ChiGoose

Well, you’re very much misconstruing my arguments, but no surprises there. Just par for the course here on PPP. Biden having the documents is bad. But what separates his case from Trump’s is that when the documents were discovered, he immediately notified authorities and turned them in before launching a search to see if there were more. In fact, it appears that they even had the DoJ come in and conduct a search. If it comes out through the investigation that Biden was aware of the documents the whole time, that changes things. But there’s no evidence of that so far, just rampant speculation.

It will end with no charges for Biden. There will be nothing to prevent Biden from running in 2024 if he wants to.

Well, she had to hide the evidence that she murdered Seth Rich because he ate more than his share of children at the last voodoo cooking party where they planned how to hand the country over to China.

Or you know, actually try to prevent violent crime instead of enabling it and then acting surprised and trying to score political points over people losing their lives. Just spitballing here.

Man, I gotta get my hands on whatever you’re smoking.

What Donald Trump accomplished was destroying what little sanity remained in the GOP in self service to his ego.

It’s possible to improve on a problem without completely eradicating it. Until Indiana, Wisconsin, and Missouri decide they don’t want people being shot all the time, nothing Illinois does will end gun violence. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth it to try to reduce the number of deaths where we can.

Thanks! I’ll continue to stick to the facts and avoid jumping to conclusions instead of the simplest explanations. I know that makes me fairly unique here but at least it provides a break from the tin foil hats.

Just trying to illustrate that it’s possible to be in the same room as an object without knowing it’s there. But you do you, buddy.

Your commitment to jumping to conclusions not supported by the facts (or even logic) is admirable, that should be acknowledged. But, at this stage, we don’t know that the documents were discovered earlier and ignored. You seem to be assuming that Biden was using these documents for years and then suddenly decided he wanted to be in trouble and come clean. Maybe that’s the case and Biden secretly has a fetish for punishment, but it seems fairly unlikely to me. Why would he notify anyone if this was intentional? In that scenario, he’s been getting away with it for years, why stop now? Seems more likely they were put places they shouldn’t have but weren’t discovered until recently. If Biden intentionally took the documents, he should be charged when he leaves office. But to say at this stage that is definitely what happened is making assumptions not supported by the public facts.

They are different because of intent. Prosecutors can show intent in the Trump case, but it’s not clear yet that they can with Biden. That is obviously subject to change as the investigation continues but from what we know at this stage, that is the difference.

This is legitimately very funny

So the Libs are stealing our stoves and the M&M’s are too sexy. Or are they not sexy enough. I have trouble keeping up with the outrage of the week.

No problem. From what I can tell, you can avoid charges if the spillage was accidental and you return everything and cooperate immediately when it’s discovered. If it’s intentional, you may be facing prosecution. If it was originally accidental but you don’t immediately turn everything over and cooperate, they are going to take that as intent (as in the Gonzalez case)

The issue is intent. If it is truly accidental, it's unlikely to be prosecuted. One way of avoiding the intent issue is that if you discover the documents, you immediately contact the authorities and hand them over. Here are some cases where people didn't do that: United States v. Gonzalez, 16 M.J. 428 (1983) Defendant inadvertently took two classified documents when visiting a friend in Alaska. He discovered them when he arrived, put them in a desk drawer to retrieve them later but forgot. The documents were later discovered by someone else who turned them over to the government. United States v. Kendra Kingsbury FBI agent took classified documents and stored them in her home, knowing this violated the law United States v. Ahmedelhadi Yassin Serageldin Contractor took documents home, altered the classification markings and lied when confronted about it United States v. Harold T. Martin III Contractor took classified documents knowing that he was not allowed to do so In the first one, the guy is probably not indicted if he drops everything and returns the documents immediately when he discovers the problem. He doesn't, and then suffers the consequences.

When did I say the Feds never get a conviction? The Feds are generally conservative and only bring cases when they feel confident of a conviction. I simply said that in the specific instance of negligent spillage in which the responsible party is cooperating, a conviction would be tough. If there are a ton of cases that say otherwise, I’d be open to taking back my statement but most of the cases I’ve seen include some sort of intentionality and/or lack of cooperation. I believe it would be who should have known. If you have professional staffers that routinely deal with classified docs and they didn’t follow the rules, then they could be in trouble. If it was some guy from a moving company who didn’t realize what he had, it’s unlikely they would be in much trouble. If Biden himself knew, then he’ll be in trouble, too. This is what we have a special counsel for, to figure out who knew what and when.

It’s really not complicated at all. Neither Biden nor Trump had any right to those documents. What legal repercussions they might face depend on their cooperation with the investigations. From all accounts, Biden had been cooperating while Trump has not. The contents of the documents have no bearing on whether or not they could keep them. They couldn’t. I don’t know why Trump kept them. Speculation runs rampant from “because he liked having them” to selling the info to the Saudis. If I had to guess, I’d pick the former as much more likely than the latter. In the very narrow situation of spillage, the main thing the government wants is to secure the documents and assess potential damage. So if the spillage was unintentional and those responsible cooperate, they likely won’t be prosecuted. Prosecuting in those instances would likely backfire because securing a conviction would be unlikely and it would incentivize people to conceal future spillages to avoid prosecution.

The special counsel will have to determine if he knew they were there during that time. I doubt the Vice President packs up everything himself. So if some staffer put them there and he didn’t know, then he’s not going to be charged with anything. If it turns out that he did know and didn’t do anything about it for years, then he could be in trouble.

LOL! Gotcha. Not cooperating is secretly actually cooperating because somebody on the TV said so. Very convincing! I guess Biden is just a big dope for turning documents over. He should have just kept them and said he was cooperating anyway.

How is refusing to comply and then lying cooperating? Like honestly, a lot of people here seem to think not doing what you’re supposed to do and then lying to law enforcement is the same as cooperating and I cannot understand how people reach that conclusion.

Doing so without a lawyer, for sure. But if you are found to have classified documents you shouldn’t have and you wish to avoid charges, you hire a lawyer and you cooperate.

Cooperating with investigators is how you avoid charges when you are found to have things you shouldn’t

This is absolutely false. Mueller specifically stated that Trump met the elements of obstruction multiple times but couldn’t be charged because he was president. He also stated that the proper remedy was impeachment. Try reading the actual report instead of a summary that was so misleading that Mueller complained to Barr about it. It’s bad that he had them! I’m just pointing out that one doesn’t automatically know everything that is on a room when they walk into it. I have boxes in my garage, I’m not 100% of everything that’s in them. Questions that will be answered by the special counsel investigation.

Has everyone forgotten the existence of boxes? Like, do you think he had a document marked classified sitting on the passenger seat of his vette? Or does he have X-ray vision and can automatically detect that there’s a classified document in any room? If it comes out during the investigation that he knew about the documents, then that changes things. But you’re just speculating based on what you want to be true.