The gravity of this man's transgression cannot be overstated. Let's put aside, for a moment, Edward Snowden's internet data disclosure. Let's compare this crime to prior U.S. national secrets disclosures, when paper was the primary medium, plus microdots and other photographs of paper documents.
Trump's theft of national secrets documents is probably as large as all the previous crimes put together.
Times 10.
Times 50? Times 100? I am not an expert, I am not a researcher, but it seems that the quantity and sensitivity of his hoard of national secrets is larger than anything out there except for Snowden's case.
Notice how Republican politicians are being uncharacteristically quiet. It's time to shut these bastards up for good. Their whole function seems to be to take the U.S. backwards, and it's time for the U.S. to flush them, and their figurehead, the criminal Trump and his criminal family, down the drain for good.
Indict the mother-f*ker, already. Now we can be all but certain that those documents were sold to the highest bidders . . . To pay for legal fees. So, if attorneys accept money that originates from stolen items, can they be held accountable?
I guess this indictment is going to appear in time to be a Christmas present.
Those attorneys, any attorney attached to this super sleaze, will be unlikely to hold a decent job again after this. A bit late, the legal profession finally figured out that working for this criminal is not a good idea. search "reputable law firms refuse to work for trump"
Lucian, thank you for clearly laying out all of the evidence & (pending) charges for us to understand. As a 22-year Navy intelligence officer who had SCI clearances his whole career, I fully understand the gravity of having this material not only unsecured, but generally available to anyone who visited Mar-a-Lardo. I have little doubt that given the absence of any meaningful security at Rump's Florida palace, hostile foreign intelligence personnel have had easy access to everything Rump took with him. Our own counterintelligence people are probably having fits trying to figure out how much damage has been done. Sadly, the full extent of it will probably never be fully known. Previous traitors (like Ronald Pelton & Aldrich Ames) sold the Soviets exceedingly sensitive information that resulted in denying the U.S. critical intelligence data, not to mention placing the lives of American servicemen & women and covert human sources in grave danger. Those traitors are in jail & will be until they die. Jabba-the-Rump deserves the same fate.
i'm glad to see you wrote this as an article for Salon. now many more people of all camps will see it. you have given them a very well laid out accounting of the increasingly serious jeopardy that trump faces, much of it brought on by himself.
and i love your analogy if excavation engineering. can't wait 'til it gets down to drilling and blasting the foundation bedrock.
What a great, clarifying article. You made it all abundantly clear. Again, I picture him in that orange jumpsuit screaming that it's all been rigged, and that real president is being held prisoner by the FBI.
"The DOJ evidently has tapes from Mar-a-Lago security cameras that show who moved top secret documents around from room to room and who had access to the places where they were stored."
How were the tapes acquired? From whom? Since the Secret Service is responsible for trump's safety and no doubt has a great deal of surveillance gear in and around Mar-a-Lago,
would that make the recordings government property?
Everyone on those tapes moving boxes is now a witness and possibly indictable. Even a bus boy brought down to move the boxes can testify as to who instructed him to do it.
There's an excellent article in today's NY Times, "What the F.B.I. Seized From Mar-a-Lago, Illustrated" He's a pig, a hoarder, and a menace to civilization. ITMFA (originally coined by Dan Savage as Impeach The MFer Already, updated to Indict.....)
And all this is butting up to the restart this month of the 1/6 committee hearings with an all star cast featuring Newt & Company grilled by Liz "nothing to lose" Cheney .
Time for the Trump piñata parties with the hearings on a Jumbotron.
Now there's a rally I'd go to! :)
Luckily we've got Lucian keeping score because it's about to get a whole lot more confusing.
If I remember correctly from my days as a military officer with a clearance. Even if you are cleared at the level required to see a document or recieve information that is classified, you must have a "need to know" before you are given access. I don't even think I have a need to know the stuff that is in this article. Seems like I now know secrets about secrets which is starting to get a little unnerving. Nice article Lucian. Now all I need to know is what happened to all the stuff that was in the empty classified folders? No, never mind, I don't want to know.
Cipollone and Philbin were before the grand jury for four hours yesterday. While both may try the Executive Privilege gambit it might not apply given the so called fraud exception. And, if they even think about taking the Fifth their legal careers will be down the drain. You only plead the Fifth when you are trying to protect yourself from self incrimination. Why would either of them do that?
People are going to have to be worrying about their own skin. Or do they really think T**** will issue pardons to everyone after he is reinstated as president?
I still do not understand how T**** and associates were even able to make off with those documents. What is the usual procedure when president leaves office? Does admin send boxes of documents over to archives? Or does archives send someone over for them before the pres leaves, or after he leaves? When did they even discover that all those boxes of documents were gone? Who were his confederates? Did he perhaps, start moving the documents even before he left office? Are they going to search Trump Tower and Bedminster? Surely he wouldn't spend six months in Bedminster and just leave all those documents in Mar a Lago.
Terrific summary with digging, excavating imagery. Still, after reading and listening for the past week, I wonder if there is any way « Wiley Coyote « can leave law enforcement in his dust. Next, Trump is not smart, but pull aside the curtain. His puppet masters have been playing the long game for decades, and they are much smarter. They’re paying the legal bills, too, right? And, it’s they who will decide when to pull the plug on financial support for the orange monster mobster. The RNC is just a smokescreen. Or. Maybe it’s just that I watched Network last night for the nth time since 1975. ❤️🤍💙
"The former president, who throughout the past week had his lawyers refer to him as “President Trump” and “the President” in legal papers filed on his behalf in Florida..."
Wouldn't the use of those incorrect titles render the legal papers null and void?
No. It would only mean a judge might admonish the legal staff, the attorneys, and disregard any relevant, substantive claims which attach directly to the titles.
Very nice analysis, Lucian.
The gravity of this man's transgression cannot be overstated. Let's put aside, for a moment, Edward Snowden's internet data disclosure. Let's compare this crime to prior U.S. national secrets disclosures, when paper was the primary medium, plus microdots and other photographs of paper documents.
Trump's theft of national secrets documents is probably as large as all the previous crimes put together.
Times 10.
Times 50? Times 100? I am not an expert, I am not a researcher, but it seems that the quantity and sensitivity of his hoard of national secrets is larger than anything out there except for Snowden's case.
Notice how Republican politicians are being uncharacteristically quiet. It's time to shut these bastards up for good. Their whole function seems to be to take the U.S. backwards, and it's time for the U.S. to flush them, and their figurehead, the criminal Trump and his criminal family, down the drain for good.
yes.
and as has been pointed out, Reality Winner got 5 years for taking one page, so how many should trump get for 10,000 pages.
yes.
down the drain in the deep, deepest hole he dug for himself.
Spot on, thank you.
Indict the mother-f*ker, already. Now we can be all but certain that those documents were sold to the highest bidders . . . To pay for legal fees. So, if attorneys accept money that originates from stolen items, can they be held accountable?
I guess this indictment is going to appear in time to be a Christmas present.
Those attorneys, any attorney attached to this super sleaze, will be unlikely to hold a decent job again after this. A bit late, the legal profession finally figured out that working for this criminal is not a good idea. search "reputable law firms refuse to work for trump"
Lucian, thank you for clearly laying out all of the evidence & (pending) charges for us to understand. As a 22-year Navy intelligence officer who had SCI clearances his whole career, I fully understand the gravity of having this material not only unsecured, but generally available to anyone who visited Mar-a-Lardo. I have little doubt that given the absence of any meaningful security at Rump's Florida palace, hostile foreign intelligence personnel have had easy access to everything Rump took with him. Our own counterintelligence people are probably having fits trying to figure out how much damage has been done. Sadly, the full extent of it will probably never be fully known. Previous traitors (like Ronald Pelton & Aldrich Ames) sold the Soviets exceedingly sensitive information that resulted in denying the U.S. critical intelligence data, not to mention placing the lives of American servicemen & women and covert human sources in grave danger. Those traitors are in jail & will be until they die. Jabba-the-Rump deserves the same fate.
i'm glad to see you wrote this as an article for Salon. now many more people of all camps will see it. you have given them a very well laid out accounting of the increasingly serious jeopardy that trump faces, much of it brought on by himself.
and i love your analogy if excavation engineering. can't wait 'til it gets down to drilling and blasting the foundation bedrock.
What a great, clarifying article. You made it all abundantly clear. Again, I picture him in that orange jumpsuit screaming that it's all been rigged, and that real president is being held prisoner by the FBI.
https://whatwouldjackdo.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/doingtime.jpg
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kZi-DZX7h5s/W4_KLIolWlI/AAAAAAAARD4/CMcv2nLYKWIu4PkUovf72QUY3-AFmvC4QCLcBGAs/s1600/DBseVMGXUAAsOSh.jpg
Thank You Roland!
Bravo!
Oh, please, let it be so!!
Here's an interesting paragraph;
"The DOJ evidently has tapes from Mar-a-Lago security cameras that show who moved top secret documents around from room to room and who had access to the places where they were stored."
How were the tapes acquired? From whom? Since the Secret Service is responsible for trump's safety and no doubt has a great deal of surveillance gear in and around Mar-a-Lago,
would that make the recordings government property?
Everyone on those tapes moving boxes is now a witness and possibly indictable. Even a bus boy brought down to move the boxes can testify as to who instructed him to do it.
It's going to be a very interesting case.
I’m thinking perhaps the members of Trump’s Secret Security detail were the ones who notified FBI of the unsecured stolen documents.
There's an excellent article in today's NY Times, "What the F.B.I. Seized From Mar-a-Lago, Illustrated" He's a pig, a hoarder, and a menace to civilization. ITMFA (originally coined by Dan Savage as Impeach The MFer Already, updated to Indict.....)
And all this is butting up to the restart this month of the 1/6 committee hearings with an all star cast featuring Newt & Company grilled by Liz "nothing to lose" Cheney .
Time for the Trump piñata parties with the hearings on a Jumbotron.
Now there's a rally I'd go to! :)
Luckily we've got Lucian keeping score because it's about to get a whole lot more confusing.
“Trump piñata parties”--I love that image!
If I remember correctly from my days as a military officer with a clearance. Even if you are cleared at the level required to see a document or recieve information that is classified, you must have a "need to know" before you are given access. I don't even think I have a need to know the stuff that is in this article. Seems like I now know secrets about secrets which is starting to get a little unnerving. Nice article Lucian. Now all I need to know is what happened to all the stuff that was in the empty classified folders? No, never mind, I don't want to know.
Cipollone and Philbin were before the grand jury for four hours yesterday. While both may try the Executive Privilege gambit it might not apply given the so called fraud exception. And, if they even think about taking the Fifth their legal careers will be down the drain. You only plead the Fifth when you are trying to protect yourself from self incrimination. Why would either of them do that?
People are going to have to be worrying about their own skin. Or do they really think T**** will issue pardons to everyone after he is reinstated as president?
yes, more jeopardy to add to the accumulating accounting pile LKTIV listed.
We can only hope he’ll finally be held accountable
I still do not understand how T**** and associates were even able to make off with those documents. What is the usual procedure when president leaves office? Does admin send boxes of documents over to archives? Or does archives send someone over for them before the pres leaves, or after he leaves? When did they even discover that all those boxes of documents were gone? Who were his confederates? Did he perhaps, start moving the documents even before he left office? Are they going to search Trump Tower and Bedminster? Surely he wouldn't spend six months in Bedminster and just leave all those documents in Mar a Lago.
good point.
if there were SCIF documents in any WH move to Archives you would expect that it would take a security classified person to handle them.
Terrific summary with digging, excavating imagery. Still, after reading and listening for the past week, I wonder if there is any way « Wiley Coyote « can leave law enforcement in his dust. Next, Trump is not smart, but pull aside the curtain. His puppet masters have been playing the long game for decades, and they are much smarter. They’re paying the legal bills, too, right? And, it’s they who will decide when to pull the plug on financial support for the orange monster mobster. The RNC is just a smokescreen. Or. Maybe it’s just that I watched Network last night for the nth time since 1975. ❤️🤍💙
We are mad as hell...
"The former president, who throughout the past week had his lawyers refer to him as “President Trump” and “the President” in legal papers filed on his behalf in Florida..."
Wouldn't the use of those incorrect titles render the legal papers null and void?
No. It would only mean a judge might admonish the legal staff, the attorneys, and disregard any relevant, substantive claims which attach directly to the titles.
btw..
dunno if you've heard/seen this, but you popped up in today's RawStory feed.
https://www.rawstory.com/donald-trump-indictment-2658142555/?utm_source=123456&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=11241&recip_id=782068&list_id=1
Great reporting, you should have a wider present in national media.
But I keep having this sinking feeling that somehow he will not be held accountable and we will lose our democracy at the same time.
Keep up the great work Lucian you are a true patriot.