ChiGoose

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.

Strong rebuttal from someone who probably needs Velcro shoes. You really made a strong point there. "Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were DRsGhost; but I repeat myself." -Mark Twain

The FBI has found absolutely nothing on Trump and that's why searching his home for the classified documents he admitted he took from the White House is purely political and not an example of them actually finding something on him. If you believe the FBI doesn't go after the Left, I have a golf course in Scotland to sell you. I cannot believe that people have put their blinders on and have chosen Donald Trump of all people for their infallible GodKing. You guys couldn't have picked somebody better?

All of these claims about the politicization of the FBI and DoJ just ignore all of the times it was used against the Left. Cherry pick when law enforcement went after conservatives, ignore when it went after liberals, and claim that it has an institutional bias. Instead of it being a deeply flawed law enforcement institution, it's somehow being portrayed as an arm of the DNC by bad faith actors or people who don't see the bigger picture.

It's just so weird that just about everybody Trump appointed to jobs, or that worked closely around him, seems to think he's a criminal. So odd...

Wow! What hyper partisan Democrat appointed this guy!?

She is an idiot, but the Dems haven't come within 5 points of this district since 2008 regardless of the candidates. It was Trump +6 in 2020 and this is expected to be a strong GOP year, so +7 seems about right.

LOL. Trump doesn't give a flying f*** about his supporters. It's why he was totally fine with them dying of COVID. He's a classic narcissist and is fundamentally incapable of caring about anyone other than himself. The second someone no longer provides him with a benefit, they might as well be dead to him.

I get that people see things through a political lens, but what you did was to take things that have absolutely nothing to do with people taking classified documents out of government custody and claim that they were the same as what happened at Mar a Lago this week. It would be a good argument to point out the various government officials who had taken classified materials from the government (Hillary Clinton, Gen. Patraeus, Colin Powell, etc.) and argue why their instances were similar or dissimilar to Trump's. But instead, you just threw a bunch of irrelevant stuff on the wall hoping that people wouldn't look into it to realize it had absolutely nothing to do with the conversation at hand or even the point you were trying to make. Laws often are complex, but this isn't a particular complex situation. A private citizen had classified materials in their home and the government suspected they hadn't returned everything when asked. And while we don't know what specifically they were looking for because Trump won't release the search warrant, one main difference is a new law passed in 2018 to specifically address this issue. Because of that law (signed by Trump), what may not have been a crime in the past may be one today.

Ok, gonna take this point by point. 1. Rolling Stone article on Obama keeping documents classified The Obama administration invoked executive privilege over 11,000 documents. We can debate whether or not they should have, but Obama did not physically take the documents to his home. He simply invoked privilege to keep them from being made public. The government retained custody of the documents the entire time. This is obviously different than a former president absconding with classified documents to their home. 2. PBS article on Obama administration withholding FOIA requests The Obama administration set a record for censoring government documents or denying access to them under FOIA. Once again, the government retained custody of these documents and they were not taking to Obama's house. It's a bad look for Obama but has absolutely no relevance to the Mar a Lago search. 3. USA Today Piece on the Presidential Records Act This is an opinion piece that is behind a paywall so I can't read all of it, but it appears to be arguing that Presidents should waive certain privileges. Seems like a good idea, but I don't see how it has anything to do with former presidents taking classified documents into their homes. 4. Business Insider piece on Obama administration and FOIA This is another article outlining how the Obama administration was not transparent with FOIA. Once again, this has nothing to do with someone taking classified documents. None of these articles had anything to do with people taking classified documents out of government custody. 5. Hillary Clinton's emails Clinton used a private email server in her house that contained classified info contrary to policy. The State Department IG investigated this and referred it to the FBI. During the course of the investigation, Clinton handed over the server itself, as well as a thumb drive with emails. None of this investigation involved physical documents, it was only about emails, therefore, the only physical evidence would have been the server itself, which the FBI took into possession from Clinton. Had she not turned it over, they may have executed a search warrant, but because she did, there would be no expectation that there would be any physical evidence at her home. 6. Trump is a Russian? While the Trump campaign worked closely with Russian agents during the 2016 election, there was no explicit agreement with the Russian government, and therefore there was no basis to charge him with conspiracy. To say the investigation was fake, however, requires blinding oneself to the evidence. Trump's campaign was clearly working with Russians and therefore should have been investigated. However, the ideas like the 2016 election was stolen, or that Trump was taking orders from Putin are nonsense and have no basis in reality. 7. Ukraine Trump asked for a quid pro quo to his personal benefit in order to deliver aid to a foreign country. That is... bad. 8. Michael Avenatti Avenatti is in jail because he's a fraud. The whole Resistance love affair with him was incredibly cringey 9. Stormy Daniels Trump's lawyer went to jail for facilitating hush payments to Daniels. I don't know what the controversy is here. 10. The IRS I don't know what this is in reference to 11. Jan 6 There is more to the potential crimes on Jan 6 than the riot. Trump took actions he was told were illegal in order to try to overturn the election 12. Presidential Records Trump, as a private citizen, possessed classified government documents in his home. He refused to return them for months. When the government did get them, they apparently believed that not everything was returned. They obtained a search warrant and went to Mar a Lago in plainclothes and were escorted about the premise by the Secret Service. The search was apparently so low key that people at the building didn't realize what was going on for some time during the search. The bottom line here is: should private citizens be able to keep classified government documents without permission or clearance?

This is just blatantly false. Biden pressured Ukraine to fire the prosecutor for NOT fighting corruption. It was a move backed not just by US policy, but also by the rest of Europe. Burisma had been investigated for its activities before Hunter joined its board but was not under investigation at the time that Biden called for the prosecutor to be removed. Senate Republicans investigated this and found there was no evidence that Biden had pressured Ukraine to fire the prosecutor as a way to protect Hunter. In fact, if anything, removing the corrupt prosecutor would have made it more likely, not less, that Hunter would be investigated. You can cherry pick little things all you want, but once people look into the actual thing you're claiming, it'll quickly become evident that you have fallen for misinformation. Reality? Their last remaining brain cells?

Law enforcement is only corrupt when it goes after people I agree with. When it goes after people I disagree with, then you have to back them.