Donald Trump discussion Thread IX (threadbanned users listed in OP)

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120693144#Comment_120693144

What the comments by McCarthy perhaps indicate is that Trump remains too powerful, too popular within the GOP and its base, to be worth throwing to the wolves. Yet. Though you'd have to wonder at what point the partisanship might start to crumble - if ever. Can't help but wonder that most other normal Democracies would have by now cast Trump to the wilderness; partisanship remains a fairly powerful drug it seems.

aloyisious

It seems Trump's personal preference as a defence line is along the lines of "infamy, infamy, they've all got it in for me". Closer to the day he may decide to call out senior GOP people as RINO's and blow the smoke away should he "think" they are not being loyal to him as "their" candidate of choice.

McCarthy has to be trying to cover all angles, but to succeed it would be essential he has PM'd [on a burn after reading basis] the other GOP candidates that it is a political manoeuvre by him to keep Trump as happy as possible, mindful of Trump's ability to lash out at all comers. His grave injustice line has to be seen alongside his "done with this guy" statement made in reference to Trump at the time of the Capitol attack, pure posturing.

PropJoe10

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120693043#Comment_120693043

I'm sure that if Biden committed a crime, he'll be charged. If he hasn't, he wont. It's not that complicated, to be fair.

Quin_Dub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120693390#Comment_120693390

They've all rowed in behind him , even DeSantis.

All of them terrified of going after Trump about his biggest issue.

That's why none of them will beat him in the primary , because they are cowards.

Brian?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120693325#Comment_120693325

It’s insane that McCarthy is still showing him loyalty and definitely indicates that there is a substantial element of House GOP that are still firmly in the bag for Trump.

Trump is turning into an American Berlusconi and a lot of GOP voters love him for it.

Sam Russell

Quote ^^

[Trump is turning into an American Berlusconi and a lot of GOP voters love him for it.]

Is it his prediction for Bunga Bunga?

Brussels Sprout

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120693582#Comment_120693582

Most of those candidates have nothing but contempt for Donald Trump and would love nothing better than for him to be taken out of the race. They just cannot be seen to be in favour of that though as they're all terrified of alienating the base of the party that is squarely MAGA.

Quin_Dub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120694246#Comment_120694246

Agree completely.

What they want is for the DOJ to take him out so they can claim to be "outraged" and make promises to "tear down the deep state" and other tripe.

Every last one of them is terrified of getting taken out in a primary by a MAGA fruit-cake so they will publicly say that it's a travesty blah blah blah , but privately are wishing with all their might that he gets put in Prison.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120694305#Comment_120694305

It all tracks and would agree, but it also amounts to a continuation of indulging and stirring an already riled up cohort of Americans who have form putting their anti-state paranoia into action. Trying to indulge the MAGA maniacs rather than condemn or ostracise their extremism is playing with fire - after the house already burned.

Timberrrrrrrr

Apparently there's a tape of Trump admitting he has top secrets documents, Don't know who he is talking to (showing the docs to) but if they don't have security clearance then that's Trump pretty much cooked.

https://twitter.com/JoJoFromJerz/status/1667140555778785281?t=3S6tkbTOch6BYD1Ao8mB2A&s=19

BorneTobyWilde

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120693472#Comment_120693472

If Biden committed a crime he should absolutely not be charged, this is a slippery slope US politics is taking. When Trump became president he did it going after Hilary, saying she should be in Jail, but he didn't go after her when he won, it's simply not the thing to do. Trump was president, the so called most powerful man in the world, I think him, and Biden, and Obama, and Clinton all have the power to declassify what they like when they like, it's the privilege of being President, no one should be going after an ex president, elected democratically by the people, this is not Russia.

Brussels Sprout

Wow!

He'll definitely do that if it comes to it.

Timberrrrrrrr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120694483#Comment_120694483

Do you think (after he has declassified them with his mind) he should be allowed to show these top secret documents to anyone he wants?

Quin_Dub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120694483#Comment_120694483

If ANYONE commits a crime then they should be prosecuted simple as that.

The idea that being President should make you immune from criminal penalty is the thing that makes it like Russia , not the other way around.

Trump didn't "go after" Clinton because there was nothing to go after.

As regards the President and the ability to declassify documents , you are right. However the problem is that Trump is no longer President and the stuff he took was not declassified before he left - And he's on tape acknowledging that fact so he committed a crime and should be held accountable.

BorneTobyWilde

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120694492#Comment_120694492

What i think is what ever documents Biden had thrown around his many homes were there as'' moving out baggage'' , I don't think Biden was looking to steal and sell info to anyone.

The National Archives are sending letters to all living former presidents and vice presidents, asking them to go through their records to ensure there are no classified materials, not because they're suspected criminals, but because movers move boxes, and it happens... I just don't see the issue, no president left or right should be accused of treason, when in fact it's just a case of mistakenly packing mountains of paper work, that just so happen to have something in there that should not be in there.

Christy42

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120694483#Comment_120694483

So presidents should be above the law? They should be allowed bribe and steal as much as they like and no one can touch them? We should ignore the entire foundation the justice system is built on?

Man this is one hell of a pivot from the right. They were pissed when Clinton lied about a blowjob and now presidents should be freely able to commit crime. I can only presume this is the final stage from the he didn't do it, to you have no proof to well you should just let people break the law. The defense has just gotten more farcical as time has gone on.

Trump does not have the power to declassify anything. If the people wanted him to have that power he would have been re elected. Obama nó longer has the power to declassify. That lies the people currently elected which is how a democracy actually works. Biden has not gone after Trump either and has let relevant authorities handle it. Party of law and order indeed🤣

(oh and the only reason Trump didn't go after Hilary was because he didn't have any evidence)

duploelabs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120694538#Comment_120694538

They key issue that you seem to be missing in all this false equivalence is that trump told the national archives that he'd surrendered all the documents, and then moved the remaining documents when the search happened. Do you understand the difference?

Quin_Dub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120694538#Comment_120694538

The National Archives are sending letters to all living former presidents and vice presidents, asking them to go through their records to ensure there are no classified materials, not because they're suspected criminals, but because movers move boxes, and it happens... I just don't see the issue, no president left or right should be accused of treason, when in fact it's just a case of mistakenly packing mountains of paper work, that just so happen to have something in there that should not be in there.

Indeed and they all complied with those letters , sent back what they found and everybody moves on with their lives - Acting like normal people act.

However , when they sent that letter to Trump , he LIED to them over and over and over again.

He got his Lawyers to potential perjure themselves by signing legal documents saying that the had returned everything when he categorically knew that he hadn't

He then ignored a subpoena and then tried to hide the stuff he had taken before the FBI came to his house to search for them

And he is STILL LYING about it.

That is why he is being indicted , not because he forgot some documents in a filing cabinet somewhere.

This shouldn't be hard for people to understand.

Rjd2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120694595#Comment_120694595

Yeah its not taking the documents which is what the problem for him its how he conducted himself afterwards thus the issue.

Its why noted lifelong democrat erm Mike Pence has nothing to worry about because he did not act an idiot afterwards he was contacted.

Rgearding the political side of this long term, it probably does no harm in the primary but death by a thousand cuts when it comes to the general especially as their is more to come . The millions who abandoned Trump to vote Biden mainly due to fatigue this won't entice them back , yeah it fires up the base, so what?

ohnonotgmail

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120694483#Comment_120694483

are ex-presidents immune from prosecution now? are they allowed break the law without consequences?

Nody

From Reuters.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump faces 37 criminal counts that include charges of unauthorized retention of classified documents and conspiracy to obstruct justice after he left the White House in 2021, according to federal court documents made public on Friday.

The Justice Department made the charging documents public on a tumultuous day in which two of Trump's lawyers quit the case and a former aide face charges as well.

The charges stem from Trump's treatment of sensitive government materials he took with him when he left the White House in January 2021.

According to the indictment, those documents include some of the most sensitive U.S. military secrets, including information on the U.S. nuclear program and potential domestic vulnerabilities in the event of an attack.

One document concerned a foreign country's support of terrorism against U.S. interests.

Materials came from the Pentagon, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency and other intelligence agencies, the indictment said.

Investigators seized roughly 13,000 documents from Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, nearly a year ago. One hundred were marked as classified, even though one of Trump's lawyers had previously said all records with classified markings had been returned to the government.

Trump has previously said he declassified those documents while president, but his attorneys have declined to make that argument in court filings.

Waiting now for our Trump fan boys to explain why the lawyers, who are not allowed to put forward a bad faith argument, would not use Trump's mental declassifaction defence in an actual court...

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120695888#Comment_120695888

According to the indictment, those documents include some of the most sensitive U.S. military secrets, including information on the U.S. nuclear program and potential domestic vulnerabilities in the event of an attack.

One document concerned a foreign country's support of terrorism against U.S. interests.

You know. If the "secret" documents ultimately contained prosaic information about, I dunno, government irrigation schemes or something, I'd say the charges of illegality were a bit tenuous or pedantic. Arguments of political hitjobs might be relevant.

But info about the nuclear program and vulnerabilities? Trump may count himself lucky he's not being charged with treason - cos that's precisely what that kind of pilfering would be regarded as were you or I to take those documents. And of course Trump, the vulgarian and bully, would try to take info about the nukes; it seems entirely on brand.

bucketybuck

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120694538#Comment_120694538

But Trump is recorded as showing these documents to random people, and admitting on tape that they are classified and that he knew he shouldn't be doing it.

How is this the same as forgetting an envelope in among a box of other paperwork?

I know you won't answer, but your argument is ridiculous.

For Forks Sake

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120694538#Comment_120694538

Here's the full indictment against Trump and Nuata, it's all written in plain english with minimal legalese, it paints a damning picture.

Trump didn't have documenets accidentally on his person as you're trying to paint it, he knowingly moved boxes of classified documents from WH to Mar a Lago, left them stored in openly accessable areas, took documents from them to show to people without any security clearance. and plenty more.

they also tried to bullsh1t the FBI repeatedly.

govuscourtsflsd64865330[1].pdf

I.R.Y.E.D

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120694595#Comment_120694595

"This shouldn't be hard for people to understand"

You are correct in relation to normal functioning people, but there is a trove of evidence that trump supporters, and the I'm not a trump supporter but folks, do not fall into this category.

They are basically waiting for some form of violence to occur from todays news so that they can blame Biden for it, the same way they did when the volience occurred after the documents were retrieved from MAL.

marno21

https://twitter.com/davidfrum/status/1667241292047196163?s=21

This basically.

The question now is what foreign eyes saw them

y0ssar1an22

i presume this ends up in the supreme court?

in that, it hasn't yet been established how a president declassifies things.

I.R.Y.E.D

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120696923#Comment_120696923

Yes it has and it doesn't include doing so in their minds.

He is also going to have to find a new defence team as they have bailed knowing he is f*cked, and by his own words and actions and they want to have some sort of career left.

uptherebels

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120694483#Comment_120694483

What you think is irrelevant. The only slippery slope is putting people above the law.

marno21

Reading into the detail of this, it's absolutely scandalous the level of it. Some of the documents are so classified even the controls on them are classified. The level of secrets in these documents is off the scale.

Based on the level of classification, you'd wonder what amount of intelligence gathering assets have been compromised by this, and it might point to who has seen these documents in that case. It also must have raised significant eyebrows in London, Ottawa, Canberra and Wellington given that material shared between Five Eyes parties have been compromised in such a manner.

y0ssar1an22

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120696937#Comment_120696937

a president has never been indicted before for this so this has never been tested before.

the president has the right to declassify documents, whatever they see fit while president.

the question of law will come down to....can he do it on a whim?

the traditions of what a president usually does wont matter.

will be interesting to see how it plays out.

interlocked

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120696967#Comment_120696967

If Obama or Biden had left classified nuclear files in their spare bathroom or on their ballroom stage, and denied their existence, I doubt that you'd be stroking your chin and pondering theoretical constitutional ramifications. Crawl away and stop embarrassing yourself even further.

amandstu

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120696950#Comment_120696950

Putting people above the law is very close to having a king or despot ,isn't it?

Seems to be fine with his supporters.Pence one mouthed "no one is above the law" but then wished that this wouldn't go to trial.

Others suggest he should be charged with treason but I remember that was discussed earlier in Trump's "career" and not very conclusively then.

Ahwell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120696967#Comment_120696967

It is not relevant to the Espionage Act, which criminalizes the unauthorized possession of national defense information whether it's classified or not. Documents he possessed included "information regarding defense and weapons capabilities of both the United States and foreign countries; United States nuclear programs; potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack, and plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack."

It's also not relevant to the counts of obstruction of justice that he has been charged with.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120696853#Comment_120696853

You'd have to imagine there have been a lot of crisis meetings and serious revisions of protocols within the nuclear programme since Trump's little collection was discovered. If there were seriously compromising aspects they couldn't possibly be allowed to continue. So there might be a ticking clock on how long that info stayed relevant - assuming the "wrong" eyes got to see them. Which knowing Trump is a very likely, believable scenario (let's all remember the meeting with Russia's bigwigs back in the day)

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120696967#Comment_120696967

"On a whim" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there to try and hand wave away what happened.

Nody

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120696923#Comment_120696923

Unlikely because even Trump's lawyers don't make the case that he can think that something is declassified and that somehow makes it true (as seen by Trump keeping spouting that as a fact but his lawyers refuse to put it as part of his defence with the court). A declassified document has a clear process it has to go through including the stamping of the document showing it's now declassified and when it was declassified.

PropJoe10

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120694483#Comment_120694483

I completely disagree with you. What you're saying there is that once someone is elected president, they should be immune from criminal prosecution. Nobody should enjoy that sort of privilege. The office of president is not like a monarchy in the 1700s.

What would be to stop this person from committing a murder or something then? Or where do you draw the line into which crimes should be charged and which shouldn't? It's a ridiculous argument.

Trump was showing US defence secrets to people without security clearance, which jeopardises the security of both the US and other countries. Not charging him for that would be ludicrous.

BorneTobyWilde

Trump had 10's of boxes containing thousands upon thousands of documents, I'll never be convinced he knew what he had, and that he was planning to use what he had to take down the US from the inside, it's all nuts. He's just an idiot, he was told to hand back documents, someone gathered up what was relevant and handed them over, 15 boxes, and said that they are continuing to search for additional presidential records that belong to the National Archives, to hand over also, one they thought all was handed over they declared that by lawyer, of course there were more found after that point in the raid.

10s of boxes of documents, containing 13k plus of documents, needle in a haystack stuff, I'm sure after the raid there was a team of people working 24/7 searching for relevant documents, while Trump has a lazy lawyer have a quick look, so it's no surprise they found more.

Nody

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120698147#Comment_120698147

Except for that minor part where Trump tells his assistant to specifically move those confidential documents from said boxes to make sure they would not be there when the laywer was checking the boxes for them. Or the times (note plural) he told other people he had those confidential documents and had not declassified them and showed them to other people. But yea, he totally made a mistake or something and forgot all about it, completly a human mistake or something...

salmocab

So it was all a lazy lawyers fault?

that seems like nonsense spouted in a bid to make this seem like less of an issue.

BorneTobyWilde

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120698192#Comment_120698192

Timeline is key, when did he do that. Maybe it's a case of hiding them, rather than facing the wrath for having more after it was declared they were all handed over. Bottom line I'd never believe there was some master plan to take out the US by Trump by using info in documents he didn't know he had , all far fetched that he was in cahoots with China of Russian on where and how to hit the US, you can't charge someone with espionage, without knowing the meaning of the word .

Nody

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120698208#Comment_120698208

You do know it's outlined in his indictment, right?

But yea, he was not aware of them being classified except he's caught on tape confirming it that they were classified (in July 2021 so well after he's left as president), with witnesses there and in the text messages he sent and recieved to move said documents does not of course in any way show that he was aware of the documents being classified...

relax carry on

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120698208#Comment_120698208

And the 2 billion the Saudis gave Kushner just for the craic? Everything is just a coincidence. Poor Donald is such an idiot, he has no idea what's going on with all the classified material he just happened to take for no reason whatsoever. You've hot to feel sorry for poor Donald. Why do these things keep happening to such a poor innocent man.

https://www.newsweek.com/jared-kushner-theories-saudi-money-donald-trump-mole-fbi-raid-1733474

Christy42

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120698208#Comment_120698208

Oh I don't think Trump wants to take out the US. He has property there. He wanted them either to feel important or to use them to make money.

I doubt he knew every line on every document but he knew he shouldn't have them and therefore wanted them hidden.

Honestly what would it take at this point for you to believe that Trump intentionally committed a criminal act. He is on tape stating he knew it was wrong.

BorneTobyWilde

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120698433#Comment_120698433

Showing'' and then it says '' don't get too close'' So he held a document in his hand basically. Clear to me in those two incidents no one saw anything, other than knowing the existence of classified documents, I mean we all know they exist.

PropJoe10

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120698147#Comment_120698147

Stupidity or ignorance are not excuses for committing crimes, especially for national security crimes.

Timberrrrrrrr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120698208#Comment_120698208

If this exchange is correct (and there's no reason to believe its not) then this alone is proof that not only did Trump know he had secret documents, he also knew he shouldn't have them, he knew he shouldn't show them to anyone and he openly admits that they hadn't been declassified,.

This alone should be enough to convince.

amandstu

Has anyone a comment on the appointment of Eileen Cannon on the case?

ancapailldorcha

It's clearly deliberate. Donald Trump is, like his British counterpart, a man who thought that consequences were just for other people. He knew full well what he was doing with those documents. The idea that one accidentally takes classified information from the most powerful country in history is laughably, pathetic and transparent.

Water John

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120698808#Comment_120698808

She'll sit on the bench with her sister Aileen.