put into context the CIA noticing that informants were going missing. Did TFG sell them out?

https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/575384-cia-admits-to-losing-dozens-of-informants-around-the-world-nyt/

 

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

[paulsutton]

On 8/12/2022 at 2:53 PM, geordief said:

Yes ,that had occured to me too. (In any case he has the "best memory")

Back in the 80's  Research machines a UK company making computers (IMP compatible) had manuals,  but random pages would be special paper that turned black if photocopied,  it was a sort of copy protection.

I wonder if top secret documents would be printed on such paper,   then again with PDF there is no need to print or should not be unless you do intend to write notes or need to sign in ink .

[iNow]

On 8/26/2022 at 4:31 PM, TheVat said:

I also wouldn't rule out Jared as possible Mar A Mole. 

Is certainly possible, but one of the things we learned from the affidavit just released (even with all of the redactions) is that “MULTIPLE” sources reached out to the DoJ due to sensitive data still being there even when they said it wasn’t. So, if Jared was involved, he wasn’t alone. 

[toucana]

On 8/27/2022 at 3:26 PM, swansont said:

And now we can possibly put into context the CIA noticing that informants were going missing. Did TFG sell them out?

https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/575384-cia-admits-to-losing-dozens-of-informants-around-the-world-nyt/

 

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

This dovetails neatly with another recent story in the WP

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/27/trump-archives-records-war/

Two of the buried ledes from that article  include:

"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."

"“Any documents that made it to the White House residence were these boxes Trump carried around with him,” explained Stephanie Grisham, a former senior White House staffer" .......   “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.”

 

[toucana]

The DoJ released a 36 page filing late last night which included this photo of classified documents found in Donald Trump’s office at Mar-a-Lago. Some of these documents were actually found in his desk .

The filing discloses that the June subpoena for the return of documents which Trump ignored was a Grand jury subpoena that was part of an ongoing criminal investigation into the theft of documents from NARA.

The filing also seems to imply that Trump and his staff moved and hid heavily classified documents from his own lawyers, who subsequently signed an affidavit to the DoJ officials asserting that they had searched the storage location, and that all classified material had been returned.

This would appear to be felony obstruction of justice and concealment of evidence - a 20 year sentence.

[TheVat]

My sympathy to the FBI, having to release (through filings) details of an ongoing investigation.  They have no choice if they want to defuse some of the Far Right conspiracy theories and violence promotion that's oozing through social media.   But criminal investigations tend to suffer when so much has to be shared at this stage.  IIRC, one of the redacted witness names on the affidavit released last week has already been deduced, because of a little too much transparency.  That's dangerous for a witness, and hurts the investigation if other future witnesses are then scared off or less forthcoming.  

[J.C.MacSwell]

On 8/12/2022 at 9:04 PM, iNow said:

LOL. From the political humour thread. (too good not to be included here as well)

[iNow]

I mean, what's next? A person who is just a former president and is once again little more than a regular old private citizen gets treated as if... as if... as if he were just a regular private citizen!?! Where will this jackbooted thuggery end?!?

[Janus]

42 minutes ago, iNow said:

I mean, what's next? A person who is just a former president and is once again little more than a regular old private citizen gets treated as if... as if... as if he were just a regular private citizen!?! Where will this jackbooted thuggery end?!?

A lot of Republican leaders are going around ringing the alarm of " If The FBI can do this to Trump, they can do it you!"

Of course, the the FBI could already have done this to the average citizen. That's not what bother them. It's that if they could do it to Trump, they could do it to them!  They see it as an erosion of the protective shield created by being rich and powerful.  It removes the power behind the words, "Do you know who I am?"

 

[iNow]

24 minutes ago, Janus said:

It removes the power behind the words, "Do you know who I am?"

And soon perhaps more apropos... "do you know who my father is?!?"

[Peterkin]

1 hour ago, iNow said:

And soon perhaps more apropos... "do you know who my father is?!?"

More accurately: "Do you know who my father was?"

[swansont]

4 hours ago, TheVat said:

My sympathy to the FBI, having to release (through filings) details of an ongoing investigation.  They have no choice if they want to defuse some of the Far Right conspiracy theories and violence promotion that's oozing through social media.   But criminal investigations tend to suffer when so much has to be shared at this stage.  IIRC, one of the redacted witness names on the affidavit released last week has already been deduced, because of a little too much transparency.  That's dangerous for a witness, and hurts the investigation if other future witnesses are then scared off or less forthcoming.  

They’re releasing it in response to legal action, not because they want to diffuse anything.

But with each step, we get a better picture of just how bad this is.

2 hours ago, Janus said:

lot of Republican leaders are going around ringing the alarm of " If The FBI can do this to Trump, they can do it you!"

Of course, the the FBI could already have done this to the average citizen

And often do. If this egregious mishandling of classified documents involved some random federal employee (or former employee) they’d have been locked up already.

[TheVat]

3 hours ago, swansont said:

They’re releasing it in response to legal action, not because they want to diffuse anything.

But with each step, we get a better picture of just how bad this is.

 

I meant "defuse" in the sense that Garland himself stated, that his DOJ would be more transparent on details of the investigation partly because of the welter of wild conjectures and claims of the DOJ conducting a political hit on TFG.  DOJ would not normally have released the affidavit or made an open filing on the GJ subpoena, hiding of documents, etc.  These are all extraordinary moves to help nip conspiracy theories in the bud, AFAICT.  I hope they work.

[iNow]

41 minutes ago, TheVat said:

These are all extraordinary moves to help nip conspiracy theories in the bud, AFAICT.  I hope they work.

Thankfully, the transparent and open presentation of facts and evidence has a long history of arresting conspiratorial thinking. Oh, wait…

Edited August 31, 2022 by iNow

[Peterkin]

4 hours ago, swansont said:

They’re releasing it in response to legal action, not because they want to diffuse anything.

However, it does work in their favour. 

https://www.businessinsider.com/mar-a-lago-how-trump-special-master-request-likely-backfired-2022-8

Quote

"The Trump filings for a Special Master were a huge misstep. DOJ has used its response to disclose damning proof of a series of crimes, which it would not otherwise have been able to do," tweeted Andrew Weissman, who served as one of the lead prosecutors on Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian attempts to influence the 2016 election. 

 

[toucana]

Truth Social's most active user posted an important clarification yesterday - (below)

So did Alina Habba, one of his attorneys, who complained that the DoJ were using 'mundane' statutes like the Espionage Act 1917 to 'harrass' her client.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-attorney-alina-habba-mocked-233643827.html 

[J.C.MacSwell]

52 minutes ago, toucana said:

Truth Social's most active user posted an important clarification yesterday - (below)

So did Alina Habba, one of his attorneys, who complained that the DoJ were using 'mundane' statutes like the Espionage Act 1917 to 'harrass' her client.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-attorney-alina-habba-mocked-233643827.html 

It seems Trumps team is slowly uncovering the truth for all the world to see. The US has been writing fake-laws since as early as 1917!

[swansont]

11 hours ago, TheVat said:

I meant "defuse" in the sense that Garland himself stated, that his DOJ would be more transparent on details of the investigation partly because of the welter of wild conjectures and claims of the DOJ conducting a political hit on TFG.  DOJ would not normally have released the affidavit or made an open filing on the GJ subpoena, hiding of documents, etc.  These are all extraordinary moves to help nip conspiracy theories in the bud, AFAICT.  I hope they work.

You're right that they would not normally do these thing, AFAK. But these steps were in response to legal filing from Trump's legal team. The DOJ did not do these things immediately, they were compelled to do them in response to formal challenges.

That they help the DOJ is good, IMO. 

[geordief]

2 hours ago, toucana said:

Truth Social's most active user posted an important clarification yesterday - (below)

So did Alina Habba, one of his attorneys, who complained that the DoJ were using 'mundane' statutes like the Espionage Act 1917 to 'harrass' her client.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-attorney-alina-habba-mocked-233643827.html 

Wasn't the search recorded by video cams?

Is it actually relevant whether or not the docs were found scattered as shown  or laid out as  pictures after being taken out of the boxes?

 

Have to admit it seemed to me as if Trump had been playing with them in his baby pen ,but I have such a low opinion of him that was my instinctive impression.

 I do hope no witnesses have been identified  at this stage as  one poster was intimidating  earlier.

 

"Mundane" ffs 🤔

Edited September 1, 2022 by geordief

[swansont]

10 minutes ago, geordief said:

s it actually relevant whether or not the docs were found scattered as shown  or laid out as  pictures after being taken out of the boxes?

 

No, I don't think so, but TFG seems to think so. Possession of them is the violation of the law(s), and by acknowledging that they were in cartons he's admitting that he knew they were there.

[Phi for All]

It appears the expired passports the FBI seized along with the contents of a desk drawer directly tie TFG to the illegally stored classified documents also found there: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trumps-seized-passports-problem-legal-experts-say-rcna45726

Makes it difficult to claim that others mishandled the docs when they're mixed in with obvious personal items. Not sure why they returned them if they're evidence, but the article claims the FBI got what they needed from them.

[TheVat]

15 hours ago, iNow said:

Thankfully, the transparent and open presentation of facts and evidence has a long history of arresting conspiratorial thinking. Oh, wait…

Haha!  I knew the moment I typed that last sentence that I was setting up that quip.  

The hope I expressed was that DOJ openness will narrow the conspiracy crowd to the serious cult worshippers.  

2 hours ago, Phi for All said:

It appears the expired passports the FBI seized along with the contents of a desk drawer directly tie TFG to the illegally stored classified documents also found there: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trumps-seized-passports-problem-legal-experts-say-rcna45726

Makes it difficult to claim that others mishandled the docs when they're mixed in with obvious personal items. Not sure why they returned them if they're evidence, but the article claims the FBI got what they needed from them.

All the FBI needed was a record of the proximity of the items to the classified docs.  And no doubt they reckoned that keeping passports was something the RW spin machine would seize upon as more Gazpacho tactics.  

As the law prof in your link said, the personal items allow one to reasonably infer that the person had "dominion and control" over the documents.  If it was anyone but Trump, I would feel confident that the document possessor was headed for the slammer.  

Edited September 1, 2022 by TheVat
Hideous sentence structure

[zapatos]

4 hours ago, geordief said:

Is it actually relevant whether or not the docs were found scattered as shown  or laid out as  pictures after being taken out of the boxes?

 

They were not found scattered about. The picture was not taken for public viewing but as a standard method of documenting what was found by spreading them out so a clear picture could be taken. Doesn't help to take a picture of a box when you cannot see what is in it. It was only released because it dispels Donald's narrative.

Donald is just too dumb to know what the picture was.

Next he'll be telling us that the FBI is using human clones because he saw a pic of an FBI agent in Mar-a-Lago and then LATER SAW A PIC OF THE SAME MAN IN WASHINGTON D.C.!!! TRUTH!!! COVFEFE!