1 hour ago, heybruce said:

The documents are clearly government property, they were clearly in Trump's possession, and he clearly fought returning them.  How does your "expert" figure that doesn't qualify as being stolen.

 

Don't refer us to videos, I want this hustler to put his legal opinion in writing so others can ridicule it.

President can take declassified stuff. He has the power to do so.

 

So no not stolen. 

5 minutes ago, Sparktrader said:

President can take declassified stuff. He has the power to do so.

 

So no not stolen. 

He's not the president 

A post with a trolling image and a post with a trolling video has been removed.

 

Troll posts and the replies have been removed.

8 minutes ago, JayClay said:

He's not the president 

Apologies for stating the obvious, but he was President when he took the documents 

Just now, Mac Mickmanus said:

Apologies for stating the obvious, but he was President when he took the documents 

So does he have the right to retain the documents now he's no longer the president? 

 

It's a genuine question; I don't know the answer. 

1 minute ago, Mac Mickmanus said:

Apologies for stating the obvious, but he was President when he took the documents 

Doesn't matter, he was in possession whilst not the president.

1 minute ago, Mac Mickmanus said:

Apologies for stating the obvious, but he was President when he took the documents 

Apologies for stating the obvious. but he's not President now.  He was required to return the documents.  He was repeatedly asked to return the documents.  He lied about not having documents.  He broke the law.

2 minutes ago, heybruce said:

Apologies for stating the obvious. but he's not President now.  He was required to return the documents.  He was repeatedly asked to return the documents.  He lied about not having documents.  He broke the law.

So lock him up. Oh wait, no lets make this the news headline approaching the mid terms. And then all this will just fizzle away.

 

 

5 minutes ago, heybruce said:

Apologies for stating the obvious. but he's not President now.  He was required to return the documents.  He was repeatedly asked to return the documents.  He lied about not having documents.  He broke the law.

Why hasn't he been arrested if he broke the law ?

7 minutes ago, stevenl said:

Doesn't matter, he was in possession whilst not the president.

He is allowed to keep some of the documents . 

9 minutes ago, JayClay said:

So does he have the right to retain the documents now he's no longer the president? 

 

It's a genuine question; I don't know the answer. 

I suppose it depends on what documents they are .

The FBI are currently looking at the papers to see whether its legal or not .

   The FBI and Trump have been discussing the documents with each other for over six months , so, they couldn't have been that important 

35 minutes ago, Sparktrader said:

So making up theories

Thought so

 

Witch hunt

Nonsense. There is no doubt that classfiied files were recovered from Mar a Lago. This is just a discussion of the significance of the folders. As I pointed out, it may be that they just contained the documents that were found. Or it could be that the documents they contained are still missing. But the fact that highly sensitive documents were found is not in dispute by any rational person, Nor that Mar a Lago does not have the facilities to properly protect them.

7 minutes ago, Mac Mickmanus said:

He is allowed to keep some of the documents . 

This is like defending a drug dealer on the grounds that while he may have had several kilos of amphetamines in his possession, he also had vitamin pills.

4 minutes ago, Mac Mickmanus said:

I suppose it depends on what documents they are .

The FBI are currently looking at the papers to see whether its legal or not .

   The FBI and Trump have been discussing the documents with each other for over six months , so, they couldn't have been that important 

You mean that they should have raided the place earlier? Also, keep in mind that his lawyers signed off on a letter that claimed all the classified documents had already been removed. Then the Justice Dept was apparently informed by witnesses that there were some really serious highly classified  documents that were still in Trump's possession. And none of those documents taken from the White House could legally be in Trump's possession without being vetted first by NARA.

2 minutes ago, placeholder said:

This is like defending a drug dealer on the grounds that while he may have had several kilos of amphetamines in his possession, he also had vitamin pills.

No, that's a false equivalence because having amphetamines is illegal and its not illegal to have documents in your possession 

9 hours ago, Dan O said:

No because he took the papers out of the folders. They found them mixed in with clothes and in draws and scatter in various places. 

What channel are you watching? I'm obviously watching the wrong one.

1 minute ago, Mac Mickmanus said:

No, that's a false equivalence because having amphetamines is illegal and its not illegal to have documents in your possession 

First of all, none of the documents taken from the White House were legally in his possession since they weren't vetted by NARA. But even if some of the documents were legally in his possession, it's clear that not all were. And as my analagy pointed out, it's legal to have vitamins in your possession, but amphetamines not so much.

17 minutes ago, Mac Mickmanus said:

He is allowed to keep some of the documents . 

Not true, He isn't even allowed the keep the riches MBS gave him, not even the soccer ball Putin gave him. Nada.

11 hours ago, Mac Mickmanus said:

FBI says they were classified documents .

Trump says he declassified the documents whilst in office and thus didn't need to hand them over   .

We will have to wait for the outcome to see what those documents were and whether they were important documents which required the FBI to raid his premises .

   Could be part of the never ending attempts to get Trump  impeached, prosecuted and jailed . Trying to use the laws to stop the democratic process 

 

Billy Barr, remember him, he’s poured scorn on Trump’s suggestion that he declassified these documents.

 

It’s just another lie for his doting followers.

 

All that aside, the search warrant didn’t mention ‘classified documents’, it was a search for ‘Government Records’.

 

The discovery of ‘TS/SCI documents’ raises the criminal stakes, the discovery of ‘TS/SCI Folders with their contents missing’ raises the criminal stakes much higher.

 

Trump’s actions have taken this into the realms of grave threats to US National Security.

 

Lock him up!

23 minutes ago, Mac Mickmanus said:

No, that's a false equivalence because having amphetamines is illegal and its not illegal to have documents in your possession 

It is if you stole them.

 

 

40 minutes ago, Mac Mickmanus said:

Why hasn't he been arrested if he broke the law ?

 Because the evidence needs to be placed before a Grand Jury first, they then need to hand down an indictment.

 

Also, we know that Trump is also under numerous criminal investigations, J6, Vote rigging in Georgia etc, it is very likely that the DOJ will make a single arrest on multiple counts.

 

And finally, the extreme rightwing are making thinly veiled threats (some not so thinly veiled) of violence if Trump is arrested.

 

I don’t think for a moment that those threats will deter the DOJ, but I do expect the DOJ will absolutely double and treble check that all their ‘t’s’ are crossed and all their ‘I’s’ are dotted.

 

Be patient, Justice is coming.

 

 

What Trump supporters fail to note is that the primary reason for the FBI search was to recover documents that were left with perilously little protection.. Documents that were brought to their attention by witnesses after Trump's lawyers denied any classified documents were left at Mar a Lago. In June, these allegedly cooperative persons denied the FBI the right to look at boxes that were still in storage.

1 hour ago, Sparktrader said:

President can take declassified stuff. He has the power to do so.

 

So no not stolen. 

They have to be declassified first and then recorder using legal protocol for the type of document content involved.

 

He didn't do any of that or would have offered and proven that in the 1st document retrieval in January and again in May and the latest incident wouldn't have happened. 

 

 He didn't because he never declassified them.  

1 hour ago, ozimoron said:

What channel are you watching? I'm obviously watching the wrong one.

I don't watch TV. There are plenty of reputable sources available

Trump’s supporters are clinging onto straws as tightly as Trump himself was clinging on to these Government documents he had no right to.

 

Like the documents, the straws are randomly scattered all over the place.

 

Justice is coming.

 

 

2 hours ago, Sparktrader said:

So making up theories

Thought so

 

Witch hunt

Yes, because everybody packs up empty folders clearly marked as TS/SCI. Just inadvertent. Honest mistake. Who HASN'T done that !

 

Oh, and there's a package at Suvarnabhumi with your name on it and inside is $16,412,834 (sixteen million four hundred twelve thousand eight hundred thirty four dollars). Just pay a small handling fee and the package will be released to you.

9 hours ago, heybruce said:

Even if he did declassify the documents (there is no record that he did) they were still government property and he was required to hand them over.  He broke the law.  Accept it.

I'm waiting for the court case where the government has to prove they were a threat to the security of the USA. If they were not, it's caused a lot of trouble for nothing much.

If the FBI were to raid Clinton's house, perhaps they might find some of those missing e mails, LOL.

14 hours ago, ozimoron said:

Thanks, I appreciate the effort. So, a rogue agent and not the FBI officially as an organisation. It is possible I guess that there is a rogue player lying to a judge again but the chances of that happening again and to an ex president must be vanishingly small.

 

To be clear, I know the police and possibly the FBI have a bad record for faking and planting evidence but that's not everywhere all the time. And less likely in high profile cases. The FBI have always been a Republican led and overtly conservative organisation, paint me skeptical.

 

 

Many Republicans in government organizations disliked Trump. I thought that was common knowledge.

2 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Many Republicans in government organizations disliked Trump. I thought that was common knowledge.

I don't believe that's true. He seeded them with his own people and fired as many as he could. Institutions like the FBI, police and military have traditionally always been heavily Republican leaning. I don't think you can question that. It's notable that many of his own appointees in career services turned against him.

2 hours ago, Mac Mickmanus said:

No, that's a false equivalence because having amphetamines is illegal and its not illegal to have documents in your possession 

Not sure if you're American, but absolutely sure you know nothing about the handling of classified documents in the US.

 

1) 45 had no right to possess those docs; even when he was POTUS there is a procedure for taking anything classified out of a SCIF, and there is zero record he ever did that

 

2) If he 'declassified' them, there would be an in depth record of the procedure for each and every document, signed off by agency chiefs, finally signed off by the White House Counsel, the classification headings would have been removed, and "DECLASSIFIED" would have been stamped on every single document. None would have remained in a TS/SCI folder. He cannot simply declare entire boxes of docs unclassified. For a host of very good reasons, it doesn't work that way.

 

3) 45 didn't even think up the silly excuse of "I declassified everything' until the FBI search (Recall that his initial lie was "planted"). He did not claim it in May 2021, Jan 2022, & May 2022 when he was repeatedly asked to return all of the docs. He was treated with kid gloves when he should have been perpwalked like the common criminal he is. ANYBODY else would already be in jail.

 

4) He lied when he claimed he had returned everything, even having his lawyer sign a statement saying this. Bald faced lie. (That lawyer will now face her own charges and be deposed, so his order to her will become known)

 

5) The mere presence of classified docs outside of a SCIF or double locked and guarded containment device is proof of guilt. There is an authorization trail for every doc. Even a POTUS cannot simply grab some docs and go have a bucket of KFC.

 

6) At 12:01PM on 20 January 2021 45 was a private citizen with no exemption from any US law. At that time he had possession of the docs he had zero right to possess.

 

As another poster noted, the DoJ is likely building multiple cases against him (sedition for 6 Jan, voter fraud in GA), as well as trying to build cases against anyone who aided his theft and retention of classified docs (a felony for which anyone who aided him will be prosecuted).

 

Likely 45 will face multiple capital charges, all of which carry sentences from extensive jail to to execution. The US is not the UK. In the US, nobody is above the law.