Former President Trump finally articulated clearly in a Wednesday night interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity an argument that he and his attorneys have been suggesting for a long time: that Trump, by virtue of being President, had unlimited powers to declassify, and that he could do so instantaneously.
First!
My support Polar Bear, Fluffy:
Since then, Trump and those around him — including conservative journalist John Solomon — have complained that the DOJ “secretly thwarted” the attempt to release the records.
So, Garland thought about doing this in his mind, amirite?
What a time to be alive.
No, I'm first. Ask me anything!The man’s a liar. It’s how he rolls. Everybody knows it.
As pointed out in the latest ruling by the 11th District, this classification/declassification thing is a red herring.
The point is: The Presidential Records Act.
The documents were not Trump’s to take, classified or not. Taking any such documents, classified or not, is a violation of the Presidential Records Act. Period. This is typical of Hannity and Fox (and Trump, of course): distract with a nonsense point that is irrelevant. Repeat it until the Fox audience has something to cling onto, Hannity (and Fox) continues to rake in the money, and Trump gets his air time. Nifty, eh?
A side point: If Trump declassified these documents, then, hey, let’s see them. They’re declassified, right? Gimme some of those classified documents. On the other hand, Trump’s attorneys see this point, among other factors, and are careful in court not to claim things were declassified. National security and such.
In other words, Trump is full of shit, a liar, and a criminal.
Got it.
So he combing the Russia investigation --why? To find out who was ratting him out, no?
Well if the president can declassify documents just by “thinking about it”, Joe Biden needs to get to work re-thinking the documents into “classified.”
His defense attorneys are all wearing diapers now since he planted his heavily diapered ass in front of Hannity. The man is his own worst enemy. Prosecutors just need to sit back and let him incriminate himself before a disarming audience.
I commented by a mental TRUTH before this article was even posted — all other articles too, even before I knew TPM existed, by RETRO TRUTH — something nobody’s ever done before, making myself first forever into the past and the future, which, I will tell you, is a lot of time, nobody knows how much. But I know a lot about time, more than many clockmakers, or probably all of them.
I “think” what Trump is trying to articulate is that classified records can’t be removed from the WH. Since he has the power to declassify a document, if he removes a document from the WH, then he must have declassified it or he couldn’t remove it, but he did remove it, so it was declassified. But, what Trump really is doing is trying to set up a “I’m stupid, but not criminal” defense. “That’s the power I was told I had” is his refrain - even if that refrain didn’t actually happen or was contradicted by others.
Yes but can the POTUS wish people into the cornfield too?
Words fail.
“There’s also a lot of speculation because of what they did, the severity of the FBI coming and raiding Mar-a-Lago. Were they looking for the Hillary Clinton emails that were deleted but they are around some place? They may have thought that it was in there!” Trump said.
Everyone is saying no one knows why the FBI raided DFG’s office so severely, but, as always, it’s about Hillary’s emails.
That claim is based on the concept of ignorance of the law. There is no protection from criminality due to ignorance. Any claim of ignorance is belied with the procedural declassification process that he followed at the end of his term. We know he is stupid. Removal of compartmentalized top secret documents that never should have left the room where they were stored can never be explained away by claiming the stupid defense.
Why anybody would want to defend someone this stupid – much less vote for them – boggles my mind.
Do you know this or do you think it?
Hillary must be enjoying every single moment of Trump’s descent into hell. She deserves it.
Will Trump and Doc Oz invoke “the Jersey Defense?”