[AMV] #1005 Release the warrants! Oh wait, don't release the warrants!

quote:

Op vrijdag 12 augustus 2022 23:10 schreef kladderadatsch het volgende:
Ha, ik hoor net iets wat ik me dus ook af zat te vragen; wie heeft hem geholpen!? Want het lijkt me stug dat Trump wist wat hij precies moest hebben of er zelfs zomaar bij kon. Bovendien is hij praktisch digibeet en die stukken zijn uitgeprint begrijp ik.

Ik denk dat diegene ondertussen ook wel zeven kleuren schijt!

God, please laat het Miller zijn, of Kushner of nog beter, allebei!

quote:

Op vrijdag 12 augustus 2022 22:47 schreef mcmlxiv het volgende:
Hmm zo te lezen hebben ze aardig wat classified, secret en top-secret materiaal meegenomen.

Zou het dan toch gebeuren? Gaat Trump niet langs start…..?

quote:

Op vrijdag 12 augustus 2022 22:05 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:
[ twitter ]
Ze waren niet 'classified' want Trump heeft ze als president eerst gedeclassificeerd.

Ben benieuwd of dat via de officiele procedure is gegaan dan.

quote:

Op vrijdag 12 augustus 2022 23:27 schreef Tijger_m het volgende:
Opvallend wel, een van de documenten is een dossier over de Franse President. Dat zal wel lekker vallen in het Elysee.

quote:

Op vrijdag 12 augustus 2022 23:32 schreef Recce het volgende:
Ik ben een beetje bang dat Trump en trawanten overal zo'n chaos van hebben gemaakt, dat de dingen die echt niet door de beugel kunnen pas veel later worden gevonden.

quote:

Op vrijdag 12 augustus 2022 23:40 schreef Tijger_m het volgende:
Wat ik ervan begrijp uit discussies met Amerikanen is dat Trump deze documenten had kunnen declassificeren maar daar moet dan een paper trail van bestaan waarop aangegeven is welke documenten het betreft. Trump had die regels kunnen veranderen met een EO maar dat is niet gedaan. De EO van Obama over de procedure hiervoor blijft dus van kracht.

Biden op zijn beurt kan ieder document wat Trump gedeclassificeerd heeft weer opwaarderen tot aan het hoogste nivo toe dus zelfs als Trump de documenten zodanig had behandeld (waar geen bewijs voor is) dan nog kunnen de documenten nu weer geheim of hoger geclassificeerd zijn.

quote:

Not Even the President Can Declassify Nuclear Secrets
Fan letters and snapshots are one matter, and launch codes are another—and here the details of classification might decide just how much trouble Trump is in.

The executive branch’s system of classification is among the weirdest aspects of the American government, and sometimes it seems as if those best equipped to understand it are people with a background in obscure religious practices—say, Roman Catholic sacramental theology—rather than journalists or lawyers. Certain officials are consecrated as having “original classification authority” (they can baptize documents as classified without reference to previous classification); some are ordained to classify but derive their authority from others. You can be defrocked for various reasons. But the authority to classify and declassify flows from one person with near-absolute power, and for four years that papal figure was Donald J. Trump. This awesome former power will protect him from prosecution, but only so much.

Attorney General Merrick Garland revealed yesterday that the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago concerned the existence of classified material at Trump’s Florida golf resort. And The Washington Post reported that the material included “documents relating to nuclear weapons,” which would seem to surpass in gravity the pilfering of presidential memorabilia that many speculated was the reason for the raid. If Trump took away a postcard from Kim Jong Un, well, tsk-tsk. Political prudence might dictate that Garland not prosecute the case.

Moreover, so much material is classified that one should expect a slipup here and there. For decades, the crusade against overclassification has been a cause mostly of the left, in part on the grounds that so much is secret that no one, let alone Trump, could be expected to abide by all classification rules. Secrets are not rare. By some measures there might be more information that is classified by the U.S. government than is unclassified, in any library, anywhere. In 2004, the physicist Peter Galison tallied the amount of classified material produced every year and found that “about five times as many pages are being added to the classified universe than are being brought to the storehouses of human learning, including all the books and journals on any subject in any language collected in the largest repositories on the planet.” The government certainly has more classified data than exists unclassified in the entire Library of Congress. Mistakes will be made, especially by officials who are flagrantly heedless of basic procedure.

But fan letters and snapshots are one matter, and launch codes are another—and here the details of classification might decide just how much trouble Trump is in. First, let’s focus on the absolute portion of near-absolute power. The 1988 Supreme Court case Navy v. Egan confirmed that classification authority flows from the president except in specific instances separated from his powers by law. And here is where things get theological: A president can make most documents classified or declassified simply by willing them so. This peculiar power is so great that the government has an office that exists solely to manage it: the Information Security Oversight Office, which has a strong claim to being the coolest government office you’ve never heard of. (The longest-serving director of this office, Steven Garfinkel, told me that for two decades he had access to pretty much every secret in the executive branch. “If there was a version of the game show Jeopardy entirely about the federal government,” he deadpanned to me once, “I would be in the Tournament of Champions every single year.” Garfinkel retired to teach high school in 2002 and died in 2018.)

His successor, J. William Leonard, led the office under George W. Bush, and he confirmed the lack of general limitation of his boss’s power. While a president is president, Leonard told me, “the rules and procedures governing the classification and declassification of information apply to everyone else.” And that means Trump could have declassified whatever he wished (again, with specific limitations soon to be discussed) before carting it off to Mar-a-Lago. He would not have had to file paperwork—just “utter the magic words,” Leonard told me. He could have waved his hand over the U-Haul trailer as it headed out the White House driveway and down I-95 toward Florida, and there would have been no classified material in there to mishandle.

Leonard noted important caveats, however. First, Trump’s power to declassify ended with his presidency. Second, that U-Haul could be reclassified by someone else. (Depending on traffic and the sharpness of the Biden administration, I would imagine it could have been reclassified somewhere around Fredericksburg, Virginia.) And third, there are certain materials that presidents cannot classify and declassify at will. One such category of material is the identity of spies.

Another is nuclear secrets. The Atomic Energy Acts of 1946 and 1954 produced an even stranger category of classified knowledge. Anything related to the production or use of nuclear weapons and nuclear power is inherently classified, and Trump could utter whatever words he pleased yet still be in possession of classified material. Where are our nuclear warheads? What tricks have we developed to make sure they work? This information is “born secret” no matter who produces it. The restrictions on documents of this type are incredibly tight. In the unlikely event that Trump came up with a new way to enrich uranium, and scribbled it on a cocktail napkin poolside at Mar-a-Lago early this year, that napkin would instantly have become a classified document subject to various controls and procedures, and possibly illegal for the former president to possess. Of course if he did so, no prosecutor would pursue him. A certain amount of leeway is crucial to the system.

If Trump was keeping nuclear secrets in the storeroom of his country club, without even the benefit of a padlock, and resisted attempts to secure those secrets against infiltrators and spies, a prosecutor might reasonably take more interest. After all, he’s the ex-president, not the pope.

quote:

But the National Archives and Records Administration, or NARA, which preserves and maintains records after a president leaves office, confirmed on Friday afternoon that Mr. Obama had not kept his documents — classified and unclassified — as required under the Presidential Records Act of 1978.

The National Archives “assumed exclusive legal and physical custody of Obama presidential records when President Barack Obama left office in 2017, in accordance with the Presidential Records Act,” the statement said. “NARA moved approximately 30 million pages of unclassified records to a NARA facility in the Chicago area, where they are maintained exclusively by NARA. Additionally, NARA maintains the classified Obama presidential records in a NARA facility in the Washington, D.C., area.”

“As required by the P.R.A.,” the statement added, referring to the Presidential Records Act, “former President Obama has no control over where and how NARA stores the presidential records of his administration.”

A spokesman for Mr. Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

quote:

Regular readers of this site are familiar with this statute because I’ve covered tons of cases charging it: Reality Winner and Hal Martin and Joshua Schulte, among others.

But I went back and found some pattern jury instructions for the unlawful retention charge, and because of that meeting in June, DOJ has most of what they’d need to charge the Former President.

...

If the FBI really did scoop up highly sensitive documents when they were at Mar-a-Lago the other day, then there may be relatively few steps left to charging him — aside from cataloging the 12 new boxes of stolen documents. DOJ may only need permission from the agencies that own these documents to make the declassifications required to prosecute it.

quote:

Op zaterdag 13 augustus 2022 00:20 schreef Recce het volgende:
Hier een interessant artikel van een journaliste die veel kennis heeft op het gebied van "national security and civil liberties" over artikel 18 USC 793 van de Espionage Act in deze zaak en eerdere zaken:

https://www.emptywheel.ne(...)s-prove-18-usc-793e/

Zij denkt dat Trump waarschijnlijk wel aan te klagen is.
[..]

quote:

Op zaterdag 13 augustus 2022 00:42 schreef Tijger_m het volgende:

[..]
Een van de interessantere aspecten is niet de Espionage Act maar het 3e artikel wat gebruikt is wat over obstructie van een lopend onderzoek gaat. Ik ben vooral benieuwd waar dat dan om gaat want blijkbaar is dat een nog lopend onderzoek.

quote:

Op zaterdag 13 augustus 2022 00:49 schreef Recce het volgende:

[..]
Kan dat lopende onderzoek niet het onderzoek naar de documenten zijn?

quote:

Op zaterdag 13 augustus 2022 00:42 schreef Tijger_m het volgende:

[..]
Een van de interessantere aspecten is niet de Espionage Act maar het 3e artikel wat gebruikt is wat over obstructie van een lopend onderzoek gaat. Ik ben vooral benieuwd waar dat dan om gaat want blijkbaar is dat een nog lopend onderzoek.

quote:

One of the more interesting revelations about the search warrant is the inclusion of 18 U.S.C. § 1519, entitled “Destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in Federal investigations and bankruptcy.” Section 1519 provides that:

Whoever knowingly alters, destroys, mutilates, conceals, covers up, falsifies, or makes a false entry in any record, document, or tangible object with the intent to impede, obstruct, or influence the investigation or proper administration of any matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency of the United States or any case filed under title 11, or in relation to or contemplation of any such matter or case, shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.

Sec. 1519 was originally enacted in the wake of the Enron and Worldcom corporate scandals as part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. It was intended to broadly penalize efforts to interfere with federal investigations and other proceedings by destroying or falsifying records, thereby eliminating certain “technical” requirements that some courts had read into other obstruction of justice statutes when applying them to such circumstances. For this reason, federal courts have been generally willing to uphold § 1519’s application even in the absence of a pending or imminent investigation, so long as the defendant knew that the record at issue could be relevant to some contemplated investigation or proceeding in the future and acted with the requisite intent to interfere with it. While originally conceived in the context of white-collar crime, § 1519’s use has been upheld in a wide variety of circumstances. In particular, the Justice Department has frequently used it in cases where defendants are believed to have made false statements or omitted material information from a document provided to authorities as part of an investigation or related proceeding, including police reports and required records of regulated activities.

How exactly § 1519 might apply to Trump and his associates at Mar-a-Lago is impossible to know without more information about the records at issue and the conduct at Mar-A-Lago related to them. It’s possible someone at Mar-a-Lago destroyed or falsified records relating either to an ongoing investigation or to misconduct that the person believed might be the subject of an investigation in the future. Notably, the warrant authorizes the seizure of “[a]ny evidence of the knowing alteration, destruction, or concealment of any government and/or Presidential Records, or of any documents with classification markings”—which could be relevant to § 1519 charges if done with the intent to interfere with a potential federal investigation. That said, this same evidence could also be relevant to charges under 18 U.S.C. § 793 or 18 U.S.C. § 2701.

Another possibility is that the magistrate judge’s finding of probable cause under § 1519 did not relate to the disputed documents themselves, but to other records generated as part of the investigation into the records. For example, if Trump or an associate knowingly provided federal authorities with a falsified inventory or other record of documents the person claimed to be retaining on-site, then this could constitute a violation of § 1519 as well. Evidence that Trump and his associates still had documents they claimed not to have in their possession, meanwhile, would be relevant to proving this claim and could be the subject of the search warrant.

quote:

Op vrijdag 12 augustus 2022 23:10 schreef kladderadatsch het volgende:
Ha, ik hoor net iets wat ik me dus ook af zat te vragen; wie heeft hem geholpen!? Want het lijkt me stug dat Trump wist wat hij precies moest hebben of er zelfs zomaar bij kon. Bovendien is hij praktisch digibeet en die stukken zijn uitgeprint begrijp ik.

quote:

Op zaterdag 13 augustus 2022 14:17 schreef Bluesdude het volgende:
Vooraf was er het bericht dat men met de search warrant zocht naar documenten over kernwapens.
Dit blijkt niet uit de gepubliceerde tekst van de search warrant, begrijp ik ?
Klusje voor de journalisten: uitdiepen dit bericht... wel waar/niet waar/ beetje waar

quote:

Op zaterdag 13 augustus 2022 16:44 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:
Bevestiging van Sinema's prioriteiten:

[ twitter ]

quote:

Op zaterdag 13 augustus 2022 17:17 schreef kladderadatsch het volgende:

[..]
Gaat ze in november op voor herverkiezing? Zo ja, heel snel wegstemmen dan die crypto-republikein.

quote:

Op zaterdag 13 augustus 2022 17:51 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:

[..]
Nope pas in 2024 helaas.

quote:

Op zaterdag 13 augustus 2022 17:56 schreef SnertMetChoco het volgende:

[..]
Aan de andere kant weet niet hoeveel je moet verwachten van een senator uit Arizona. Het ging weliswaar naar Biden in 2020, maar dat maakt het niet ineens een Democratisch bastion ofzo.

quote:

Op zaterdag 13 augustus 2022 18:00 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:

[..]
Ja dat is het probleem idd zonder de steun van Republikeinen in die staat komt ze er ook niet.

quote:

Op zaterdag 13 augustus 2022 18:18 schreef Ulx het volgende:
Trump Lawyer Told Justice Dept. That Classified Material Had Been Returned

Better get a lawyer.

quote:

Op zaterdag 13 augustus 2022 18:38 schreef Ulx het volgende:

[..]
Het lijkt mij iets van valse verklaring afleggen en/of belemmering van de rechtsgang. En het lijkt dat de advocaat heeft meegeholpen door een handtekening te zetten.

quote:

Op zaterdag 13 augustus 2022 21:23 schreef Bluesdude het volgende:

[..]
Ik krijg een 'visioen' door
Lawyer in de rechtbank: Trump zei dat er niks meer in huis was
Lawyer van de lawyer in de rechtbank: Ik roep Trump naar de getuigenbank
Mr Trump , heeft u uw lawyer verteld dat er niks meer in huis was
Trump tegen lawyer van de lawyer in de rechtbank: I take the fifth

quote:

Op zaterdag 13 augustus 2022 23:20 schreef AnneX het volgende:
Protip
[ twitter ]