FBI executed search warrant at Mar-a-Lago

[lizkat]

If I am unaware that I am 15 mph over the speed limit, does that get me off?

It may depend on how charming you are, or whether the trooper liked his breakfast, or at least in the case of some counties, how close to end of month quota for revenue-generating traffic tickets the deputy sheriff has managed to get with 2 days to go.

Heh, I got out of points on my license once by telling the judge that I had a new-to-me car and was unaware of how fast it could go without sounding like the world was coming to an end. He didn't sound impressed but said "ok how about you plead guilty to failure to yield (no points) and now that you know what a great car you have, don't show up here again with that excuse."​

​

The clerk whispered to me as I paid the $15 fine "I think it helped your case that his honor recently had a similar experience to yours with his own new car..."​

But if we're still talking about Biden and Trump and their vastly different approaches to resolving incidents of sensitive document retention, in Biden's cases it's the immediate notification of the Archives group and the prompt return of the material that can make a difference to a prosecutor. Trump on the other hand has been all resistance and obstruction all the time, meanwhile trying to drag lawyers and Mar-a-Lago staff into the fray, and still regards the whole thing as a witch hunt.

Let's face it, Trump is the kind of guy who around here (on a much more trivial scale) might have started out deserving a bust for speeding, but by time he has been apprehended (and eventually booked) has ended up charged with everything from a cracked taillight and unsafe tire to second degree menacing and resisting arrest. In other words, a guy who makes his own trouble and doubles down when confronted.

 

[lizkat]

Well you have a point there. Maybe we should get rid of Twitter.

"Done."

 

[AG_PhamD]

I don’t think it’s likely the situations between Biden and Trump are remotely similar- there is a big difference between obstruction and accidents.

That said, there are a few things that don’t sit well with me:
1) Why is it so easy for classified documents, especially those if the highest classification levels, to go missing like this? Especially for years on end.
2) Why did it take months after the midterms for this document discovery to come to light despite being found beforehand? I also don’t know if this is actually the case or just internet rumor. I also don’t know how these things work, but it seems like there could be a motive in not returning them until afterwards. I also don’t know when the authorities were informed and who had the responsibility if any to report such a finding.
3) If a mid level government employee mishandled classified documents, they would be much more likely lose their job, their security clearance, and likely be fined and may face prison time. If you’re a high ranking official, that probably won’t be the case. We’ll see what happens with Trump, but I suspect it’s more likely obstruction will be his biggest problem (which can have greater consequences than classified doc mishandling) in this specific case.

There is a distinct difference between accidentally misplacing documents for years, finding them, and returning them vs. taking a bunch of documents and attempting to conceal possession of them and then make up excuses.

But there is also a difference between accidentally misplacing documents, finding them, and immediately returning them vs. waiting months to return them when it’s politically convenient- if that’s indeed what happened.

But again, I don’t know what happened here and what the technicalities are. So we’ll have to see. Regardless, none of this is a particularly good situation. Top secret files should not be floating around in former govt official’s offices.

 

[rdrr]

This is one of those times where he probably wished he had kept quiet when asked about Trump having documents:



Note: This comment leads one to believe the documents were laying around on the floor. They were not. They were simply placed there for pics.

True, but you know what wasn’t in the pictures? The missing classified documents that they only found the dozen or so empty envelopes. That scares me more than the way Trump handled them.

 

[Alli]

Let’s also keep in mind that Biden’s documents have been in that office (locked in a safe) for the last six years. Six. Years. And not strewn about the lobby if we must make the comparison to Mar a Lago.

 

[Hrafn]

“I am still not a Drumpster, but:
1 wall of text
2 qanonsense
3 alt-right blah blah”

 

[Herdfan]

Let’s also keep in mind that Biden’s documents have been in that office (locked in a safe) for the last six years. Six. Years. And not strewn about the lobby if we must make the comparison to Mar a Lago.

That was just for the pictures.

And they were in a locked closet, not a safe. Haven't heard where the second set was found.

 

[Renzatic]

Why is it so easy for classified documents, especially those if the highest classification levels, to go missing like this? Especially for years on end.

This is true. If you look at all the recent hoolabaloos over handling of sensitive information, it seems that Trump may have gone 5 steps beyond the norm, but everyone's pretty "OLOL HOKAY" with classified documents in DC.

 

[Citysnaps]

And speaking of Mar-a-Lago...that's a resort where foreign nationals come and go. That makes it even more disturbing in the context of security.

 

[lizkat]

This is true. If you look at all the recent hoolabaloos over handling of sensitive information, it seems that Trump may have gone 5 steps beyond the norm, but everyone's pretty "OLOL HOKAY" with classified documents in DC.

Possibly because at least some of the "sensitive" documents in any government's vaults are classified only because their release would be politically embarrassing (regardless of whether embarrassing to a friend, an enemy or a frenemy).

So some classifications may amount to protecting a kind of potential "kompromat" whether or not a given document is just a cable about how some ambassador or head of state has taken another mistress, or information that there's a new member of the "nukes club."

Still, it's almost impossible to stop overuse of the classification process itself, so the laws focus on abuse of the process of safekeeping classified docs regardless of their content.

When it comes to prosecution though, it's also possible that the actual content of the illegally retained or acquired documents matters, as to the level of criminal charge or whether charges will even be brought. Is that fair? Maybe. Case by case issue.

 

[Herdfan]

Haven't heard where the second set was found.

Seems the second set was found.....

...... in his garage.

 

[Roller]

It may depend on how charming you are, or whether the trooper liked his breakfast, or at least in the case of some counties, how close to end of month quota for revenue-generating traffic tickets the deputy sheriff has managed to get with 2 days to go.

Heh, I got out of points on my license once by telling the judge that I had a new-to-me car and was unaware of how fast it could go without sounding like the world was coming to an end. He didn't sound impressed but said "ok how about you plead guilty to failure to yield (no points) and now that you know what a great car you have, don't show up here again with that excuse."​

​

The clerk whispered to me as I paid the $15 fine "I think it helped your case that his honor recently had a similar experience to yours with his own new car..."​

But if we're still talking about Biden and Trump and their vastly different approaches to resolving incidents of sensitive document retention, in Biden's cases it's the immediate notification of the Archives group and the prompt return of the material that can make a difference to a prosecutor. Trump on the other hand has been all resistance and obstruction all the time, meanwhile trying to drag lawyers and Mar-a-Lago staff into the fray, and still regards the whole thing as a witch hunt.

Let's face it, Trump is the kind of guy who around here (on a much more trivial scale) might have started out deserving a bust for speeding, but by time he has been apprehended (and eventually booked) has ended up charged with everything from a cracked taillight and unsafe tire to second degree menacing and resisting arrest. In other words, a guy who makes his own trouble and doubles down when confronted.

I don't think the speeding scenario is an appropriate analogy. If you're driving over the limit, it's on you, though circumstances will affect the consequences. With retained sensitive material, it's more complex.

Trump or Biden can claim they weren't aware the documents were at Mar-a-Lago, the Penn Biden Center, or the garage at Biden's Delaware home. If that were true, it would still constitute incredible sloppiness in how they were handled. I suspect this happens more than we know, and it's something that must be addressed across all levels of government.

But intent and response matter. Trump was made aware the documents weren't his to keep, and it took an FBI search to get them returned. From what we know, that wasn't the case with Biden.

I won't argue the "optics" on this aren't horrible and may even prevent the DOJ from trying to prosecute Trump. But I'd rather see both he and Biden suffer the legal consequences than Trump get off scot-free.

 

[Herdfan]

I won't argue the "optics" on this aren't horrible and may even prevent the DOJ from trying to prosecute Trump. But I'd rather see both he and Biden suffer the legal consequences than Trump get off scot-free.

That has kind of been my point all along.

 

[Citysnaps]

But intent and response matter.

And content matters.

Especially if specific intelligence sources/methods/capabilities are revealed. As opposed to something a little more mundane such as an assessment of Venezuela's ability to wage war in South America).

 

[Citysnaps]

I won't argue the "optics" on this aren't horrible and may even prevent the DOJ from trying to prosecute Trump.

I believe Garland will make decisions based on the law, driven by discovered facts and intent revealed during the investigations. And not on political optics of prosecuting one individual and not the other, should the investigations' conclusions go that way. My view is he'll be pretty straight arrow on that.

 

[Citysnaps]

Garland news conference coming up today at 1:15 Eastern Time.

AG Garland expected to address Biden classified documents matter

Attorney General Merrick Garland is expected to address the Biden classified documents matter Thursday afternoon.

abcnews.go.com

 

[ronntaylor]

I believe Garland will make decisions based on the law, driven by discovered facts and intent revealed during the investigations. And not on political optics of prosecuting one individual and not the other, should the investigations' conclusions go that way. My view is he'll be pretty straight arrow on that.

I believe this as well. Garland is holding a press event at 1:15 where he is expected to announce a special investigation into the Biden case. I think he's being overly cautious and responding to GOP noise. But in the long run it's probably best to do that to shut up GOP noise/nonsense. The two cases are far apart and not comparable. To use another car analogy: it's a speeding case where the driver is maybe five miles above the limit (Biden) vs. a DUI resulting in death with the driver leading law enforcement on a prolonged high-speed case to avoid responsibility (Mango). The former can and probably will get off with a warning (reprimand). While the latter should be investigated, evidence layed out and then prosecuted to the fullest.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

What I’d like to know is when did “It’s political” become a perceived valid defense? Regardless of what party the investigators and prosecution are aligned with, it doesn’t matter if laws were broken. If a registered democrat murders somebody do they throw the case out because the prosecutor is a registered republican?

I have no doubt a good part of the DOJ’s snail pace against Trump is tied up in battling the “it’s political” perception. The fact is crimes go unpunished and uninvestigated all the time. If the justice department comes knocking at your door then you lost the roll of the dice and/or you gave them reason to pay more attention to you then others. Maybe learn from the behavior of your criminal peers who aren’t getting investigated. In fact, if you are wealthy then you seriously need to go out of your way to get investigated and are a certifiable dipshit.

Trump's biggest fuck up, among so many, was getting directly involved in politics. If he hadn't he'd probably be doing just fine living off several off the radar Trump branded grifts

 

[mac_in_tosh]

But Biden is senile according to Trump, so he can't be responsible for the documents. Trump, on the other hand, is a very stable genius so he should be held responsible.

 

[lizkat]

Twitter provides such a diversity of sources that at least there was a chance you could improve the quality of your news diet by careful discernment. Happy to see Twitter go by the wayside in its current incarnation, though. Musk is making good work of that.

The mainstream media may be among the most vociferous complainants against Musk, not because he's let back onto Twitter so many malicious trolls but because he has upset the increasingly incestuous arrangement whereby journos had ended up sitting most of the workday in front of a laptop and a desktop (and with a smartphone in each hand) dictating ripostes into Twitter and occasionally setting the phones down long enough to add another embedded retweet of something to their own 1200-word ouevre du jour before the next deadline set by their employer.

Now more reporters have to prowl around online to see where this or that virtuous journo or other source may have decamped to from Twitter (on Mastodon or a self-hosted corporate media outlet). And gee, it takes up so much time to find out what their peers think is actually going on.

So.... the demise of Twitter might seem horrible and yet could be wonderful at the same time, in terms of culling out some of the re-circulation on social media of factoids that end up as "news" in what used to be competitive outlets.

Now those mainstream outlets still compete, but it's just for the beancounters' bottom line of clicks and eyeballs, whereas the competition used to be over production of exclusive content.

"Exclusive" now still exists, of course. Usually it means some journo got it into a social media post before anyone else did, even though the source has been leaking whatever it is all over town into reporters' voicemails or text message apps, trying desperately to plant what they hope will be taken as fact and not political spin...

Spoiler: the TL;DR on how I know all this

For a long time I've had a Twitter list I use instead of diving into my timeline. The list is just links to the Twitter accounts of the landing pages of the various online news outlets to which I subscribe. Every day I scroll through the thing and even if some topical item is pretty trivial, they all have some feature on it and tweet a link to it sometime during the day, and most of the linked pieces have embedded the same godblasted set of tweets that are the kernel of the "news" article.

In truth I have Twitter to thank for my having noticed that sameness to the extent it exists, since the effect is far more dilute when using a browser and bookmarks to those media outlet home pages. When I'm browsing I go through one paper at a time and I favor some sections of different papers over others. But, when scrolling through my list on Twitter, that's when I see what each paper is featuring (and so pitching via Twitter), and how alike how much of it is. That sameness of newspaper article focus is definitely centered around the same bits of embedded info plucked from Twitter... whether it's a relay of "real time" info from some conflict zone half a world away, or the latest gaffe from some Beltway politician.

The discovery doesn't make me unsub from the media outlets, but it has caused me to post comments to mainstream news pieces sometimes about my dislike of reading "news" articles so focused on stuff pulled off a tweet that went viral. That way is how the Fourth Estate falls down on its traditional job of looking for mischief where it is occurring. It's how all the big metro dailies missed finding out what a deepfake that shameless Republican Congressman George Santos is.

Oh the mainstream outlets have all reported on Santos now, and even credited the little weekly North Shore Leader on Long Island for calling Santos a fake back in September, months before the midterm election. That paper was so incensed by what it found that despite wanting to endorse a Republican for NY03, they endorsed a Democrat rather than just skip an endorsement!

But all that was in September and October of 2022... and in the meantime those big metro dailies were hip deep in fluff-piece or hit-piece proposals from campaign PR flacks, plus tweets from think tanks or talking heads on TV. Santos was just another pol running one of 435 campaigns for a House seat.

During the 2022 midterm campaigns, reporters often seem to assume that someone had actually "vetted" candidates for the House. Otherwise, "of course" there would have been something about any pol on Twitter to scoop up and expand to an 800-word column. There were the usual retweeted gaffes here and there, the tales of pols outed for having sent racist or misogynist emails, etc. But this time around, George Santos fell through the cracks almost entirely, and emerged only later as possibly the most naked of naked emperor imitations this country has ever managed to elect to Congress.

Not sure any of the journos have necessarily learned a lesson, but at least their managing editors are probably awake by now. One can hope they lay some of the blame on journos' obsession (laid bare on Twitter itself!) with "what's up with Musk?" as the date for Elon's buy-or-go-to-court M&A dilemma competed with reporters' attention to other news.