ChiGoose

Is there any case law to support that theory?

He does not have a security clearance. President’s don’t get clearances by virtue of the fact that the President decides what is classified. Therefore, there is no clearance retained when they leave office. The current president usually reads ex-presidents into classified materials to get their advice or as a courtesy but as far as I can tell ex-presidents have no authority to demand or declassify classified intelligence. I think the simplest explanation is that, by the end of his administration, his team was staffed with D-listers and they just took a bunch of stuff not necessarily realizing what it was. For whatever reason, Trump was reluctant to give it back and when his team did send the documents, they messed up and didn’t send all of them. The scary situation that I would be worried about if I were in the DoJ would have to do with the Trump family’s close relationship with the Saudis.

Ah, so now we are on the side of "it's totally fine for a private citizen to have classified materials" Are we throwing an "I'm With Her" bumper sticker on the car yet?

There are two groups that would have this information: the DoJ and Trump's team. The warrant and search receipt would tell them exactly what was being looked for and what was seized. The DoJ has been so quiet in it's investigations that nobody knew this search was going to happen, and we didn't know it did actually happen until Trump's team went public. Additionally, many on the Left have been calling out Garland for doing nothing, when it has become quite clear the DoJ has actually been very busy investigating potential crimes surrounding Trump. They've just been very quiet about it. The other side, Trump's team, ran one of the leakiest administrations in history and is centered around someone who would publicly tweet seemingly any thought that popped up into their head. While I cannot say for certain where the leak came from, I don't think it's a slam dunk that it came from the DoJ.

Why are you so certain the leak came from the DoJ?

Why are you so certain the leaks came from the DoJ?

I know it’s pointless to ask you if you understand anything, but the DoJ is not the only organization that knows what the FBI was looking for.

Trump is their GodKing. He is infallible. He cannot do wrong. Therefore, anyone suggesting otherwise is lying.

And here I thought they backed the blue. Maybe they only like the police when the police go after the “right” people.

What part of searching the home of a private citizen who had classified documents is an abuse of power? Was the FBI abusing their power when they investigated Hillary's email server?

That's certainly a defense he could raise should he be charged since there doesn't appear to be a formal presidential declassification procedure, but I do not think it's a slam dunk. We also know there was ongoing back and forth between the FBI and Trump's team about recovering the documents. I think it's a good question to raise why they went this route, but too early to jump to conclusion either way.

I sincerely doubt there will be a civil war, but I do believe we are going to see a marked increase in political violence.

So the DoJ has filed a motion to unseal both the search warrant and the receipt for items seized during the search. Since these were filed with a court, Trump actually can oppose the motion to unseal. I'm not sure if he will or what would happen if he did, but that's why we don't have the documents right now, they need to wait to see if Trump is going to oppose. Of course, Trump's counsel already has copies of these documents, so he could release them if he wanted to without going through the court.

Liberal NIMBYism is so freaking annoying, totally agree with you there. Especially on the homelessness problem since we know how to solve it and homelessness encampments are just reminders that we simply do not care.

I assumed it was about the Cincy shooting but it looks like they have confirmation it's about the search warrant

FYI: Merrick Garland is about to give a statement on the Mar a Lago search so tune in if you'd like

He had a pretty great statement. Complained that the price on his head was too low and insulting.

On the left, it feels like conservatives are the ones waging the culture war. Not denying your point or perspective, just wanted to point out that this feeling goes both ways.

No it's not. It's like the opposite of true. You absolutely *can* execute a search warrant then not charge somebody. The thresholds are different, and also different from securing a guilty verdict should you indict. Here's an example for you: Somebody without security clearance has boxes of classified material in their home. The government asks for it back and they eventually return it. But when the government reviews what was provided, they believe some documents are still missing. So they get a warrant and search the person's home. But they don't find any evidence that the missing documents are there. In that scenario, you're saying it's inappropriate for them to NOT charge the person with a crime?

I don't understand how they keep missing this. I don't know if it's willful ignorance or something else. Mueller starts out the report saying that he's not even going to consider evaluating the facts of collusion since it's not a legal standard. He then goes on to document about 100 times the Trump campaign worked with Russians. Somehow people took this to mean "no collusion!"

I don't believe what I'm told without question and I don't even watch news on the tv. I judge what I see as I see it and try to use primary sources whenever possible. When Trump declared his candidacy, I thought it was a joke because he clearly had little grasp of how the government worked. I was wrong as people took his ignorance as a positive signal of being an outsider. Right after assuming office, he tried to enact the Muslim ban, something the President has power to do but his team was so incompetent that it took them three attempts to do it. Throughout his administration, the incompetence would become a running theme as his team routinely shot themselves in the foot due to their ignorance of administrative law. At one point, I turned on Twitter notifications for his account but I had to turn it off because the unending stream of nonsense, blather, and vitriol was too much. Reading things like "Sorry losers and haters, but my I.Q. is one of the highest -and you all know it! Please don't feel so stupid or insecure,it's not your fault" and thinking that the person who wrote it was president of the United States was a bit much. I also saw that his 2016 campaign was absolutely crawling with Russians. Story after story came out about things like the Trump Tower meeting to get dirt on Hillary to Erik Prince meeting Russians to establish a back channel; stories that were later verified by the Mueller investigation. I think the total number of contacts with Russians ended up being over 100. Despite this, his followers still to this day deny that the campaign worked with Russians in any way because they either are denying reality or do not understand the legal threshold of conspiracy. It would have been absolutely insane NOT to investigate a presidential campaign with so many connections to one of our adversaries but for some reason, people see the investigation as fake or unwarranted. I have listened to the phone call where Trump tells the Georgia Secretary of State that he won Georgia by more than 400,000 votes but he only needed them to add about 11,000 votes to the tally. That's clearly a violation of Georgia voting laws. We also know that Trump took classified documents to his private residence after he left office. Which is also a crime. Whether or not Trump will be prosecuted for those crimes is up in the air. Not everybody who crimes gets indicted, and not everyone who is indicted is found guilty. There are more factors at issue. But denying that he did those things is denying reality since one was literally recorded and the other is not disputed. I am glad the FBI investigated Hillary Clinton. I think how they handled it by breaking protocol was not good and likely put Trump over the top in the 2016 election. I also understand the difference between obtaining a server and digital files (which likely would not require a visit to a home) and investigating stolen physical documents (which likely would require going to the home). I also recognize the difference between plain clothes officers walking into a building while being escorted by the secret service and a SWAT raid with uniformed officers breaking down doors and forcing entry. I am also not going to cherry pick the times the FBI went after members of one party, ignore the times it went after the other party, and claim systematic bias.

So like, if Trump illegal took classified documents into his personal possession? Or is on record trying to get a secretary of state to input false numbers into a vote tally? Stuff like that?

Is there any evidence of any crime that would make you think that Trump was actually guilty of something?

You do realize that the FBI does not comment on ongoing investigations because until they charge someone, they are presumed innocent and leaking info on the investigation would be harmful to them? Like, this is just very standard stuff. No different than how anyone else would be treated. Of course, Trump has a copy of the search warrant, so if he wants it to be public, he can make it public immediately. For a long time, the main retort on PPP has been "If Trump did crimes, why hasn't he been charged?" and then we have an incident where he very clearly did a crime (he's not denying he had the documents and we know he was informed he had no right to them) so law enforcement searches his place for additional evidence of the crime he very clearly committed, and instead some introspection and thinking "well, he definitely did have the documents he wasn't supposed to have..." the new line in PPP is that this is a completely made up witch hunt. At this point, I cannot imagine there is any amount of evidence that would move most of you. Trump really could shoot someone on 5th avenue and the response on this board would be "fake news, didn't happen" or "it was self defense" or "the police don't arrest everyone who kills someone, therefore this is politically motivated." The thing I don't get is: if you were going to pick someone to be your GodKing infallible hero, why the failed casino magnate long time Democrat and Epstein friend? That's the guy you want to worship? Why?

Just stating an opinion that is backed by professional psychologists.