Trump Watch: The Conservative Condition

Tiassa

Tiassa

Let us not launch the boat ...
Valued Senior Member
How It's Going

One of the unwritten, perhaps ineffable stories of the Trump experience is how precisely conservatives foreshadow themselves. Never mind, this part is a lot more straightforward. Congressional Republicans and prominent conservative advocates are, as we might expect, incensed at the FBI's execution of a search warrant against Donald Trump's residence at Mar-a-Lago.

Steve Benen↱ observes the politics:

As a matter of political strategy, it's worth emphasizing that the offensive against the Democratic attorney general didn't begin this week. Indeed, if the tactics were going to work, they couldn't have begun this week — because if anyone was going to believe that Garland engaged in outrageous political abuses, the smears would have to land on fertile ground.

Consider, for example, a tweet Sen. Rick Scott published on Monday night. "The FBI's raid of Mar-a-Lago is incredibly concerning, especially given the Biden administration's history of going after parents and other political opponents," the Florida Republican wrote. "This is Third-World-country stuff."

Much of the GOP has embraced this rhetorical framing: Garland is a ruthless ideologue who abuses his power, Republicans have argued this week, so Americans cannot trust the Justice Department or the FBI to pursue legitimate investigations related to Trump's alleged crimes.

Note, for example, how Scott referenced Garland's DOJ having a "history of going after parents and other political opponents." It's difficult to say with confidence whether the Florida senator actually believes his own talking points, but in reality, no such "history" exists ....

.... Taken at face value, all of this was quite bonkers — Garland never called parents "terrorists" because they wanted to go to a school board meeting — but this week, the rationale behind the hysterical offensive at least started to make more strategic sense.

It's becoming far easier to believe that Republican weren't outraged by the attorney general trying to prevent violence against educators, rather, they were eager to lay the groundwork for more intense whining if the Justice Department pursued legitimate cases the GOP didn't like.​

One thing Benen didn't cover, though, is that this sort of posturing, including Minority Leader McCarthy's twit-threat, feeds the conservative voter base and their ongoing↗ agitation↗ for violence.

Conservatives have been telling us for years, generations, who they really are. We should probably take the note.
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Notes:

Benen, Steve. "The GOP targeted Garland for months in preparation for this moment". MSNBC. 10 August 2022. MSNBC.com. 10 August 2022. https://on.msnbc.com/3bO5UmT

See Also:

Collins, Ben and Ryan J. Reilly. "After Mar-a-Lago search, users on pro-Trump forums agitate for 'civil war' — including a Jan. 6 rioter". NBC News. 9 August 2022. NBCNews.com. 9 August 2022. https://nbcnews.to/3dkMTss
 
Civil Matters

Today:

Former President Donald Trump said he refused to answer questions Wednesday at a deposition by investigators for New York Attorney General Letitia James as part of her civil probe into the Trump Organization.

Trump announced in an emailed statement he had invoked his Fifth Amendment right against making self-incriminating statements shortly after arriving for the court-ordered interview under oath at James’ offices in New York City.

“I once asked, ‘If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?’ Now I know the answer to that question,” Trump said in that furious statement, which claimed James is a renegade prosecutor with a vendetta against him and his company.

“When your family, your company, and all the people in your orbit have become the targets of an unfounded, politically motivated Witch Hunt supported by lawyers, prosecutors, and the Fake News Media, you have no choice,” Trump said.

“Accordingly, under the advice of my counsel and for all of the above reasons, I declined to answer the questions under the rights and privileges afforded to every citizen under the United States Constitution,” he said.

(Brenuinger and Mangan↱)​

Tristan Snell↱, an attorney who participated in the case against Trump Univeresity, observes, "This is a civil case — so the court can draw an inference of liability."

One question that has persisted throughout the Trump experience is whether they could please stop acting like what they say they aren't.

In this case, someone as popular as Donald Trump thinks he is can actually win out by clearing up the misunderstandings and wrecking the alleged witch hunt. Compared to an appearance of the argument being, ¡How dare you suggest that action is illegal! it might actually be helpful to come out strong and publicly destroy the alleged fakery.

Or perhaps we should consider another conservative tendency in which it has become more and more frequent that conservatives defend their innocence by touting their guilt.
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Notes:

@TristanSnell. "BREAKING: Trump pleads Fifth, refuses to answer NY AG questions about Trump Organization’s alleged tax and financial fraud. This is a civil case — so the court can draw an inference of liability. This is exactly what the AG was hoping to achieve. The case is now even stronger." Twitter. 10 August 2022. Twitter.com. 10 August 2022. https://bit.ly/3QhuDPh

Breuninger, Kevin and Dan Mangan. "Trump says he refused to answer questions in deposition for New York AG Letitia James’ probe of business". CNBC. 10 August 2022. CNBC.com. 10 Augsut 2022. https://cnb.cx/3Ad2HXm
 
Right now I'm hearing the word "espionage" a lot, on the news channels.
Just sayin'

Espionage is an English contraction of the French (I can speak some) espionnage, from espionner, to spy.
Pfft.
 
mathman said:
It looks like Trump took top-secret information to Florida (looks like law breaking). How can Republicans explain?
Click to expand...

1) He didn't do it.
2) OK he did it but it was fine because X.
3) Obama did it first.

It's a very standard pattern.
 
Alternative pleading.

He didn't do anything but if he did it was just a housekeeping error and as President he declassified all those documents but he didn't know there was anything not appropriate taken to Florida and even if he did know it doesn't matter because an ex-President can do no wrong. Fake news. They're out to get him. They don't want him to run again. The FBI planted those documents. "Don't you know who I am?"...
 
Assuming they were declassified (although not sure how that would stand up in court), how serious is the offence of not returning stuff to the archives? Is it rather petty in the scheme of things, or a serious breach? Is it worth the effort thus far taken?
Just asking... for a friend. ;)

As it is, the claims by Trump that Obama failed to return 33 million pages of classified documents has been rebutted by the National Archives.

Also, something that tickled me: Trump "Truth Socialed" (not sure what the equivalent is of "to Tweet" for his own platform?): "Not only will I not oppose the release of documents related to the un American, unwarranted, and unnecessary raid and break-in of my home in Palm Beach, Florida, Mar-a-Lago, I am going a step further by ENCOURAGING the immediate release of those documents," (maybe misquoted, as it has been copied from the same link as above).
What particularly tickles me is that he is saying that the raid was unwarranted, but is encouraging immediate release of the... um... warrant. :)
 
origin said:
My guess is they will say, "all the presidents do this".
Click to expand...
Oh crap, I forgot the most obvious thing this despicable excuse for a president will claim about top secret papers in his possession, he will say they were planted there by the FBI.
 
Is not the solution to the charge

"You took Top Secret Documents to a place you not supposed to take To Secret Documents" obvious?

"No I did not. I declassified ALL said documents before I took them"

What protocol is in operation which prevents any President from declassifying any documents?

:)
 
Michael 345 said:
Is not the solution to the charge

"You took Top Secret Documents to a place you not supposed to take To Secret Documents" obvious?

"No I did not. I declassified ALL said documents before I took them"

What protocol is in operation which prevents any President from declassifying any documents?

:)
Click to expand...
He can say he did, but no written evidence has appeared.
 
candy said:
Even if he did declassify the documents they should have gone to the archives.
Click to expand...

im-proper storage of nuclear weapons top secret documents sitting in boxes around his golf club . . . .

worse than wiki leaks and look what the trumpsterdivers wanted to do with julian asange.
 
From reading the great unbiased source of all truthful knowledge that is the internet, it seems that even in the declassigying of documents there is a process to follow. And Trump knows this, as he previously tweeted that he had declassified stuff (re: Russiagate, Hilary Clinton claims etc) but noone could access them despite that tweet because the process hadn't been followed that would mark them as declassified.
He also only had the authority to do so while he was acting President, so would have had to have declassified them prior to leaving office, not retrospectively. Which noone seems to be able to support with official paperwork, only through "I was there when he said they were declassified" type claims. Which isn't good enough.
There's also a class (or several) of documents that can not be declassified by the President, as they are apparently covered by other rules and regulations. Such documents as those that relate to nuclear capabilities etc, for example.

So, if they were still classified, he'll (hopefully, as I'm all in favour of narcissistic ****s being humiliated) be hoisted by his own petard, as he apparently signed a law in 2018 that increased the sentence for ""unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material" from a period of one year in prison to five years.
 
he loves being 1st
will he be the 1st president to be put in hand cuffs ?

i watched some of the trial of that mass murder and he wasn't hand cuffed during the trial which i thought was odd.
 
Sarkus said:
From reading the great unbiased source of all truthful knowledge that is the internet, it seems that even in the declassigying of documents there is a process to follow. And Trump knows this, as he previously tweeted that he had declassified stuff (re: Russiagate, Hilary Clinton claims etc) but noone could access them despite that tweet because the process hadn't been followed that would mark them as declassified.
He also only had the authority to do so while he was acting President, so would have had to have declassified them prior to leaving office, not retrospectively. Which noone seems to be able to support with official paperwork, only through "I was there when he said they were declassified" type claims. Which isn't good enough.
There's also a class (or several) of documents that can not be declassified by the President, as they are apparently covered by other rules and regulations. Such documents as those that relate to nuclear capabilities etc, for example.

So, if they were still classified, he'll (hopefully, as I'm all in favour of narcissistic ****s being humiliated) be hoisted by his own petard, as he apparently signed a law in 2018 that increased the sentence for ""unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material" from a period of one year in prison to five years.
Click to expand...

I think he will be indicted but who knows? My reasoning is that they had to show that there were (at least) those 3 laws that he was reasonably believed to be breaking. That was required for the search warrant in the first place.

It's not like they didn't find anything so there should be even more evidence now that he was breaking those laws. Therefore there should be an indictment.

It also seems that they were clever enough to anticipate Trump's "I declassified them" defense in that all 3 of those charges don't hinge on whether the documents were declassified or not.

I know there is some talk that maybe this was only just about the U.S. getting those documents back but I think there will be an indictment or at least the chances of that happening are much greater than before.

There are also the civil and criminal cases in NY and in Georgia.

On a somewhat unrelated matter, I wonder what happened to all those non-Trump Republicans that existed at the time of his election. Where is Jeb Bush, and all the rest of the people who ran against him.

A "Bush" is now too liberal for the Republican Party. Strange times.
 
Nothing currently going on with Republicans and Trump has anything to do with Conservatism.
 
He hasn't yet said that he was entitled to hold onto the documents because he is still the President and needs to keep as close any eye on the guy who is just claiming to be the 46th.

Trump ex machina(or sumpun)

If it comes to trial maybe he will say to any question "this is all classified".
 
Michael 345 said:
Is not the solution to the charge

"You took Top Secret Documents to a place you not supposed to take To Secret Documents" obvious?

"No I did not. I declassified ALL said documents before I took them"

What protocol is in operation which prevents any President from declassifying any documents?

:)
Click to expand...
It really doesn't matter if he "declassified" them or not. (Though the idea that there was standing order that all documents he removed from the White House were automatically declassified is ludicrous to begin with).
For the potential crimes he is suspected of, it doesn't matter. The sensitivity of the info on them (particularly the TS-SCI ones) , and the danger of them getting into the wrong hands doesn't change just because the label on them was changed.
Just the act of declassifying such material and removing it, in of itself, could be a crime under these laws. The "I declassified them" defense isn't the loophole Trump(and many of his supporters) thinks it is.
 
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