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- cross-posted to:
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DONALD TRUMP SAID he “absolutely” plans to testify in the federal government’s case against him regarding classified documents he removed from the White House. “I’m allowed to do whatever I want … I’m allowed to do everything I did,” the former president told conservative podcast host Hugh Hewitt.
In an interview on “The Hugh Hewitt Show” that dropped Wednesday, the host asked Trump, “Did you direct anyone to move the boxes, Mr. President? Did you tell anyone to move the boxes?” referring to the boxes of more than 300 classified documents the federal government seized last year from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
“I don’t talk about anything. You know why? Because I’m allowed to do whatever I want. I come under the Presidential Records Act,” Trump replied, while also taking a quick detour to bash Hewitt. “I’m not telling you. You know, every time I talk to you, ‘Oh, I have a breaking story.’ You don’t have any story. I come under the Presidential Records Act. I’m allowed to do everything I did.”
Let the courts sort out his stupidity.
Can he sit in prison while he awaits his trial?
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My understanding from briefly covering this in law school and reading some technical articles about it over the past year, is that classification falls under congressional powers, and the only reason the executive branch has any say in the matter as to documents is because Congress passed laws delegating some of that authority to the executive branch. In no circumstance under the law, can the president simply state that a document is declassified and make it so because no such exists under the statute.
The president has authority to initiate the process to declassify any documentwith the exception of nuclear secrets.
The president could read a classified non-nuclear document publicly, and the subject matter would lose its classification, but not the document itself, until it went through the applicable agency’s legal procedure for declassification.
Trump had not initiated such processes and had not declassified the subject matter publicly while president.
The entirety of the above statement are irrelevant to two things as far as Trump’s crimes: any of Trump’s actions after the lawful end of his tenure and nuclear secrets, to which none of the above applies, as Congress delegated classification of nuclear secrets to our nuclear energy regulators.
Trump also lied repeatedly to the public and law enforcement, and engaged in an open conspiracy to illegally destroy evidence and tamper with witnesses.
By the time this is over, I won’t be surprised if it’s revealed he sold nuclear secrets to the Saudis, Russia, or China. Dude had been a foreign agent since the 80’s.
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He admitted on tape he did not declassify the documents while president and no longer can now that he isn’t. That torpedoes any bullshit mind-link declassification powers he asserts he had. He literally admitted it. Literally. I mean in the classic sense of the word literally. He literally already admitted he did not declassify them when being interviewed for a potential book deal.
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Brother you need to improve your reading comprehension. What about the whole ‘declassification is not done only by the president but its actually a whole process that goes through congress’ argument?
As opposed to “he just needs to think it and it is so?”
Hmm who do I trust? Special counsel with years experience in government or anon who just hand waved his entire case.
Better go with anon because it would be horrible if anon were right and myself, another anon, would know it.
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That’s just incorrect.
If you think the government doesn’t want more paperwork and documentation that something is declassified, then you have an inflated view of government efficiency. Not to mention the actual importance of a paper trail and approvals.
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Do you really think SCOTUS would be willing to give Biden the ability to do after his presidency what Trump did?
Do you trust the current SCOTUS to not play GOP politics and apply rules for thee not for me?
I could easily see the poor mental gymnastics that would be pulled for protecting trump and then later flipping and condemning the act if done by a non GOP president
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He didn’t refuse to comply with investigators. Did you forget that?
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https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/trump-indicted-classified-documents-case-historic-former-president-99952813
This is absolutely not true, but I’ll allow you to try and come up with some example to support your fantastic assertions?
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Yeah, no.
This buffoon would never be able to get cleared for even a generic TS for normal government work. I think our commander in chief should be able to obtain a TS as a requirement to running for office. Then there’s Jared…
Cite a court case that establishes this. I bet you $500 USD you can’t.
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So what your saying is that an ex president can refuse to turn over classified documents that he himself acknowledges he did not declassify, and share that information with people that do not have clearences or precedent to know that information.
If your right, then it isn’t a strong case. If you’re wrong, that case seems pretty fucking damning.
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Hey, that’s pretty neat! Let me try:
The New York Times, et al., v. Central Intelligence Agency (2020)
Pretty cool!!
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Lol THAT’S your response? Just, “nuh-uh, doesn’t count because I said!!”
Okay bud.
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Having political power doesn’t imply you can do whatever you want with it. Abuse of power is a crime.
I was under the impression that it didn’t matter whether or not the documents were classified. After a president leaves office all presidential documents need to go to the National Archives. Trump took a bunch of boxes to Mar-a-Lago that should have went to the archives. That’s what he did wrong. Doesn’t matter if it was a McDonalds lunch order on a napkin or nuclear launch codes. He didn’t have the authority to take documents out of the white house. Full stop.
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The Presidential Records Act
And in case you want a primary source
It was an act of congress in 1978. Basically after a president leaves office all presidential documents belong to the public. No president has the authority to take presidential documents to their private property after they leave office.
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And what evidence do you have that the supreme court effectively nullified the Presidential Records Act?
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You linked a case stating the president has the authority to classify or declassify documents as they see fit. Which again, isn’t what he’s being charged for. He took documents to Mar-a-Lago and kept them there once he was no longer president. This violates the Presidential Records Act as those documents became public property once he was no longer president. It again does not matter at all whether or not they were classified.
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Laughable. ETA: You are.