POLITICS President Trump: 100+ Mornings After (Term 1 Complete)

I have not seen the indictment yet. I look forward to reading it. All the information I'm getting is from Trump leaks saying 7 counts include witness tampering, destruction or falsification of records, obstruction based charges and false statement charges.

Any of those apply to Biden?

 

TBD. Biden's document situation is still being flushed out. Regardless we do know that he was in fact in personal possession of classified material he was not legally allowed to have. Our secrets were just sitting there by the Corvette in his garage! Illegally possessing classified material is in fact against US federal law. I don't think anyone here would argue against that fact. Breaking the law is breaking the law, especially since I'm told by some we are now apparently in a new era of equally holding ALL of our DC crooks to account regardless of the crimes they broke.

Murderers and drunk drivers don't completely bypass criminal charges for "fully cooperating" with investigations. Why should Presidents/VPs/Cabinet members who are unlawfully in personal possession of US secrets be afforded grace?

 

So you are saying, Trump broke the Law.

 

Trump lawyer confirms at least one charge of espionage, wild if true. That's not thrown around casually

 

I mean have I said he is not guilty of anything? Questioning prosecutorial motivations and pondering on whether or not there is a double standard in DC for certain types does not mean I'm saying "Trump did nothing wrong". As an admitted ex-two time Trump voter I've had/have zero problem bashing pretty much all things Trump politically since November 2020.

Just saying we know possessing US secrets in your garage is in fact a violation of US federal law. That's not even arguable. "Cooperating" has nothing to do with whether or not US law was violated there just like "cooperating" with the police in a murder investigation has nothing to do with whether or not the law was violated by someone who killed somebody else.

 

Eh, no you haven’t.

 

That can be life in prison or even the death penalty.

 

Yeah ok

 

Discretion exists, yes. How discretion is wielded and applied is a totally separate convo.

 

Discretion is used by law officials all the time. There are considerations or mitigating factors in numerous cases. If Trump acted the same as Biden or Pence, then he'd be fine. He's a former president and was given a lot of leeway, which he refused.

 

Saying discretion is used all the time by law officials feels like saying grass is green. Like no duh. The public questioning how law officials utilize their discretion is a thing that happens all the time as well. Pointing out that stowing US secrets in your garage next to the Corvette violates US law isn't really going out on a limb. By letter of US law with regards to classified material it's just a fact that you cannot personally posses US secrets in your garage or wherever.

Holding out hope that ALL of our politician- regardless of what they stand for/who they are buddies with-are ALL being held to the same standard we average Joes are held to doesn't mean we are saying Trump did nothing wrong here.

Hoping there are no malevolent, selective political motivations driving all of this knowing how establishment DC is full of UniParty crooks going out of their way to protect each other is what it is.

 

Trump could have, and should have, been impeached simply after the 10 counts of obstruction of justice identified in the Mueller Report, but wasn't and the Speaker of the House refused to act on him for two years until his malfeasance became too egregious. He was a known con man with legit legal issues for decades as a businessman who even had his charity shut down. Biden's suddenly a crook after 4 decades and consistently being one of the poorest members of Congress prior to election to the Oval Office, where he then became some kind of mafia boss.

No matter how much you want to believe, nah, it ain't the same thing.

 

They're all held to the same standard here for folks who occupied offices which do operate differently than the "average Joe". The Average Joe isn't plausibly receiving documents in all variety of places as are the top two members of the executive branch do. I don't even blame Trump for having these sort of documents in his house, per se. I can see where discretion in his case would be different than, say, an officer at Langley or wherever who can see certain documents in certain places.

They all would've been fine if they had returned the documents, which all but one did. If you don't want to look at Biden, then look at Mike Pence. He had classified document, no charges. He wasn't even president, either, like Biden.

 

Also kinda unrelated but I must add how the millennial in me will never understand why US secrets are still being transposed into boxes of physical, paper copies in the 2020s. Is it really practical now to not just have our all of our sensitive materials encrypted and fortified digitally? Like to me physical copies of US secrets just laying around wherever seems riskier than just having a system where all that stuff is stored electronically by the latest and greatest technology out there the US govt should have means to utilize.

I've heard people claim looking up stuff digitally is a pain in the ass. However even from a practical standpoint of needing to reference back to something, I don't see how instructing a political aid with proper clearance to go dig through physical files amongst a myriad of boxes somewhere in order to retrieve whatever classified documents are needed is any less a pain in the ass nowadays than looking up something electronically. Seems like a very 20th century way of conducting official govt business.

 

Despite all this, in all honesty, I really don't care about Trump's case in New York with his business and this case with the documents. I can make arguments regarding both, mostly because it's interesting to discuss. But, if this case goes away for Trump, I couldn't care less. It doesn't really affect me or the country in any meaningful way. The drama is attention grabbing, if nothing else.

The only one I truly care about and does anger me, regards the investigation in Georgia. That shit is important, critically important. Trying to manipulate an election in the manner he did is potentially extraordinarily destabilizing and does affect the country in a meaningful way. I consider this current stuff with Trump in the same way any other person has to deal with their own crimes. Guilty or not, I won't do more than a shrug. Not the election stuff, though. That will be where I'm actually invested in the outcome.

 

The butt hurt was real and you know it. Tom Arnold ever find those pee tapes?

 

Tom Arnold is in Congress?

 

Look, I don't totally discredit this POV here. Like I get where you are coming from. Trump is his own worst enemy often no doubt.

Where we disagree ultimately is the idea of not holding Pence/Biden/Clinton/Trump/whoever to the same universal standard we hold your average NSA/FBI field agent to when it comes to illegally possessing and handling US secrets in the first place. Illegally possessing/handling US secrets is in itself a crime by the letter of US federal law.

 

Jeff Merkley is.

"To put this into terms that Twitter can understand, your view is that the pee tape is real?" Smith asked.

"Something close to that," Merkley answered. "Something close to that."

 

I believe he means there’s a charge under the Espionage Act. Not becexarrily a charge of espionage. I believe it’s just a charge of illegal retention of classified materials under the Espionage Act.

Trump’s problem isn’t that he had the documents per se. They got moved there just like all these other politicians. Generally they didn’t realize they had them. But Trump knew he had the Iran invasion plans, talked about it with others, and then allegedly committed conspiracy to obstruct around the document and others. I don’t know where it’ll land but that seems to be the gist of it.