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LKLK (0)
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| 08-18-22 11:01am - 763 days | #314 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
CONTINUED: If you’re following along at home, the idea is that Trump was so caught up with his autogolpe that he didn’t have time to worry about all this classified stuff. He didn’t think about leaving until after his coup failed! You can’t blame him for then heading down to Florida with some top-secret intel and stashing it in his basement! But wait, there was still time for one more lickspittle to jump all the way out on yet another limb: Alright, man. Jump out in front of that bus. I'm sure Captain Trump will swerve to avoid you. | |
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| 08-18-22 11:00am - 763 days | #313 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
The week that began Monday, August 8, provided such a neat encapsulation of the Trump Scandal Defense Cycle that we should not allow it to drift into summer-dog-day oblivion without comment. Each day brought a new development almost divinely crafted to expose the knee-jerk nihilist sycophancy of Trump's defenders, as they repeatedly threw themselves in front of the Reality Bus only to be shocked—SHOCKED!—to find themselves under the wheels by the following lunchtime. The only difference from the good ol' days of the reality-show presidency was that the protagonist's efforts to throw out new outrage bait to drag the watching world away from the previous outrage did not succeed. He was stuck on one issue, continually spouting new excuses but unable to upend the game board. Let's review. Monday Late in the day, we learned that the FBI had executed a search warrant approved by a federal magistrate judge to search Trump's club and residence at Mar-a-Lago. The immediate question for many creatures who've been sentient for the last half-decade was, Which investigation was the raid in relation to? Soon enough, we learned it had to do with classified documents Trump took down to Florida from the White House. The immediate reaction from Trump was to suggest, without evidence, that President Joe Biden was behind the raid. The reaction from many of his fans, who all seemed to get a memo that was copypasta'd across a wide variety of MAGA bootlicker accounts, was some version of: If they can do this to a former president, imagine what they can do to you. Well, if I was under investigation for federal crimes, I might expect a visit from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. That a former president could also face investigation on suspicion he broke the law is not some profound disturbance in the Force, it's an indication that, per our lofty credo, no one is above the law. By that evening, though, the same people who rail against defunding the police were calling for the FBI to be defunded and/or abolished. The major takeaway in MAGAland was that there was nothing there and no legitimate reason for the search. Tuesday January 6 pep rally MC-slash-Olympic sprinter Josh Hawley called for Attorney General Merrick Garland to resign or be impeached. He insisted the FBI Director, Christopher Wray—appointed by a certain D. Trump—must be removed from office. This was because the FBI serving a search warrant constituted "an unprecedented assault on democratic norms and the rule of law." And Hawley would know. His Senate colleague, Ted Cruz, helped to kick off the calls to "RELEASE THE WARRANT," though he did grant that the search would only constitute political persecution if the Feds failed to produce evidence Trump was hoarding documents with serious national security implications. (For what it's worth, I also was saying they better produce the goods at the time, and that's still the case.) Also for what it's worth, Trump could have immediately released his copy of the warrant—and the inventory of items taken, of which he also had a copy—at any point after the search. There was also the debut of "the president can declassify anything," which isn't strictly true and also does not speak to whether Trump actually declassified these documents. We were also treated to the line that the FBI had mostly recovered boxes of knick-knacks like cocktail napkins and golf balls. Wednesday We arrived, fitfully, at the new talking point: The evidence was planted. Trump started saying that he and his lawyers had not been permitted to watch the search "to see what they were doing, taking or, hopefully not, 'planting.'" But then his lawyer, Christina Bobb, said on Real America's Voice that the Family Trump watched the raid remotely. At this point, you'll note the documents were not important, were magically declassified if they were important, and also were planted by the FBI. Rand Paul also floated this latter idea on the television, while another Trump lawyer, Alina Habba, also went on Fox News to say, "I'm concerned that they may have planted something." Again, zero evidence to support this. Totally normal lawyer stuff. Elsewhere, Trump started yelling that Barack HUSSEIN Obama took 30 million documents—then it was 33 million—to Chicago after his presidency, and surely some were bad like Trump's? "How many of them pertained to nuclear?" he asked. "Word is, lots!" The National Archives and Records Administration swiftly issued a statement that (twist!) this was fabulously false, and those documents are in NARA's possession. Fox News luminary Brian Kilmeade, filling in for Tucker Carlson, put a doctored photo on-screen that purported to show the judge who signed off on the warrant, Bruce Reinhardt, with Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell. Kilmeade would later say this was "in jest"—you know, a joke where you insinuate a federal judge is a pedophile when he's already subject to a barrage of anti-Semitic threats that have forced his synagogue to cancel the weekend's services. Thursday The news was not good for Trump. New revelations indicated the documents in question were quite serious. The New York Times reported they included "special access programs," a kind of super top secret, while the Washington Post shared that some had to do with nuclear weapons. Trump responded with a new line, asking why-oh-why the FBI didn't just ask for the documents. The flying monkeys descended to whine about why Mar-a-Lago was raided—INVADED!—when the federales could simply have submitted a nice request to get the documents back. "My attorneys and representatives were cooperating fully, and very good relationships had been established," Trump truthed on Truth Social. "The government could have had whatever they wanted, if we had it." But later that day, the Times reported that Trump had been served a subpoena months earlier, as the Feds sought to recover the documents without a raid. (Back in January 2022, the National Archives separately went and retrieved 15 boxes of material.) Justice Department officials also met with Trump's lawyers at Mar-a-Lago in June and reviewed some of the materials and the security setup. A glance at the latter prompted them to ask Trump's people to put a padlock on the storage room. One of Trump's lawyers signed a written declaration then that all the classified material had been returned to the Feds. But then Attorney General Merrick Garland addressed the situation and agreed to release the warrant, and the accompanying inventory of items seized was soon public as well. It included 11 sets of classified documents. Sounds like maybe they were not "cooperating fully"? We also learned the search was related to an investigation into three specific crimes: violation of the Espionage Act, obstruction, and theft or destruction of government records. Intriguingly, none of these potential charges reportedly hinge on the documents in question being classified. Friday At this point, we've heard there was nothing important in the boxes (until there was); the rule of law was under threat because a former president was being investigated (for possibly breaking the law); and the documents were planted by the FBI. Also, Obama. But wait, what about that whole notion that they'd been magically declassified by the president? It was on the back-burner all week, but Trump turned to it in his time of need as the weekend approached and every other excuse had fallen through. The previously "planted" documents were suddenly legit, and he'd declassified them. In fact, Trump announced—incredibly—that he'd had a standing order in place to declassify all documents he brought to the White House residence. The very fact that these documents were present at Mar-a-Lago means they couldn’t have been classified. As we can all relate to, everyone ends up having to bring home their work from time to time. American presidents are no different. President Trump, in order to prepare the work for the next day, often took documents, including classified documents, to the residence. He had a standing order that documents removed from the Oval Office taken to the residence were deemed to be declassified the moment he removed them. Yes, the president who made 285 visits to a golf club during his tenure was hard at work. Mr. Trump also has a bridge to sell you. By the way, if all this is true, why didn't he just sort all this out by giving the documents back when the Feds asked for them? Why does he need (in this formulation, "formerly") classified documents in his basement? At this point, yet another excuse started to roll in: Trump didn’t pack the boxes himself! (Granted, virtually no one thinks that he was in there with packing tape.) He didn’t know what was in there! So again, why did he refuse to give them back when repeatedly asked? But that was a prelude to the ultimate excuse, a shameless special: Trump was so caught up in the “chaotic time” of January 2021 that he didn’t have time for this stuff. Fox News kicked it off on Friday: NBC News came in with a report the following day that seemed to extend this reasoning: When it finally dawned on Donald Trump in the twilight of his presidency that he wouldn’t be living at the White House for another four years, he had a problem: He had barely packed and had to move out quickly…In the run-up to Congress’ certification of Biden’s victory on Jan. 6, 2021, Trump acted as if he had won the election — he hadn’t — and did little to ensure a smooth transition, according to the source familiar with Trump’s move who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the records investigation.The source said that it was only after Jan. 6 — two weeks before Biden’s swearing-in — that he began to make serious preparations to vacate the White House. And the process was a mess. | |
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| 08-18-22 06:11am - 763 days | #5 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Florida court says teen is not mature enough to have an abortion. Instead, they will force the teen to have a baby. Does that make sense? Are they going to pay for the emotional trauma of having a baby for the rest of the teen girl's life? ---- ---- Florida court says teen is not 'mature' enough to have an abortion NBC Universal Corky Siemaszko August 16, 2022, 11:37 AM A pregnant and parentless 16-year-old in Florida may be forced to give birth after an appeals court ruled she was not “sufficiently mature to decide whether to terminate her pregnancy.” The teenager, who is identified in court papers as Jane Doe 22-B, was appealing a decision by Circuit Judge Jennifer Frydrychowicz on Aug. 10 that blocked her from having an abortion without the consent of a parent or guardian, as required by Florida law. At the time, the teenager was 10 weeks pregnant, the court papers state. But the three-judge panel of the state's 1st District Court of Appeal, which covers northern Florida, sided Monday, for the most part, with Frydrychowicz. The teenager "had not established by clear and convincing evidence that she was sufficiently mature to decide whether to terminate her pregnancy,” the ruling by Judges Harvey Jay, Rachel Nordby and Scott Makar, states. “Having reviewed the record, we affirm the trial court’s decision under the deferential standard of appellate review set out (in the consent law).” Dissenting from the other judges, however, Makar wrote that the appeals court should send the case back to Frydrychowicz for the possibility of further consideration. “The trial judge apparently sees this matter as a very close call, finding that the minor was 'credible,' 'open' with the judge, and nonevasive," Makar wrote. “The trial judge must have been contemplating that the minor — who was 10 weeks pregnant at the time — would potentially be returning before long — given the statutory time constraints at play — to shore up any lingering doubt the trial court harbored.” Makar noted that the teenager is “parentless,” lives with a relative, but also has an appointed guardian. She was also savvy enough to do Google searches "to gain an understanding about her medical options and their consequences." “She is pursuing a GED with involvement in a program designed to assist young women who have experienced trauma in their lives by providing educational support and counseling,” Makar wrote. “The minor experienced renewed trauma (the death of a friend) shortly before she decided to seek termination of her pregnancy.” Makar also noted that in her petition, which "she completed by hand," the teenager insisted "she is sufficiently mature to make the decision, saying she 'is not ready to have a baby,' she doesn’t have a job, she is 'still in school,' and the father is unable to assist her." The "guardian is fine with what [she] wants to do" the teenager claimed, according to Makar. The teenager's guardian and case worker were with her in court. But "inexplicably," Makar wrote, the teenager "checked the box indicating she did not request an attorney, which is available by law for free under the statute." Makar also noted that Frydrychowicz "displayed concern for the minor’s predicament throughout the hearing." "She asked difficult questions of the minor on sensitive personal matters in a compassionate manner," Makar wrote. "The trial judge’s tone and method of questioning were commendable." NBC News has reached out to Frydrychowicz, a registered Republican who also serves on the board of the Escambia Children’s Trust, which runs educational and other programs for kids in the county, for comment. Florida voters approved a constitutional amendment in 2004 that cleared the way for the state Legislature to pass a law requiring that parents or guardians be notified before minors have abortions. But because some minors faced possible abuse if their parents found out they're pregnant, Florida lawmakers also included a legal process that made it possible for them to go to court to get around the rules. Then in June of 2020, Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is also a Republican, signed SB 404, legislation which requires written consent from a minor’s parent or legal guardian for an abortion. “Thanks to Ron DeSantis, Florida is now forcing a teenager to give birth against her will," Florida Democratic Party spokesman Travis Reuther said in a statement. "That is an appalling and dangerous overreach by the Governor, who claims to represent the ‘free state of Florida,’ but wants to make women’s healthcare decisions for them." NBC News has reached out to DeSantis for a response. Abortion rights in Florida were endangered even before the Supreme Court in June overturned Roe v. Wade. In April, DeSantis signed into law a measure banning abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, a measure that is being challenged in court. | |
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| 08-18-22 05:50am - 763 days | #4 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Kids-for-cash judges ordered to pay more than $200M Associated Press MICHAEL RUBINKAM August 17, 2022, 2:11 PM Two former Pennsylvania judges who orchestrated a scheme to send children to for-profit jails in exchange for kickbacks were ordered to pay more than $200 million to hundreds of people they victimized in one of the worst judicial scandals in U.S. history. U.S. District Judge Christopher Conner awarded $106 million in compensatory damages and $100 million in punitive damages to nearly 300 people in a long-running civil suit against the judges, writing the plaintiffs are “the tragic human casualties of a scandal of epic proportions.” In what came to be known as the kids-for-cash scandal, Mark Ciavarella and another judge, Michael Conahan, shut down a county-run juvenile detention center and accepted $2.8 million in illegal payments from the builder and co-owner of two for-profit lockups. Ciavarella, who presided over juvenile court, pushed a zero-tolerance policy that guaranteed large numbers of kids would be sent to PA Child Care and its sister facility, Western PA Child Care. Ciavarella ordered children as young as 8 to detention, many of them first-time offenders deemed delinquent for petty theft, jaywalking, truancy, smoking on school grounds and other minor infractions. The judge often ordered youths he had found delinquent to be immediately shackled, handcuffed and taken away without giving them a chance to put up a defense or even say goodbye to their families. “Ciavarella and Conahan abandoned their oath and breached the public trust,” Conner wrote Tuesday in his explanation of the judgment. “Their cruel and despicable actions victimized a vulnerable population of young people, many of whom were suffering from emotional issues and mental health concerns.” The Pennsylvania Supreme Court threw out some 4,000 juvenile convictions involving more than 2,300 kids after the scheme was uncovered. It’s unlikely the now-adult victims will see even a fraction of the eye-popping damages award, but a lawyer for the plaintiffs said it’s a recognition of the enormity of the disgraced judges’ crimes. “It’s a huge victory,” Marsha Levick, co-founder and chief counsel of the Philadelphia-based Juvenile Law Center and a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said Wednesday. “To have an order from a federal court that recognizes the gravity of what the judges did to these children in the midst of some of the most critical years of their childhood and development matters enormously, whether or not the money gets paid.” Another plaintiffs' attorney, Sol Weiss, said he would begin a probe of the judges' assets, but did not think they had any money to pay a judgment. Ciavarella, 72, is serving a 28-year prison sentence in Kentucky. His projected release date is 2035. Conahan, 70, was sentenced to more than 17 years in prison but was released to home confinement in 2020 — with six years left on his sentence — because of the coronavirus pandemic. Conner ruled after hearing often-emotional testimony last year from 282 people who appeared in Luzerne County juvenile court between 2003 and 2008 — 79 of whom were under 13 when Ciavarella sent them to juvenile detention — and 32 parents. “They recounted his harsh and arbitrary nature, his disdain for due process, his extraordinary abruptness, and his cavalier and boorish behavior in the courtroom,” Conner wrote. One unnamed child victim testified that Ciavarella had “ruined my life” and “just didn’t let me get to my future,” according to Conner's ruling. Said another plaintiff: “I feel I was just sold out for no reason. Like everybody just stood in line to be sold." Another victim described how he shook uncontrollably during a routine traffic stop — a consequence of the traumatizing impact of his childhood detention — and had to show his mental health records in court to “explain why my behavior was so erratic.” Several of the childhood victims who were part of the lawsuit when it began in 2009 have since died from overdoses or suicide, Conner said. To calculate compensatory damages, the judge decided each plaintiff was entitled to a base rate of $1,000 for each day of wrongful detention, and adjusted that amount based on the circumstances of each case. Substantial punitive damages were warranted because the disgraced judges inflicted “unspeakable physical and emotional trauma” on children and adolescents, Conner wrote. The damages award only covers plaintiffs who chose to participate in process. Other major figures in the case settled years ago, including the builder and the owner of the private lockups and their companies, in payouts totaling about $25 million. | |
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| 08-18-22 05:48am - 763 days | #3 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Missouri pastor says congregation is 'poor, broke, busted' for not buying him a luxury Movado watch NBC Universal Minyvonne Burke August 17, 2022, 2:22 PM A Kansas City, Missouri, pastor who said his congregation was "poor, broke busted and disgusted" for not buying him the luxury watch he wanted has issued an apology after his remarks caused a stir on social media. Carlton Funderburke, the senior pastor at Church at the Well, issued an apology video Tuesday for the "inexcusable" remarks he made in an Aug. 7 sermon. "Though there is context behind the content of the clip, no context will suffice to explain the hurt and anguish caused by my words. I've spoken to those I am accountable to and have received their correction and instruction," he said. "I have also privately apologized to our church, who has extended their love and support to me." In a video clip of his sermon posted on TikTok, Funderburke berates his church members for not "honoring" him with a Movado watch. "This is how I know you’re still poor, broke, busted and disgusted, because of how you been honoring me. I’m not worth your McDonald’s money? I’m not worth your Red Lobster money? I ain’t worth your St. John Knits — y’all can’t afford nohow. I ain’t worth y'all Louis Vuitton? I ain’t worth your Prada? I’m not worth your Gucci?" he said in the nearly minutelong clip. At one point, Funderburke tells the congregation that a Movado watch can be bought at Sam's Club. "And y'all know I asked for one last year. Here it is all the way in August and I still ain’t got it," he said. "Y'all ain’t said nothing. Let me kick down the door and talk to my cheap sons and daughters." The video was posted by The Kansas City Defender, a digital media company. As of Wednesday, the video had been viewed more than 550,000 times. Many people in the comments condemned Funderburke for preaching about material items. "That would’ve been my last day in his church," a commenter wrote. "I would’ve left so fast and loudly oh no sir," another said. Another wrote: "I missed the scripture about the mavado watch." Funderburke said Tuesday that his comments do "not reflect my heart or my sentiments toward God's people." "Yet, that's not discernable in the clip," he said in his apology. "Therefore, I offer this sincere apology to you today. No context could erase the words I used." | |
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| 08-18-22 05:44am - 763 days | #2 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Sometimes it doesn't pay to be a Good Samaritan. Woman fakes being stranded, then kills Florida college student who stopped, AL cops say Miami Herald Mark Price August 17, 2022, 10:34 AM A roadside robber masquerading as a stranded motorist killed a University of Central Florida student when he fought back, according to the Clay County Sheriff’s Office in Alabama. The 22-year-old victim was identified as Adam Simjee of Apopka, Florida, and he was traveling with his girlfriend, Mikayla Paulus, 20, who witnessed the killing, the sheriff’s office said in a press release. It happened around 11:30 a.m. Sunday, Aug. 14, as the couple were driving through Talladega National Forrest, a mile from Cheaha State Park, officials said. The park is about 80 miles east of Birmingham, Alabama. The two were flagged down by a woman, “later identified as Yasmine Hider,” the sheriff’s office reported. “Hider asked the couple if they could give her some assistance to get her car started, which was nearby,” officials said. “When the couple attempted to assist Hider, she produced a gun and made the couple walk back into the woods.” The 22-year-old victim was identified as Adam Simjee and he was traveling with his 20-year-old girlfriend, Mikayla Paulus, who witnessed the killing, the sheriff’s office said in a press release. Once they were in the woods, Simjee revealed he was armed and the two exchanged gunfire as Paulus looked on, officials said. Both Simjee and Hider were struck by gunfire, officials said. Mikayla noticed a second woman, “later identified as Krystal Diane Pinkins, standing in the woods nearby observing what was going on,” the sheriff’s office said. “The shooter (Hider) then called out to Pinkins to come help her. After a brief conversation between the suspects Pinkins fled the scene on foot,” officials said. “Mikayla was then able to retrieve her cell phone and call 911.” Paulus performed CPR on Simjee as they waiting for rescuers, but he died at the scene, officials said. Deputies arrived to find Hider on the ground nearby, with “several gunshots to her torso.” Hider was taken by helicopter to a hospital in Birmingham, officials said. Pinkins was arrested hours later, standing among a group of tents “1/2 mile from the scene of the robbery.” As officers ordered Pinkins to the ground, “a 5-year-old child ran from the woods holding a loaded shotgun,” officials said. “Law enforcement told the child to put the shotgun down. However the child continued to the female’s location before laying the gun on the ground,” the sheriff’s office reported. The child was Pinkins’ son, officials said. She was “arrested and charged with endangering the welfare of a child,” and the boy was picked up by the Department of Human Resources, officials said. “It did not appear that any other people were currently using the camp,” the sheriff’s office said. Hider faces charges of one count of murder, two counts kidnapping and two counts of robbery, officials said. She is currently in a Birmingham hospital, the sheriff’s office said, and “the weapons used in the crime have been recovered.” Pinkins has also been charged with one count of murder, two counts kidnapping and two counts of robbery, officials said. Simjee’s Facebook page reports he graduated from Apopka High School, attended Seminole State College and transferred to the University of Central Florida in 2021. He intended to graduate in 2023. Paulus also lives in Apopka and “studies Masters of Art (M.A) Clinical Mental Health Counseling at University of Central Florida,” according to her Facebook page. She says she and Simjee had been dating four years, and he died protecting her. “Yesterday my world ended,” she wrote on Facebook. “I had to watch as my reason for being, my soulmate, my life partner, the future father of my children, died in the middle of a state park in Alabama. No words can begin to describe the shock and pain I’m in. We had our entire lives ahead of us.” | |
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| 08-18-22 05:33am - 763 days | Original Post - #1 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Texas school district bans the Bible as porn. District officials are concerned about "graphic, gratuitous, sexually-explicit content. I always knew there was racy content in the Bible. And now officials have confirmed my fears. ------ ------ Texas school district pulls over 40 books, including the Bible, from shelves amid review USA TODAY Jeanine Santucci August 17, 2022, 7:55 PM A copy of the novel Anne Frank's Diary: The Graphic Adaptation. (Getty Images) A copy of the novel Anne Frank's Diary: The Graphic Adaptation. (Getty Images) A Texas school district is pulling all books from library shelves and classrooms that were challenged by parents, lawmakers and other community members in the last year — including the Bible. The day before students started back at the Keller Independent School District, which serves students in the Fort Worth suburbs, Jennifer Price, the executive director of curriculum and instruction, told principals and librarians to remove 41 books while they undergo a review, according to an email obtained by the Texas Tribune. Some of the books included in the list are all editions of the Bible, a graphic novel adaptation of Anne Frank's diary, “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison and “Gender Queer: A Memoir,” by Maia Kobabe, the Tribune reported. Kobabe's book tops the American Library Association's list for most banned books in 2021. “Attached is a list of all books that were challenged last year. By the end of today, I need all books pulled from the library and classrooms. Please collect these books and store them in a location. (book room, office, etc.),” Price wrote in the email on Tuesday. WHAT BANNING BOOKS DOES TO STUDENTS: Books are being banned from school libraries, from 'Maus' to 'Beloved' Students returned to class Wednesday after summer break, according to the district's website. The decision comes amid an uptick in book bans in schools and libraries across the country. The American Library Association, which tracks book challenges and bans, reported a more than doubling of challenges in 2021 from 2020, with actual numbers likely being much higher. Parents, politicians, and other community members have been challenging books at higher rates as conservative lawmakers raise concerns about what students are being taught in schools about topics such as race, sexuality, and gender identity. Some of the books at Keller ISD that received challenges — requests to remove them from libraries and schools — had already been reviewed last school year by a school district committee and were recommended to remain in schools, according to the Tribune. A new policy approved by the school board earlier this month requires that they be reviewed again, the district told USA TODAY in a statement. "Right now, Keller ISD’s administration is asking our campus staff and librarians to review books that were challenged last year to determine if they meet the requirements of the new policy," the statement reads. "Books that meet the new guidelines will be returned to the libraries as soon as it is confirmed they comply with the new policy." BOOK BANS AND CULTURE WARS: When their high school started banning books, these students fought back and won According to Board of Trustees President Charles Randklev in a post on Facebook, district officials are concerned about "graphic, gratuitous, sexually-explicit content." "Per the new policy, instructional materials previously challenged following the old policy, which was flawed and exposed children to pornographic material... will be re-evaluated," Randklev said. According to the district website, some challenged books after initial review were allowed to remain in all classrooms in libraries (Morrison's "The Bluest Eye," "Moxie" by Jennifer Mathieu). Some were kept only in high schools ("We Are The Ants" by Shaun David Hutchinson and "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl" by Jesse Andrews). One book ("More Happy Than Not" by Adam Silvera) would be removed from curriculum but allowed to remain as individual reading. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Banned books: Texas school district pulls challenged books for review    | |
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| 08-17-22 02:49pm - 764 days | #312 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Rudy Giuliani admits he is part of a criminal organization. Says he was forced into crime against his will, because Dongle Trump, the Greatest Mafia Chieftan still active in US politics, had incriminating evidence on the Giuliani family. "He made me do it against my will", screams Rudy Giuliani. Rudy says he never believed the Fake Lies that Dongle Trump spoke, but was forced to work for Dongle against his will. Therefore, Rudy says, he is innocent of any crimes he might have committed, because he was forced. ----- ----- Giuliani faces grand jury in Georgia 2020 election probe Associated Press KATE BRUMBACK August 17, 2022, 12:44 PM ATLANTA (AP) — Rudy Giuliani faced several hours of questioning Wednesday before a special grand jury in Atlanta as a target of an investigation into attempts by former President Donald Trump and others to overturn his 2020 election defeat in Georgia. The former New York mayor and Trump attorney left the Fulton County courthouse without commenting to reporters roughly six hours after the special grand jury convened Wednesday as part of a rapidly escalating investigation that has ensnared several Trump allies. Giuliani's questioning took place behind closed doors, as grand jury proceedings are secret. Swarmed by news cameras Wednesday morning as he stepped out of a limousine at the courthouse steps, Giuliani said he didn't plan to talk about his testimony. “Grand juries, as I recall, are secret,” said Giuliani, who came to court with his attorney, Robert Costello. “They ask the questions and we’ll see.” Though grand jury secrecy rules prohibit people present during grand jury testimony from discussing it, that prohibition does not apply to witnesses, including Giuliani. As a former federal prosecutor, he is likely familiar with those rules. It's unclear how much the former New York mayor and attorney for Trump was willing to say after his lawyers were informed Monday that he's a target of the investigation. The investigation by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has brought heightened scrutiny to the desperate and ultimately failed efforts to overturn Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 election win. It’s one of several investigations into Trump’s actions in office as he lays the groundwork for another run at the White House in 2024. Willis opened her investigation after the disclosure of a remarkable Jan. 2, 2021, phone call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. On the call, Trump suggested that Raffensperger could “find” the exact number of votes that would be needed to flip the election results in Georgia. Trump has denied any wrongdoing. He has described the call as “perfect.” Willis last month filed petitions to compel testimony from seven Trump associates and advisers. She has also said she’s considering calling Trump himself to testify, and the former president has hired a legal team in Atlanta that includes a prominent criminal defense attorney. Other Trump allies swept up in the probe include U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham. His attorneys filed a legal motion Wednesday asking a federal judge to put Graham’s special grand jury appearance set for Aug. 23 on hold while the South Carolina Republican appeals an order compelling him to testify. Fulton County prosecutors want to ask Graham about phone calls they say he made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and his staff in the weeks following the vote. Graham’s attorneys, including former Trump White House counsel Don McGahn, are fighting the subpoena in federal court. They argue Graham’s position in Congress protects him from having to appear before the grand jury. A federal judge rejected that notion and ordered the senator to testify. Graham has appealed that ruling. In seeking Giuliani’s testimony, Willis noted that he was both a personal attorney for Trump and a lead attorney for his 2020 campaign. She recalled in a petition how Giuliani and others appeared at a state Senate committee meeting in late 2020 and presented a video that Giuliani said showed election workers producing “suitcases” of unlawful ballots from unknown sources, outside the view of election poll watchers. The claims of fraud were debunked by Georgia election officials within 24 hours. Yet Giuliani continued to make statements to the public and in subsequent legislative hearings claiming widespread election fraud using the debunked video, Willis noted in her filing. Two of the election workers seen in the video, Ruby Freeman and Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, said they faced relentless harassment online and in person after it was shown at the Dec. 3 Georgia legislative hearing in which Giuliani appeared. At another hearing a week later, Giuliani said the footage showed the women “surreptitiously passing around USB ports as if they are vials of heroin or cocaine.” They actually were passing a piece of candy. Willis wrote in the court filing that Giuliani’s hearing appearance and testimony were “part of a multi-state, coordinated plan by the Trump Campaign to influence the results of the November 2020 election in Georgia and elsewhere.” Willis also wrote in a petition seeking the testimony of attorney Kenneth Chesebro that he worked with Giuliani to coordinate and carry out a plan to have Georgia Republicans serve as fake electors. Those 16 people signed a certificate declaring falsely that Trump had won the 2020 presidential election and declaring themselves the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors even though Biden had won the state and a slate of Democratic electors was certified. Giuliani’s attorneys tried to delay his appearance before the special grand jury, saying he was unable to fly due to heart stent surgery in early July. But Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who’s overseeing the special grand jury, said during a hearing last week that Giuliani needed to be in Atlanta on Wednesday and could travel by bus, car or train if necessary. Asked how he made the trip, Giuliani told reporters, “I’ll give you one answer: I didn’t walk.” ___ Associated Press writer Meg Kinnard in Columbia, South Carolina, contributed to this report. | |
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| 08-17-22 02:40pm - 764 days | #311 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
The GOP reveals the truth: the Democrats are bringing down America. Do not apply for a new job: you will lose any new job you get hired for, because there will be no money to pay you. Vote for Dongle Trump, the most corrupt president of the Untied States of Trumperland we've seen in the 21st Century. He will cut taxes for billionaires. And increase taxes on the poor and uneducated, who don't deserve money from the federal government. Hail Dongle Trump, the secret son of Adolf Hitler, who will make America safe for White men everywhere. ------ ------ Republicans escalate IRS rhetoric as senator warns Americans not to apply for new jobs NBC Universal Sahil Kapur August 17, 2022, 12:04 PM WASHINGTON — It is unusual for a U.S. senator to publicly warn Americans not to apply for a job and threaten to eliminate it. But that's what Senate Republican campaign chair Rick Scott, R-Fla., did this week, publishing an open letter encouraging job seekers not to pursue new IRS positions, vowing that Republicans, who hope to take control of Congress next year, will quickly "defund" those jobs. Scott claimed the Biden administration will use the Democrats' newly enacted Inflation Reduction Act to create "an IRS super-police force" to "audit and investigate" ordinary Americans. "The IRS is making it very clear that you not only need to be ready to audit and investigate your fellow hardworking Americans, your neighbors and friends, you need to be ready and, to use the IRS’s words, willing, to kill them," he wrote, referencing a job posting for the agency's Criminal Investigation division, which has been mischaracterized. Scott's depiction of a new force of IRS agents targeting average Americans lacks basis in the text of the new law and has been dismissed by Democrats as a fabrication. It was debunked — indirectly — by formal guidance Wednesday by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to the IRS. In a memo to IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig, obtained by NBC News, Yellen told the agency to use the law's $80 billion cash infusion to "enforce the tax laws against high net-worth individuals, large corporations, and complex partnerships who today pay far less than they owe." "As I wrote last week, these investments will not result in households earning $400,000 per year or less or small businesses seeing an increase in the chances that they are audited relative to historical levels," Yellen wrote, emphasizing that the funds would help "improve taxpayer service, modernize technology, and increase equity in our system of tax administration by pursuing tax evasion by those at the top who today do not pay their tax bill." Scott's threat to eliminate the new IRS jobs is, for the time being at least, an empty one. It's unclear if Republicans will win full control of Congress — and if they did, President Joe Biden would still have veto power to prevent them from undoing his signature legislation. But the missive represents a dramatic escalation in Republican attacks on a provision of the Inflation Reduction Act bolstering the IRS — part of a strategy to stir up anti-government voters with deep misgivings about the agency ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. 'A ridiculous caricature' The Inflation Reduction Act, which passed with unanimous Democratic support and no Republican votes, is a collection of policies that are mostly popular with voters — from allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices to a 15% minimum tax on corporations. And Democrats are eager to campaign on the legislation in a tough election for the party in power. Despite its size, the bill hasn't generated the backlash that the Affordable Care Act did in 2010, which has led Republicans to zero in on the IRS funding to try and motivate voter opposition. GOP leaders, candidates for office and strategists have begun claiming the IRS plans to hire tens of thousands of new employees to audit middle-class Americans, citing a Treasury analysis from May 2021. Treasury estimated that the IRS could hire 86,852 people over a decade — and not all in auditing or tax enforcement. Some would replace retiring employees. It's unclear how many will actually be hired, nor is there evidence of the administration considering greater scrutiny of middle-income Americans. "It’s a ridiculous caricature," said Kimberly Clausing, a former deputy assistant secretary for tax analysis at the Biden Treasury Department. "It’s deliberate fear-mongering that paints a picture that compliant taxpayers should be scared." She said much of the new staffing would go toward returning phone calls and processing tax refunds, with additional funds designed to modernize outdated technology so the agency can “target more sophisticated tax evaders” as opposed to lower-income taxpayers. "The story for ordinary Americans who are compliant with their taxes is that this is great for them. They’re more likely to have their returns processed quickly, they’re more likely to have their phone calls returned," Clausing said. "It’s less likely they’ll be audited because the IRS will have the skill and technology to target the audits to those who really should be targeted." Scott's allusions to agents' alleged license to kill, meanwhile, can be traced back to a job posting for a special agent at the IRS's Criminal Investigation division, which has been falsely depicted as a listing for other positions in the agency. The distortions have proliferated among conservatives on social media and have been incorporated into Republican campaign messages ahead of the Nov. 8 midterm election. Arizona Senate Republican nominee Blake Masters tweeted that the law means "87,000 new IRS agents to intimidate and drive [small] businesses into the ground." House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Democrats "plan to hire an army of 87,000 IRS agents so they can audit more Americans like you." And Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said that “Senate Democrats treated themselves to 87,000 new IRS agents” after passing the bill. A Democratic aide familiar with the process noted the original version of the Inflation Reduction Act included explicit language providing for "no tax increases" on taxpayers earning under $400,000 — but Republicans challenged the provision under the rules of the Senate budget process and successfully forced its removal. The White House dismissed the Republican rhetoric and called attention to Scott's proposal to automatically phase out laws like Social Security after five years unless Congress reauthorizes them. “Nothing shows the extremity of congressional Republicans’ agenda or their prioritization of wealthy special interests over the American people like wanting to repeal Medicare’s new ability to lower drug prices and wanting to raise energy costs because rich tax cheats will have to stop breaking the law," White House spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement. "President Biden and congressional Democrats are lowering costs for middle class families, while Rick Scott tells debunked lies and keeps pushing to put Medicare and Social Security on the chopping block." | |
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| 08-17-22 12:58am - 765 days | #310 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a GOP leader, has been cracking down on police who are lawless and corrupt. "No longer will we tolerate illegal and corrupt behavior from the men in blue", blares the GOP governor. "If they do the crime, do the time (in jail)", chant his supporters. The GOP is no longer the party of the Red, White and Blue. It's now the party of White men everwhere, except for White men in blue. Dongle Trump has turned the corner: he's jumping on the tattered reputation of the FBI. The FBI arrested a Pennsylvania man Friday after he allegedly stated he wanted to kill FBI agents and “water the trees of liberty with (their) blood.” The GOP is calling for the blood of corrupt cops, screaming "Give me Dongle or give me death", with relish and glory. ----- ----- Maryland Gov. Hogan leans into GOP law enforcement split with digital ad on crime Yahoo News Tom LoBianco August 16, 2022, 11:41 AM WASHINGTON — Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, who has been toying with a possible White House bid, is jumping into the Republican divide on law enforcement with a new digital ad touting his proposal to crack down on crime and “lawlessness." The spot opens with a hard-edged stance on crime and law enforcement, showing clips of progressive Democratic “Squad” members Reps. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, D-N.Y., and Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and promising to “reverse the tide of rising crime and disrespect to our law enforcement.” Hogan's appeal is akin to calls made by Trump and other Republicans in the wake of George Floyd's murder and the ensuing racial justice protests two years ago. Since the FBI search last week of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, Trump and many of his far-right supporters have now been lambasting the FBI and federal law enforcement, in response to revelations that he had held onto highly sensitive intelligence, possibly even involving nuclear weapons, and that he is being investigated by the Justice Department for potential violations of the Espionage Act and other possible crimes. Experts on online extremism have noted a steady uptick in violent threats against law enforcement since Trump and his supporters targeted them. An armed Ohio man who was reportedly at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 tried to breach an FBI field office in Cincinnati last week and was later shot dead after a standoff. The FBI arrested a Pennsylvania man Friday after he allegedly stated he wanted to kill FBI agents and “water the trees of liberty with (their) blood.” Hogan doesn’t address federal law enforcement threats in the spot, nor does he go to bat explicitly for federal law enforcement, but in an interview over the weekend on ABC’s “This Week,” he called the threats “absurd.” “First, we had the left talking about defunding the police and attacking police officers, and now we have the right saying: Defund these federal law enforcement officers. It’s absurd. It’s dangerous, because we saw the one incident already, but there are threats all over the place,” Hogan said. Hogan spent last week in Iowa at the state fair, meeting with Republicans including Gov. Kim Reynolds. He took a trip to New England last month, with stops in New Hampshire, and he also met with former President George W. Bush and former first lady Laura Bush in Kennebunkport, Maine. Hogan has not yet announced whether he will run for president in 2024. He also dismissed suggestions that he should run as an independent rather than seeking the Republican nomination. | |
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| 08-16-22 04:41pm - 765 days | #309 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Dongle Trump says he want to make peace with the FBI, while also stating that the FBI is corrupt and can't be trusted: "the FBI has planted FAKE EVIDENCE in the documents seized from my home", cries Dongle Trump. "The FBI is corrupt, and is being used to persecute me!!!!!" Also, Dongle Trump says the judge who approved a search warrant on Dongle's home is corrupt: "I tried to drain the swamp in Washington, and now the swamp is destroying my freedom!" cries Dongle Trump. --- --- Federal judge sets hearing on motion to unseal Trump search warrant affidavit Yahoo News Dylan Stableford August 16, 2022, 11:55 AM The federal judge in Florida who approved the warrant for the FBI to search former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate has scheduled a Thursday hearing on a motion to unseal the affidavit that prosecutors used to secure it. U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart set the 1 p.m. hearing for both sides to present arguments over whether to publicly release the search warrant affidavit, court records showed on Tuesday. The Justice Department opposes the disclosure of the affidavit because prosecutors say it would compromise the ongoing investigation into Trump’s handling of classified materials. “If disclosed, the affidavit would serve as a roadmap to the government’s ongoing investigation, providing specific details about its direction and likely course, in a manner that is highly likely to compromise future investigative steps,” prosecutors wrote in a filing on Monday. The Justice Department also argued that the affidavit’s publication would harm prosecutors’ ability to interview additional witnesses. “Disclosure of the government’s affidavit at this stage would also likely chill future cooperation by witnesses whose assistance may be sought as this investigation progresses,” it wrote. Multiple news organizations have asked Reinhart to unseal the affidavit despite objections by the Justice Department. Trump is calling for the release of the affidavit — and for Reinhart to recuse himself from overseeing the case. “In the interest of TRANSPARENCY, I call for the immediate release of the completely Unredacted Affidavit pertaining to this horrible and shocking BREAK-IN,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social, his social media platform. “Also, the Judge on this case should recuse!” Since approving the search of Mar-a-Lago, Reinhart — who is Jewish — has been the target of threats and antisemitic comments online. Last week Politico reported that Reinhart, a board member at Temple Beth David in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., has “seen sustained antisemitic attacks on right wing message boards and other social media platforms like 4Chan” since signing off on the FBI’s warrant to search Mar-a-Lago. An itemized receipt for property seized at Mar-a-Lago reads, in part: 15A - Miscellaneous Secret Documents. On Friday, Reinhart unsealed a search warrant and property receipt from the FBI’s search, which both the government and Trump’s lawyers agreed should be public. The documents showed that agents seized nearly two dozen boxes from Trump’s home, including 11 sets of classified records and some that were labeled “top secret,” the highest level of classification reserved for the most closely held U.S. national security information. According to the inventory of the materials seized in the search, there were some marked “classified/TS/SCI,” shorthand for “top secret/sensitive compartmented information,” or documents deemed so secret that they require a secure facility in which to view them. The warrant indicated that the former president is under investigation for several potential crimes, including possible violations of the Espionage Act and potential obstruction of justice charges. Trump has claimed without evidence that the investigation is a politically motivated “weaponization” of the Justice Department; suggested that the FBI “planted” evidence; and insisted that he had a “standing order” to declassify documents that left the Oval Office for his residence. The attacks by the former president and his allies on the FBI over its search have led to threats against federal agents, and prompted the DOJ to issue a bulletin to warn law enforcement of such threats. Last week a man who appears to have posted on Truth Social about wanting to kill federal agents was killed by police after allegedly firing a nail gun into an FBI field office in Cincinnati. A DOJ bulletin released Friday said that the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security have seen an increase in “violent threats” against law enforcement since the search of Trump’s property. In an interview Monday, Trump said he would be willing to do whatever he can to bring the “temperature” down — while continuing to attack the FBI. “They could take anything they want, and put anything they want in,” he said. | |
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| 08-16-22 03:17am - 766 days | #308 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Trump’s passports returned after Mar-a-Lago search, DOJ official says. Did the DOJ make a deal with Dongle Trump: leave the country, and we'll probably forget to prosecute you? Did Sleepy Joe Biden sign off on the deal? Enquiring minds want to know: Will Dongle pick China, North Korea, or Russia as his new base? ---- ---- Trump’s passports returned after Mar-a-Lago search, DOJ official says NBC Universal Kelly O'Donnell and Dareh Gregorian and Kristen Welker and Zoë Richards August 15, 2022, 8:04 PM Scroll back up to restore default view. Passports belonging to Donald Trump have been returned to the former president after last week's FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago home, a Justice Department official told NBC News on Monday. The FBI acknowledged it had had the passports the same day Trump said on his social media platform that FBI agents who conducted the search on Aug. 8 took them. In a statement on Truth Social, Trump said agents "stole my three Passports (one expired), along with everything else." He did not provide further details or specify whether the travel documents were personal or government passports. (Presidents receive diplomatic passports when they take office.) A Justice Department official said Trump's passports have been returned. A representative for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Trump attorney Christina Bobb blasted federal law enforcement on Monday night, telling Fox News host Laura Ingraham: "I think this goes to show the level of audacity that they have. "I think it goes to show how aggressive they were, how overreaching they were, that they were willing to go past the four corners of the warrant and take whatever they felt was appropriate or they felt that they could take." Armed Secret Service agents stand outside an entrance to former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, late Monday, Aug. 8, 2022, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP) Armed Secret Service agents stand outside an entrance to former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, late Monday, Aug. 8, 2022, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP) An FBI spokesperson defended how the search warrant was carried out. “In executing search warrants, the FBI follows search and seizure procedures ordered by courts, then returns items that do not need to be retained for law enforcement purposes," the spokesperson said in a statement Monday evening that did not mention the passports. A property receipt from the FBI search of Trump's estate in Palm Beach, Florida, showed that federal investigators recovered a trove of top secret and other heavily classified documents but did not mention any passports. In court documents made public with the property receipt, investigators said they were searching for evidence of crimes that included withholding “any government and/or Presidential Records” from Trump’s time in office. | |
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| 08-16-22 03:13am - 766 days | #307 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Rumors are swirling around Allen Weisselberg. Some are saying Weisselberg might plead guilty, even though just last week he was trying to have the charges dismissed. If Dongle takes back the Whitest House, he might pardon Weisselberg, as long as Weisselberg doesn't implicate Dongle in any crimes. Why is the country so hesitant to charge Dongle Trump with criminal activity? Is the country afraid there will be civil war, if Dongle is charged? Does Sleepy Joe have the balls to indict Dongle Trump? ---- ---- Ex-Trump Org. official Allen Weisselberg expected to plead guilty in tax case NBC Universal Tom Winter and Jonathan Dienst and Adam Reiss and Ryan J. Reilly August 15, 2022, 3:18 PM Scroll back up to restore default view. Former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg is expected to plead guilty to criminal charges tied to his indictment by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office in an investigation of former President Donald Trump's businesses, according to two people familiar with the matter and a public court filing. Weisselberg's plea could come as soon as 9 a.m. Thursday. Terms of the expected deal were not immediately disclosed. Weisselberg and the Trump Organization were charged as part of what prosecutors described as an “off the books” scheme over 15 years to help top officials in the Trump Organization avoid paying taxes. Weisselberg, 74, was accused of avoiding paying taxes on $1.7 million of his income. Weisselberg, who surrendered in June 2021 after his indictment, had been set for trial in October. Law enforcement personnel escort the Trump Organization's former Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg, center, as he departs court, Friday, Aug. 12, 2022, in New York. (AP) Law enforcement personnel escort the Trump Organization's former Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg, center, as he departs court, Friday, Aug. 12, 2022, in New York. (AP) Last week, the judge, Juan Merchan, denied Weisselberg's attempt to dismiss the charges, saying the evidence presented to a grand jury was "legally sufficient." A spokesperson for Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg declined to comment. The Trump Organization faces separate charges, but there is no allegation of criminal wrongdoing against Trump, who has faced long-simmering criminal investigations on multiple fronts that have captured national attention since the FBI's search of his Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago, last Monday. Law enforcement officials have faced a number of threats in the wake of the search, with some Trump supporters calling for "civil war" and one attacking an FBI field office. A man in Pennsylvania was arrested Monday and charged with making threats on the right-wing social media website Gab. | |
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| 08-16-22 03:05am - 766 days | #306 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Rudy Giuliani was born in 1944 in the East Flatbush section during the time it was an Italian-American enclave, in New York City's borough of Brooklyn, the only child of working-class parents Helen (née D'Avanzo; 1909–2002) and Harold Angelo Giuliani (1908–1981), both children of Italian immigrants. So it's no wonder that Rudy fell under the sway of Dongle Trump, whose family had long-time ties to the Mafia. Although Dongle Trump is currently one of the biggest names in Mafia circles, Sleepy Joe Biden is trying to bring down the Dongle. And Rudy might be taken down as well. Sad ending for Rudy, who was once a shining star in New York. | |
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| 08-16-22 12:29am - 766 days | #305 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul wants Espionage Act repealed. Says he believes Dongle Trump has the right to use Top Secret Documents as toilet paper. Says that there was a crisis in the Covid epidemic, where people where fighting over toilet paper. And that is why Dongle Trump, the most loyal patriot we've seen in our lifetimes, was using Top Secret Documents as toilet paper, and flushing them down toilets while he was president. And once you get into a habit, it's hard to break. ---- ---- Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul wants Espionage Act repealed USA TODAY Merdie Nzanga, USA TODAY August 15, 2022, 11:59 AM WASHINGTON - Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., on Saturday called for the end of the Espionage Act, less than a week after the FBI's search of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home. "The espionage act was abused from the beginning to jail dissenters of WWI. It is long pastime to repeal this egregious affront to the 1st Amendment," he wrote on Twitter. On Aug. 8, FBI agents took 11 sets of classified documents, according to the search warrant and a property receipt, both of which were released Friday. Some documents were labeled as "secret" or "top secret." The warrant showed the investigation was examining possible violations of the Espionage Act. What is the Espionage Act: What is the Espionage Act? What to know, from the Sedition Act amendment to declassified documents. Going to affect after the start of World War I, the Espionage Act of 1917 illegalized obtaining information, taking photos, or copying details of all information relevant to national defense with the intent for that information to be used against the U.S. or for the interest of other countries. Many important parts of the Espionage Act are still in effect and can be used in the court of law. In its modern iteration, the act has been used to prosecute spies and leakers of classified information. The investigation does not necessarily mean the former president is a spy, in Trump's particular case, the Espionage Act relates to "gathering, transmitting or losing defense information." Contributing: Josh Meyer, Anna Kaufman | |
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| 08-16-22 12:20am - 766 days | #304 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Dongle Trump says we must be calm. But first we have to attack the FBI and bring down all corrupt cops. Only then can we re-gain our faith in Democracy and Good Government. Vote for Dongle Trump, the most corrupt President of the century. ------ ------ Trump says temperature ‘has to be brought down’ after FBI search, then repeats attacks The Hill Zach Schonfeld August 15, 2022, 7:20 AM Former President Trump on Monday said his aides have reached out to the Department of Justice (DOJ) to offer “whatever we can do to help,” saying the “temperature has to be brought down” after a spike in threats against law enforcement following the FBI’s search of his Mar-a-Lago estate. “Whatever we can do to help — because the temperature has to be brought down in the country,” Trump told Fox News. “If it isn’t, terrible things are going to happen.” At the same time that he talked about taking the temperature down, however, Trump repeated attacks on the FBI over the search for classified documents that took place at his Florida estate last week. Trump defended his supporters’ attacks in the interview, saying they are “not going to stand for another scam” and describing the FBI’s past investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election as a “witch hunt.” “People are so angry at what is taking place,” he said. The FBI executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago one week ago in connection with its investigation into whether Trump violated the Espionage Act and other federal statutes. Agents seized 11 sets of classified documents from the estate, although Trump has claimed he declassified the material. The search has set off waves of criticisms of the FBI and DOJ from Trump and his allies, who argue the investigation is politically motivated. Some have called to defund the agency. A new intelligence bulletin reportedly warned of a spike in threats against federal law enforcement following the Mar-a-Lago search, referencing an incident on Thursday at the FBI’s Cincinnati field office in which an armed man tried to breach the building and later died in a standoff with law enforcement. The Hill has requested comment from the DOJ. The New York Times reported over the weekend that a person close to Trump reached out to a DOJ official to convey a message from the former president on Thursday. “The country is on fire. What can I do to reduce the heat?” stated the message Trump wanted conveyed to the attorney general, the Times reported. More from The Hill: Bolton says Trump explanations show ‘real level of desperation’ Trump told Fox News he has not yet heard back from the department on his offer for help but added he thinks “they would want the same thing.” Yet the former president himself has been one of the most vocal critics of the FBI and DOJ since the search, repeatedly denouncing the investigation as being politically motivated and at times suggesting an unproven conspiracy that the FBI was planting evidence to hurt him. Trump as recently as Sunday evening called the search “abuse in law enforcement” and a “sneak attack on democracy” on TruthSocial. “There has never been a time like this where law enforcement has been used to break into the house of a former president of the United States, and there is tremendous anger in the country — at a level that has never been seen before, other than during very perilous times,” Trump told Fox News. His allies have echoed that sentiment, but Trump’s offer to DOJ comes after Democrats and some Republicans called for Trump to tamp down his rhetoric amid the increased threat level. Rep. Michael McCaul (Texas), the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, called Trump’s rhetoric “inflammatory” during an appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday. “I don’t want to put any law enforcement in the bull’s-eye of a potential threat,” McCaul said. “And that’s someone who’s worked with law enforcement most of my career.” Despite declining to comment on the investigation itself, the White House has pushed back on notions that DOJ is making decisions for political gain. “This is not about politicizing anything,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on ABC “This Week” on Sunday. “That is not true at all,” she continued. “And I would remind our folks on the other side that the FBI director was appointed by the president’s predecessor.” Attorney General Merrick Garland on Thursday delivered remarks announcing he personally approved the search while similarly condemning attacks against DOJ and the FBI. “I will not stand by silently when their integrity is unfairly attacked,” Garland said. Updated: 11:35 a.m. | |
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| 08-16-22 12:09am - 766 days | #303 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Is Rudy Giuliani connected to the Mafia? Rudy Giuliani rose to fame for prosecuting Mob figures. Maybe he learned too much about criminal activity by associating with Mob figures. The state of Georgia has determined Giuliani is now a target in the Georgia election interference. From hero to villain, after falling under the sway of Dongle Trump, one of the biggest heads of the Mafia crime families. ---- ---- Rudy Giuliani now a 'target' in Georgia election interference investigation USA TODAY Kevin Johnson August 15, 2022, 11:14 AM Georgia prosecutors have notified lawyers representing Rudy Giuliani that the personal attorney to former President Donald Trump is now a target of the widening election interference investigation led by the Fulton County district attorney. Giuliani attorney Robert Costello told USA TODAY that prosecutors made the notification Monday to local defense attorneys in Atlanta. The former New York mayor, who is scheduled to testify before a special grand jury in Atlanta later this week, had made wide-ranging claims that voting systems altered Georgia ballots, while ignoring a hand-count audit that confirmed President Joe Biden's victory in the state. Giuliani also asserted that about 65,000 underage voters, more than 2,500 felons and 800 dead people voted in the state. All of those claims have been debunked by the Georgia secretary of state, which found no underage voters, only 74 potential felony voters and only two votes that may have been improperly cast in the name of dead voters. According to court documents seeking Giuliani's grand jury appearance, Fulton County authorities are highlighting the Trump lawyer's Dec. 3, 2020, appearance before the Georgia State Senate in which he offered a video recording of election workers at State Farm Arena in Atlanta, purporting to show “suitcases” of unlawful ballots from unknown sources, outside the view of election poll watchers. Within 24 hours of the state Senate hearing, the video had been discredited by the secretary of state's office, concluding "no voter fraud of any kind had taken place." Fulton County prosecutors did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Costello said the action "raises questions" about the prosecutors' recent efforts to secure Giuliani's grand jury appearance set for Wednesday. Attorneys for Giuliani, initially characterized as a "material witness" in the investigation, said they had not been informed that their client's status had changed when they sought to delay his appearance last week because of health reasons. Giuliani's lawyers said doctors had not cleared him for air travel following a a recent heart procedure. And a local judge re-set Giuliani's appearance for Wednesday. "We plan on being there," Costello said Monday. The prosecutors' action, first reported earlier Monday by the New York Times, marks a dramatic escalation in the Georgia inquiry, which was set in motion by Trump's 2021 telephone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger seeking additional votes to overturn Biden's victory in Georgia. Giuliani now joins more than a dozen other figures in the Georgia inquiry to be designated as targets. Willis had previously informed 16 others allegedly involved in the state scheme to install fake slates of electors to overturn the 2020 election. An attorney for 11 of the electors called the district attorney's action a publicity stunt. "This public mis-branding of the nominee electors is an improper abuse of the investigatory process," attorney Holly Pierson argued in court documents. Giuliani also is one of several high-profile Trump associates to be swept into the Georgia investigation. Earlier Monday, a federal judge rejected Sen. Lindsey Graham's effort to nullify a grand jury subpoena for his testimony in the case. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Rudy Giuliani a 'target' of Georgia election interference probe | |
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| 08-15-22 09:32am - 766 days | #302 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Dongle Trump is forced into revealing the truth: The FBI is corrupt. It's agents planted incriminating material at Mar-a-Lago during the search, and Dongle is now demanding they return documents that he said were protected by executive privilege. Who you gonna believe: Dongle Trump, the man who made America great again? Or agents of Sleepy Joe Biden, who are taking federal monies to commit corrupt actions? Vote for Dongle, and we will survive the Biden plot to force civil war upon America. ----- ----- The New York Times Trump's Shifting Explanations Follow a Familiar Playbook Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Maggie Haberman Mon, August 15, 2022 at 4:29 AM WASHINGTON — First, he said he was “working and cooperating with” government agents who he claimed had inappropriately entered his home. Then, when the government revealed that the FBI, during its search, had recovered nearly a dozen sets of documents that were marked classified, he suggested the agents had planted evidence. Finally, his aides claimed that he had a “standing order” to declassify documents that left the Oval Office for his residence and that some of the material was protected by attorney-client and executive privilege. Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York Times Those are the ever shifting explanations that former President Donald Trump and his aides have given regarding what FBI agents found last week in a search of his residence at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida. Trump and his allies have cast the search as a partisan assault while amplifying conflicting arguments about the handling of sensitive documents and failing to answer a question at the center of the federal investigation: Why was he keeping documents, some still marked classified, at an unsecured Florida resort when officials had sought for a year to retrieve them? The often contradictory and unsupported defenses perpetuated by Trump and his team since the FBI search follow a familiar playbook of the former president’s. He has used it over decades but most visibly when he was faced with the investigation into whether his campaign in 2016 conspired with Russians and during his first impeachment trial. In both instances, he claimed victimization and mixed some facts with a blizzard of misleading statements or falsehoods. His lawyers denied he had tied his administration’s withholding of vital military aid to Ukraine to Trump’s desire for investigations into Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. When information contradicting that defense emerged in a forthcoming book by Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton, Trump’s lawyers switched to insisting that he hadn’t connected the aid to the investigations, but that if he had, it wouldn’t have been an impeachable offense. Of the multiple investigations Trump currently faces — including a state inquiry in Georgia and two federal grand jury investigations, all related to his efforts to cling to power at the end of his presidency, as well as civil and criminal inquiries in New York related to his company — the federal investigation into his handling of sensitive documents taken from the White House has emerged as one of the most potentially damaging. A search warrant made public Friday revealed federal agents had recovered top secret documents when they searched Trump’s Florida residence earlier in the week as part of an investigation into possible violations of the Espionage Act and other laws. Among the 11 sets of documents taken were some marked as “classified/TS/SCI” — shorthand for “top secret/sensitive compartmented information,” according to an inventory of the materials seized in the search. Those types of documents are meant to be viewed only in secure facilities. The inventory of documents included other material, some described as “confidential.” The stunning revelation made clear the gravity of the Justice Department’s inquiry months after the National Archives and Records Administration said it had discovered classified information in documents that Trump had held onto after leaving office. “What he doesn’t have the right to do is possess the documents; they are not his,” said Jason Baron, a former director of litigation at the National Archives for more than a decade. “There should be no presidential records at Mar-a-Lago, whether they are classified or unclassified or subject to executive privilege or subject to attorney-client privilege.” Documents covered by executive privilege are meant to be kept within the government. A spokesperson for Trump did not respond to a message seeking comment. Trump used Hillary Rodham Clinton’s mishandling of classified material, as seen in a Justice Department investigation into her email practices in 2015 and 2016, as political fodder during his first campaign. He is considering another national campaign for 2024, and questions about whether he mishandled the nation’s secrets could be problematic for him, even absent an investigation. After officials with the National Archives tried for several months to retrieve material from Trump, he turned over 15 boxes of documents in January. The next month, the National Archives confirmed the discovery of the classified information and referred the matter to the Justice Department. Over the following months, officials came to learn that Trump still had additional material at Mar-a-Lago that some of his advisers urged him to hand over. Trump described the handover of the 15 boxes as “an ordinary and routine process.” But administrations have been required to turn over documents to the National Archives before leaving office for more than 40 years, as part of the Presidential Records Act that was created in response to President Richard Nixon’s attempt to take his documents and recordings with him after resigning in disgrace. Kash Patel, a former Trump administration official, subsequently justified the handling of the documents by saying Trump had declassified them before leaving office — a claim echoed by Trump last week. In an appearance on Fox News on Friday night, right-wing writer John Solomon, one of Trump’s representatives for interacting with the National Archives, read a statement from the former president’s office asserting Trump had a “standing order” during his presidency that “documents removed from the Oval Office and taken to the residence were deemed to be declassified the moment he removed them.” That claim would not resolve the investigation. Two of the laws referred to in the search warrant executed last week criminalize the taking or concealment of government records, regardless of whether they had anything to do with national security. And laws against taking material with restricted national security information are not dependent on whether the material is technically classified. Bolton, who served as Trump’s third national security adviser over 17 months, said he had never heard of the standing order that Trump’s office claimed to have in place. It is, he said, “almost certainly a lie.” “I was never briefed on any such order, procedure, policy when I came in,” Bolton said, adding he had never been told of it while he was working there and had never heard of such a thing after. “If he were to say something like that, you would have to memorialize that, so that people would know it existed,” he said. What’s more, he pointed out, secure facilities for viewing sensitive material were constructed at Trump’s clubs in Florida and New Jersey, where he often spent weekends as president, meaning that the documents wouldn’t need to be declassified. And if they were declassified, Bolton said, they would be considered subject to public-record requests. He added: “When somebody begins to concoct lies like this, it shows a real level of desperation.” The claim that the documents held in the Florida residence were declassified also undercut an assertion one of Trump’s lawyers made in June. In a written declaration, the lawyer’s team said all material marked as classified and stored at Mar-a-Lago had been returned to the government. Last week, Trump again accused the Justice Department of acting as a tool for his political opponents, a familiar tactic for a former president who had tried repeatedly to politicize the department during his four years in office. Describing the FBI as corrupt, Trump suggested that its agents had planted incriminating material at Mar-a-Lago during the search, and he demanded they return documents that he said were protected by executive privilege. Such accusations of political motivation prompted Attorney General Merrick Garland to defend the bureau’s agents during brief remarks last week. Trump’s unverified accusations also came as the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security last week issued an intelligence bulletin that warned of an increase in threats against federal law enforcement after the search of Mar-a-Lago, including general calls for a “civil war” or “armed rebellion.”  2022 The New York Times Company | |
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| 08-15-22 08:13am - 766 days | #301 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
US Senator Lindsey Graham must testify before a special grand jury in Atlanta. Graham cries he is too important to testify. That his duties in the Senate mean he can't waste time testifying under oath. Says that he is willing to lie and make fake claims verbally, but testifying under oath can be fatal to a politician. "Don't crucify me in a court of law", screams our Trumpified politician, who is wrapping himself in the flag of Old Glory. If need be, Graham will hide in the offices of the US Supreme Court, where he knows that Brett Kavanaugh will support him in this time of peril. ---- ---- Judge: Sen. Graham must testify in Georgia election probe Associated Press KATE BRUMBACK August 15, 2022, 8:46 AM ATLANTA (AP) — A federal judge on Monday said U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham must testify before a special grand jury in Atlanta that is investigating whether former President Donald Trump and his allies broke any laws while trying to overturn his narrow 2020 general election loss in the state. Attorneys for Graham, R-S.C., had argued that his position as a U.S. senator provided him immunity from having to appear before the investigative panel and asked the judge to quash his subpoena. But U.S. District Judge Leigh Martin May wrote in an order Monday that immunities related to his role as a senator do not protect him in this case, and he must appear before the special grand jury on Aug. 23. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis opened the investigation last year, and a special grand jury with subpoena power was seated in May at her request. Last month she filed petitions seeking to compel testimony from seven Trump advisers and associates. Prosecutors have indicated they want to ask Graham about phone calls they say he made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and his staff in the weeks following the election. Graham had argued that a provision of the Constitution provides absolute protection against a senator being questioned about legislative acts. But the judge found there are “considerable areas of potential grand jury inquiry” that fall outside that provision’s scope. The judge also rejected Graham’s argument that the principle of “sovereign immunity” protects a senator from being summoned by a state prosecutor. Graham also argued that Willis, a Democrat, had not demonstrated extraordinary circumstances necessary to compel testimony from a high-ranking official. But the judge disagreed, finding that Willis has shown “extraordinary circumstances and a special need” for Graham’s testimony on issues related to alleged attempt to influence or disrupt the election in Georgia. Kevin Bishop, a Graham spokesman, said Monday the senator had no comment but referred to what Graham said when asked about the probe last week. During a news conference in Columbia, S.C., Graham said, “We will take this as far as we need to take it” when asked about his efforts to fight appearing to testify. “I was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and had to vote on certifying an election,” Graham told reporters. “This is ridiculous. This weaponization of the law needs to stop. So I will use the courts. We will go as far as we need to go and do whatever needs to be done to make sure that people like me can do their jobs without fear of some county prosecutor coming after you.” During the calls cited by Willis, Graham “questioned Secretary Raffensperger and his staff about reexamining certain absentee ballots cast in Georgia in order to explore the possibility of a more favorable outcome for former President Donald Trump,” Willis wrote in a petition. Graham also “made reference to allegations of widespread voter fraud in the November 2020 election in Georgia, consistent with public statements made by known affiliates of the Trump Campaign,” she wrote. Republican and Democratic state election officials, courts and even Trump's attorney general found there was no evidence of any voter fraud sufficient to affect the outcome of his 2020 presidential election loss to Democrat Joe Biden. | |
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| 08-15-22 06:42am - 766 days | #300 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Stephen King is not a fan of Dongle Trump. Says Dongle is a horrible person, and was a horrible president. -------- -------- Stephen King: 'Trump was a horrible president and is a horrible person' Yahoo Celebrity Megan Johnson August 14, 2022, 1:28 PM He may be the master of horror, but in his latest interview, Stephen King devotes much of his time to talking politics. The famed author of thrillers such as Carrie and The Shining spoke out in a revealing new interview with the Sunday Times, in which he called former President Donald Trump "a horrible president" and a "horrible person." "I think he actually engaged in criminal behavior and, certainly, I felt that he was a sociopath who tried to overturn the American democracy not out of any political wish of his own but because he could not admit that he had lost," said King, 74. The author previously called out Trump publicly back in 2020, when he criticized the president and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for their initial response to the coronavirus pandemic. King, who is himself active on Twitter, also spoke to the Sunday Times about the role social media has played amid the current political and cultural climate. “It’s a poison pill. I mean, I think it’s wonderful, for instance, that in the wake of George Floyd’s death, his murder by police, that you could muster via social media protests in cities across America and around the world," he noted. "But on the other hand, it’s social media that has magnified the idea that the election was stolen from Donald Trump. And there’s millions of people who believe that, and there are millions of people who believe that the COVID vaccinations are terrible things. Some of the things are good, some are not so good, and some are downright evil.” 'They’re not fascists but they’re hard right-wingers' But the writer argued that fears of fascism in the United States have been overblown. "There is a strong right wing, a political right wing in America, and they have a megaphone in some of the media," he said. "They’re not fascists but they’re hard right-wingers. They’re certainly climate change deniers, so that is a real problem. But, again, it’s the stuff that’s crazy like QAnon that gets the press. You have to remember that Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump by three million votes [in the popular vote] and that Biden beat Trump by seven million votes.” Though King admitted he struggles to relate to Trump's supporters, he refuses to strip them of their humanity based on their politics. "I do understand that a guy driving a pickup truck covered with Trump and NRA stickers — you know, take my rifle when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers — would stop and pick up a stranger if he was in a rainstorm and say: ‘Where you going, buddy?’" he explained. "That guy might go out of his way to take him there because people as individuals are good. I think sometimes when they get to be a political group that can be a problem.” For someone who is well-acquainted with horror, King has suffered significantly himself. He was gravely injured in 1999 when he was hit by a van while out for a walk near his home in Maine, where he lives with his wife of 51 years, Tabitha. Though his injuries included a collapsed lung and a leg broken in nine places, the writer managed to recover. These days, he's just grateful to be able to do what he loves for a living. “When I’m writing, I’m all about myself and about the reader, so that’s a great thing to have. I won’t say that I never in my wildest dreams dreamt of huge amounts of success, but what I really wanted was to be able to do it for a living. The rest has just been what us Americans call gravy," said King. "It’s all gravy now.” | |
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| 08-15-22 06:35am - 766 days | #299 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
President Dongle Trump pledges full support to keeping documents safe and secure. Says not to worry: everything is good. There are a bunch of worry-worts in Washington, but Dongle will keep them calm. "I declassified all papers I took with me. And I have the right to show them to anyone I want", screams Dongle Trump. "If I must return to Washington to teach you people who is in charge of our great nation, I will do so. But be afraid." Dongle is planning his return to the Whitest House. ------ ------ FBI search of Mar-a-Lago raises critical national security questions: Sources ABC News PIERRE THOMAS August 15, 2022, 6:02 AM Administration sources familiar with the investigation tell ABC News the amount and the sensitivity of confidential, secret and top-secret documents allegedly discovered in the Mar-a-Lago search raise critical national security questions that must be urgently addressed. Those officials say law enforcement and security officials must now try to track the chain of custody of the material and try to determine if any of the material was compromised. Officials acknowledged these critical questions need to be addressed because the material, in theory, would be of great value to foreign adversaries and even allies. Interviews with Trump administration officials are anticipated and authorities may even check for fingerprints to see if that provides insight into who had access. FILE PHOTO: Former U.S. President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort is seen in Palm Beach, Florida, Feb. 8, 2021. (Marco Bello/Reuters, File) FILE PHOTO: Former U.S. President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort is seen in Palm Beach, Florida, Feb. 8, 2021. (Marco Bello/Reuters, File) MORE: Authorities monitoring online threats following FBI's Mar-a-Lago raid The FBI warrant and inventory allege that 11 sets of sensitive information were recovered during the Mar-a-Lago search — including confidential, secret and top-secret documents. There was even top-secret, sensitive compartmented information (SCI) material. This classification of materials sometimes involves nuclear secrets and terrorism operations based on a Director of National Intelligence (DNI) overview of security protocols, which ABC News has reviewed. The top-secret SCI documents are classified as national intelligence and involve intel "concerning or derived from intelligence sources," according to a (DNI) document reviewed for this reporting. This material may come from allies, spying, eavesdropping or informants. Top-secret SCI should only be handled under the strictest of conditions in secure-designated locations. Such locations are supposed to be impervious to eavesdropping and no electronic devices are allowed. Only a select few are ever allowed to view SCI — for example, a "need to know appropriately cleared recipient." MORE: After Mar-a-Lago search, authorities warn of threats to the judge and others involved Why the concern? U.S. officials know such sensitive documents are targeted by enemy nations and other adversaries who are constantly attempting espionage and eavesdropping activities here in the U.S. PHOTO: Former President Donald Trump attends the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas, Aug. 6, 2022. (Bloomberg via Getty Images) PHOTO: Former President Donald Trump attends the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas, Aug. 6, 2022. (Bloomberg via Getty Images) Loss of information classified as confidential would "damage" national security — loss of secret documents would cause "serious damage" to national security and the compromise of top-secret material creates the potential for "exceptionally grave damage to the national security," according to Executive Order No. 13526 signed by then-President Barack Obama in 2009. MORE: National Archives confirms some documents retrieved from Mar-a-Lago were classified Among the critical questions in the wake of the Mar-a-Lago raid are how were critical documents stored at the White House, and how was it that so many boxes of such highly classified material could be removed in the first place; who exactly was involved in the authorization to remove the material and who removed the material; how was the material transported to Mar-a-Lago — by plane, by truck — and who had access to it during transport. Top-secret material must have specifically authorized transport, may not be sent via U.S. mail and may only be transmitted by authorized government courier service. Other critical questions include: was the material stored in Mar-a-Lago, who had access to it and was it under constant security camera surveillance; and what were the security measures and protocols. The Presidential Records Act establishes that presidential records automatically transfer into the legal custody of the archivist as soon as the president leaves office. FBI search of Mar-a-Lago raises critical national security questions: Sources originally appeared on abcnews.go.com | |
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| 08-14-22 10:43am - 767 days | #298 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Rep. Adam Schiff, one of Dongle Trump's most ardent supporters, says there is no evidence that Trump declassified seized docs. He says this with tears in his eyes, because he knows Dongle Trump as one of the most truthful presidents Schiff has ever known. However, Dongle Trump himself claims that all the seized docs were de-classified by Dongle, while still in office. Dongle can't de-classify docs after he leaves office, so he is being guided by expert counsel on what to say. Except that only Dongle's supporters say that Dongle could wave a wand and make the classified docs "unclassified". Other experts say that to de-classify a document, you have to follow procedure. Dongle disputes that: "If I de-classify something in my mind, it's de-classified", explains Dongle. ------- ------- Schiff: 'No evidence' that Trump declassified seized docs CBS News Melissa Quinn August 14, 2022, 8:02 AM Scroll back up to restore default view. Washington — Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, head of the House Intelligence Committee, said Sunday that he has not seen evidence that former President Donald Trump declassified documents that were found by the FBI during a search of his South Florida residence, Mar-a-Lago, last week. "We should determine, you know, whether there was any effort during the presidency to go through the process of declassification," Schiff said in an interview on "Face the Nation." "I've seen no evidence of that, nor have they presented any evidence of that." After the FBI executed a search warrant at Trump's residence, prompting outrage from the former president and his Republican allies, a federal magistrate judge in Florida unsealed Friday the warrant and list of items it seized in the search. According to the records made public, the FBI took 11 sets of classified documents, some of which were designated top secret, secret and confidential, as well as TS/SCI, or top secret/sensitive compartmented information. The former president's attorneys did not object to the release of the search warrant and related documents, and he claimed all the records seized during the search had been declassified while he was still in office. While a sitting president has broad declassification authority, Schiff noted that does not extend to a former president and called it "absurd" for Trump to claim he retroactively declassified the documents he took to Mar-a-Lago. He also noted the statutes the Justice Department said in the warrant it is investigating Trump for possibly violating do not require information to be classified. "If they would be damaging to national security, it's a problem. It's a major problem," the California Democrat said. Schiff also said it's a "serious problem" if Trump's attorneys certified to the Justice Department that all classified information was retrieved when the National Archives and Records Administration obtained 15 boxes from Mar-a-Lago in mid-January, but did not turn over all classified or national security information. Some of the boxes the National Archives retrieved contained classified material and the agency requested the Justice Department investigate Trump's handling of White House records. "I can tell you anyone in the intelligence community that had documents like that marked top secret/SCI, in their residence after authorities went to them, you know, they would be under serious investigation," he said. Schiff and Rep. Carolyn Maloney, head of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, requested Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines conduct a briefing and damage assessment, which he said is routine when there has been a disclosure of classified information. "What is, to me, most disturbing here is the degree to which at least from the public reporting, it appears to be willful, on the president's part, the keeping of these documents after the government was requesting them back," he said. "And that adds another layer of concern." | |
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| 08-14-22 07:46am - 767 days | #297 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Russian ex-president warns that if the fighting in Ukraine continues, the nuclear power station could explode and spew radioactive material into the air, contaminating Europe and possibly the Untied States of Trumperland if tourists start to visit Ukraine before the damage is fully contained. So, the Untied States of Trumperland must lay down their arms, and Ukraine must stop fighting and let Russia molest and rape the Ukrainians at will. Only then will Russia feel safe from the evil people who want to hurt Russia. Also, possibley, the Russian ex-president is warning that evil people could cause nuclear accidents in Europe. Enquiring minds want to know: why do the Russians sound like relatives of Dongle Trump, blaming everyone around them but excluding themselves from blame? ------ ------ 'Accidents can happen at European nuclear plants too,' Russian ex-president says Reuters August 12, 2022, 2:49 PM Scroll back up to restore default view. LONDON (Reuters) - Russian ex-president Dmitry Medvedev issued a veiled threat on Friday to Ukraine's Western allies who have accused Russia of creating the risk of a nuclear catastrophe by stationing forces around the Ukrainian Zaporizhzhia power station. Ukraine has accused Russia of firing at Ukrainian towns from the site in the knowledge that Ukrainian forces could not risk returning fire. It says Moscow has shelled the area itself while blaming Ukraine. Russia says it is Ukraine that has shelled the plant. "They [Kyiv and its allies] say it's Russia. That's obviously 100% nonsense, even for the stupid Russophobic public," Medvedev, now deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council, wrote on his Telegram channel. "They say it happens purely by chance, like 'We didn't mean to'," he added. "What can I say? Let's not forget that the European Union also has nuclear power plants. And accidents can happen there, too." The U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency has said the shelling of Zaporizhzhia, Europe's biggest nuclear power station, could cause a nuclear disaster, but has been unable to arrange the conditions for an inspection. Kyiv and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres have called for the area to be demilitarised, and the Group of Seven major economies have urged Russia to return it to Ukraine. But senior Russian lawmaker Leonid Slutsky, chair of the lower house's foreign affairs committee, said the idea of returning the plant to the control of Ukrainians was "a "mockery from the point of view of ensuring safety". "And all the statements of the G7 foreign ministers in support of their demands are nothing but 'sponsorship of nuclear terrorism'," he added on his Telegram channel. Russia seized the Zaporizhzhia plant in March after invading Ukraine on Feb. 24, but the site is still being operated by its Ukrainian staff. Kyiv said the complex had been struck five times on Thursday, including near where radioactive materials are stored. Russian-appointed officials said Ukraine had shelled the plant twice, disrupting a shift change, Russia's state-owned TASS news agency said. | |
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| 08-14-22 07:35am - 767 days | #296 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Dongle Trump's Florida home has been posted as off-limits to the FBI and all Feds. "You can't trust any of the fuckers", Dongle Trump complains. "They work for Sleepy Joe, one of the biggest Mafia crime bosses in the Untied States of Trumperland." Note: Sleepy Joe is a rival to crime boss Dongle Trump, experts say. Sleepy Joe doesn't understand the way Dongle Trump operates. As soon as Dongle Trump says or tweets or sees a secure document, he immediately processes that information and de-classifies it, thereby making it available to use for toilet paper or other cleaning tasks. Dongle is a marvel at sanitizing. -------- -------- Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort posed rare security challenges, experts say Reuters Steve Holland and Karen Freifeld August 14, 2022, 6:29 AM By Steve Holland and Karen Freifeld WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The seizure of classified U.S. government documents from Donald Trump's sprawling Mar-a-Lago retreat spotlights the ongoing national security concerns presented by the former president, and the home he dubbed the Winter White House, some security experts say. Trump is under federal investigation for possible violations of the Espionage Act, which makes it unlawful to spy for another country or mishandle U.S. defense information, including sharing it with people not authorized to receive it, a search warrant shows. As president, Trump sometimes shared information, regardless of its sensitivity. Early in his presidency, he spontaneously gave highly classified information to Russia’s foreign minister about a planned Islamic State operation while he was in the Oval Office, U.S. officials said at the time. But it was at Mar-a-Lago, where well-heeled members and guests attended weddings and fundraising dinners and frolicked on a breezy ocean patio, that U.S. intelligence seemed especially at risk. The Secret Service said when Trump was president that it does not determine who is granted access to the club, but does do physical screenings to make sure no one brings in prohibited items, and further screening for guests in proximity to the president and other protectees. The Justice Department’s search warrant raises concerns about national security, said former DOJ official Mary McCord. "Clearly they thought it was very serious to get these materials back into secured space," McCord said. "Even just retention of highly classified documents in improper storage - particularly given Mar-a-Lago, the foreign visitors there and others who might have connections with foreign governments and foreign agents - creates a significant national security threat." Trump, in a statement on his social media platform, said the records were "all declassified" and placed in "secure storage." McCord said, however, she saw no "plausible argument that he had made a conscious decision about each one of these to declassify them before he left." After leaving office, she said, he did not have the power to declassify information. Monday's seizure by FBI agents of multiple sets of documents and dozens of boxes, including information about U.S. defense and a reference to the "French President," poses a frightening scenario for intelligence professionals. "It's a nightmarish environment for a careful handling of highly classified information," said a former U.S. intelligence officer. "It's just a nightmare." The DOJ hasn't provided specific information about how or where the documents and photos had been stored, but the club's general vulnerabilities have been well documented. In a high profile example, Trump huddled in 2017 with Japan's then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at an outdoor dinner table while guests hovered nearby, listening and taking photos that they later posted on Twitter. The dinner was disrupted by a North Korean missile test, and guests listened as Trump and Abe figured out what to say in response. After issuing a statement, Trump dropped by a wedding party at the club. "What we saw was Trump be so lax in security that he was having a sensitive meeting regarding a potential war topic where non-U.S. government personnel could observe and photograph," said Mark Zaid, a lawyer who specializes in national security cases. "It would have been easy for someone to also have had a device that heard and recorded what Trump was saying as well." The White House press secretary at the time of the Abe visit, Sean Spicer, told reporters afterward that Trump had been briefed about the North Korean launch in a secure room at Mar-a-Lago. He played down the scene on the patio. "At that time, apparently there was a photo taken, which everyone jumped to nefarious conclusions about what may or may not be discussed. There was simply a discussion about press logistics, where to host the event," he said. It was in the secure room at Mar-a-Lago where Trump decided to launch airstrikes against Syria for the use of chemical weapons in April 2017. The decision made, Trump repaired to dinner with visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping. Over a dessert of chocolate cake, Trump informed Xi about the airstrikes. In 2019, a Chinese woman who passed security checkpoints at the club carrying a thumb drive coded with “malicious” software was arrested for entering a restricted property and making false statements to officials, authorities said at the time. Then-White House chief of staff John Kelly launched an effort to try to limit who had access to Trump at Mar-a-Lago, but the effort fizzled when Trump refused to cooperate, aides said at the time. (The story adds dropped word "been" in paragraph 16.) (Reporting By Steve Holland and Karen Freifeld; Editing by Heather Timmons, William Mallard and Daniel Wallis) | |
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| 08-14-22 01:01am - 768 days | #295 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
The GOP screams: dismantle the FBI. Stop attacking Dongle Trump, the man who saved America and made it great again. Cops are evil. They planted Fake Evidence that Dongle is a criminal. Take all weapons away from cops, and let the US Military patrol our streets. Until Dongle can organize a sect of hard-core rabid defenders of the Great White Way. Order your "Defund the FBI” hat today, and wear it with pride with Dongle Trump and other patriots. ---- ---- The New York Times As Search Shows Trump Had Secret Files, GOP Splits Over Assailing FBI Luke Broadwater and Michael C. Bender Sat, August 13, 2022 at 7:40 AM WASHINGTON — Republicans struggled to come together on how to respond to the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago as it emerged Friday that federal law enforcement officers had recovered top secret files from former President Donald Trump’s Florida home. They were divided over whether to attack the nation’s top law enforcement agencies and how aggressive to be in those attacks. Publicly, Trump’s allies continued an aggressive push to portray the former president as a political target while sending urgent-sounding fundraising appeals to supporters. But privately, some advisers around Trump, unsure about what the FBI might have recovered, began quietly cautioning fellow Republicans to dial down their statements. On Capitol Hill, a group of conservative Republicans known as the House Freedom Caucus — many of whom dined with Trump at his Bedminster, New Jersey, club Tuesday and denounced the FBI search as a sign that the Biden administration was turning the country into a “banana republic” — canceled a news conference scheduled for Friday morning. They had planned to further attack the Department of Justice. That decision, publicly attributed to a scheduling conflict, came after a gunman’s attack on an FBI office in Cincinnati on Thursday afternoon and as more details emerged about Trump’s possession of classified documents. Instead, the Republican lawmakers addressing the media Friday were members of the House Intelligence Committee, who delivered a more nuanced message, saying they remained supportive of law enforcement and underscored their desire to maintain the FBI. Still, they said that tough questions remained for Attorney General Merrick Garland about his decision to take the bold step of ordering a search of the former president’s home, and they promised to hold the Justice Department accountable. Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio, the ranking Republican on the committee, denounced comments from fellow Republicans, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who have called on Congress to “defund the FBI” before having a full understanding of what officers were seeking. (Greene has begun wearing a “Defund the FBI” hat.) Another House Republican, Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona, went so far in the immediate aftermath of the search as to write on Twitter, “We must destroy the FBI.” (Gosar avoided the FBI search Friday, devoting his Twitter account to other subjects.) By contrast, Turner said pointedly Friday: “We support our men and women in uniform. And we request that anybody who’s made outrageous statements like that, that you question them and not us.” After a federal judge unsealed the warrant authorizing the search of Mar-a-Lago and an inventory of items removed from the property by federal agents, Republicans followed different strategies in responding. The documents showed the FBI had retrieved 11 sets of classified documents, including four sets of top secret documents, as part of an inquiry into potential violations of the Espionage Act and two other laws. While the Republicans said they all stood by Trump, some embraced a toned-down response. “I’m not for anything that’s critical of law enforcement,” said Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla. “On the other hand, this is a very unusual situation, and the DOJ and the FBI ought to come up here and answer questions. It just seems to me this was excessive and over the top.” Cole said he was “willing to listen” to what the Justice Department had to say. Not so for Greene. On the Capitol steps, Greene told a flock of reporters she planned to march into the building to introduce articles of impeachment against Garland, whom she accused of “political persecution” of Trump. “The whole purpose of this is to prevent President Trump from ever being able to hold office,” she said. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, a staunch ally of Trump, similarly brushed off questions about Trump’s handling of top secret documents, citing the former president’s claim that he had declassified the documents retrieved by the FBI. “Come on, he’s the ultimate classifier and decider,” Jordan said. “Everyone knows this is ridiculous. Everyone knows it.” Those comments were a far cry from Turner’s message hours earlier, when he told reporters: “The issue of the handling of classified information is an issue that, of course, our committee deals with and that we’re very concerned with.” For their part, Democrats — whose intraparty tug of war over whether and how to reform police departments has been used against them by Republicans to portray the party writ large as wanting to “defund the police” — seemed to welcome the opportunity to turn the tables. “While the other side wants to defund the FBI, we want to fund our kids’ future,” Rep. Tim Ryan, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Ohio, said on the House floor while debating a spending measure Friday. 2022 The New York Times Company | |
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| 08-13-22 09:37pm - 768 days | #294 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
CONTINUED: “My leading concern at this time is that the hyperbolic rhetoric could motivate individuals to act violently while believing they are doing so for a broader cause, as we have already witnessed in the attempted breach of an FBI facility in Cincinnati on Thursday,” Holt said. Merrick Garland at the microphone, in front of the seal of the Justice Department. U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland delivers a statement at the Department of Justice on Aug. 11. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images) Federal law enforcement officials are equally concerned. “[The] bureau is on edge,” said an FBI source, who spoke to Yahoo News on background after the attempted attack on the FBI office in Ohio. “We are all on edge.” Another official with the Department of Homeland Security said the incident in Cincinnati was “just further evidence that false narratives can lead to real threats and violence.” FBI Director Christopher Wray issued a statement Thursday condemning the “unfounded attacks on the integrity of the FBI,” which he said “erode respect for the rule of law and are a grave disservice to the men and women who sacrifice so much to protect others.” Attorney General Merrick Garland echoed Wray’s statement at a press conference Thursday, where he announced that the Justice Department had submitted a motion to unseal a search warrant and property receipt from the FBI’s search of Trump’s Florida home. “I will not stand by silently when their integrity is unfairly attacked,” said Garland, who noted that he “personally approved the decision to seek a search warrant in this matter.” Ari Lightman, professor of digital media and marketing at Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College, said the violent rhetoric stemming from the Mar-a-Lago raid is just the latest escalation of an extreme polarization on the right that has been on the rise since at least 2008, with the election of former President Barack Obama. Lightman told Yahoo News that while talk of a new civil war is “really troubling,” perhaps more troubling is the rhetoric from lawmakers and right-wing media figures eroding public trust in all government institutions, whether the FBI or the public school system. This lack of trust, he said, fuels extremism and perpetuates the notion that “the only way through this is not through discussion or debate, it's through violence.” Even after a man was killed after attempting to break into the FBI office in Cincinnati, the current campaign to condemn the FBI showed no signs of slowing down. At a press conference on Capitol Hill on Friday morning, members of the House Intelligence Committee’s Republican minority struggled to strike a balance between condemning violence and expressing support for rank-and-file FBI agents, while simultaneously accusing the agency’s leadership of “brazen politicization.” Meanwhile, rather than release the search warrant himself, Trump spent Friday suggesting that the FBI planted evidence on his property and demanding the release of the documents related to the search of Mar-a-Lago, while pre-emptively attempting to discredit any damning information they may reveal. By the time the judge ordered the release of documents related to the raid on Friday afternoon, the discussion on platforms like Truth Social and others that hosted some of the most violent rhetoric in the immediate aftermath of the search had turned to a new conspiracy theory positing that such threats, and the attempted attack on the FBI office in Ohio, had been part of a “false flag” orchestrated by the FBI itself. The goal of such an operation, according to users, was to create a pretext for President Biden to declare martial law and, ultimately, incite a civil war. Jana Winter contributed reporting. | |
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| 08-13-22 09:35pm - 768 days | #293 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Dongle Trump reaveals the truth: President Sleepy Joe Biden will declare martial law and incite a civil war. That was the reason the FBI invaded the home of Dongle Trump, the most honored hero of America. Never before, in our history, has a white man be persecuted so heinously. Dongle has committed his life to spreading warmth and cheer to the peoples of America. And now the scummy Dems are trying to bring Dongle down. If people rise up in revolt and punish Sleepy Joe, it won't be Dongle's fault: he is for peace and brotherhood and forgiving his fellow men. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., and Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz. are calling for the FBI to be dismantled. Florida Sen. Rick Scott is comparing the FBI to the Gestapo. Dongle Trump says we must cleanse America of traitors and commies and evil doers who will try to bring us down. But not to worry: Dongle Trump will re-take the Whitest House and put Sleepy Joe and that evil bitch Hillary Clinton in jail, and make America great again. ----- ----- Extremism experts warn of echoes of Jan. 6 in rightist response to FBI Mar-a-Lago raid Yahoo News Caitlin Dickson August 13, 2022, 11:58 AM Days before he was killed by police after allegedly firing a nail gun into an FBI field office in Cincinnati, the man whom officials have identified as Ricky Walter Shiffer appears to have posted online about wanting to kill FBI agents after the search at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. Screenshots taken from Trump’s social media platform, Truth Social, show that an account using Shiffer’s name, which appears to have been removed, posted a “call to arms” on Tuesday morning, hours after Trump confirmed the raid had taken place at his Florida residence a day earlier. “We must not tolerate this one,” read one of the posts, which urged others to “be ready for combat” and to “respond with force. “Kill the F.B.I. on sight,” the post said. The same account appears to have posted its final “Truth” on Thursday morning, shortly after the attempted breach of the FBI’s Cincinnati office. Authorities said that Shiffer, who was wearing body armor and is believed to have been armed with an AR-15 as well as a nail gun, fled the scene after activating an alarm and led law enforcement officers on a chase that ended in a cornfield, where after a lengthy standoff, authorities say he was fatally shot by police. The New York Times reported Friday that, for months before he attempted to attack the FBI office in Ohio, federal authorities had been looking into whether Shiffer, 42, of Columbus, had been involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Whether the Truth Social account with Shiffer’s name belonged to him has not yet been confirmed. But extremism experts and some federal law enforcement officials said the Cincinnati incident demonstrates the potential harm that can come from the kind of violent rhetoric that has been circulating online in the wake of the FBI’s search at Mar-a-Lago. “The online trail left by the individual who engaged in that attack illustrates vividly how this type [of] rhetoric can motivate individuals toward real-world violence,” said Jared Holt, a senior research manager at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. Holt told Yahoo News that he’s "observed high levels of apocalyptic, violent and conspiratorial rhetoric present in online pro-Trump communities following the search, contributing to a general environment of rage that is not dissimilar to the lead-up to the Capitol riot. “Similarly to that period,” Holt said, “these expressions of anger are happening in plain sight online and being regurgitated by powerful Trump supporters in government and media.” Supporters wearing MAGA caps carry U.S. flags and flags saying Trump Is My President. Supporters of former President Donald Trump gather near his residence at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., on Aug. 9. (Giorgio Viera/AFP via Getty Images) Minutes after Florida Politics first reported Monday evening that the FBI had executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago, Trump, who was in New York City at the time, took to Truth Social to announce that his “beautiful home” and private club in Palm Beach, Fla., was “currently under siege, raided and occupied by a large group of FBI agents.” In a lengthy statement, the former president went on to decry the search and declare, without evidence, that he was the victim of “prosecutorial misconduct, the weaponization of the Justice System, and an attack by the Radical Left Democrats who desperately don't want me to run for President in 2024." News outlets soon reported that the raid had been related to an investigation into Trump's potential mishandling of classified documents. In May, a federal grand jury began investigating whether he had mishandled top-secret documents, including taking 15 boxes of material to the Florida resort. Nonetheless, Trump’s outrage quickly reverberated across the right, with Republican lawmakers and conservative commentators echoing his claims of persecution. It didn’t take long for some of the rhetoric around the Mar-a-Lago raid to turn violent. Within hours of Trump’s statement announcing the raid, social media users from Twitter to fringe platforms like Gab, Telegram and Truth Social were issuing calls for civil war and vowing to take up arms. Much of the vitriol was targeted at the FBI, prompting the head of the the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association to issue a statement Wednesday denouncing “the extreme threats of violence levied against agents at the Federal Bureau of Investigation this week.” The federal magistrate judge who signed off on the warrant authorizing the search of Trump’s home also quickly became a target after his name was revealed in news reports. Ben Popp, an investigative researcher with the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism, said that he conducted an analysis of various platforms popular with extremists, such as image boards like 4chan and 8kun, Telegram groups and TheDonald, and found that use of the term “civil war” spiked on Aug. 9 — the day after the FBI’s search. “The last time it spiked like that was, interestingly enough, in November 2020,” Popp said, after the contentious presidential election in which the incumbent, Trump, ultimately lost to Democrat Joe Biden. Popp said the recent resurgence in civil war discourse suggests that the search of Trump’s residence is serving as a similar rallying cry for his supporters. In both scenarios, Popp said, the violent rhetoric spreading across fringe spaces could be traced directly to the baseless conspiracy theories and apocalyptic narratives promoted by Trump and his allies in mainstream forums, from Fox News to Twitter, which seek to paint Republicans as victims, whether of the biased media, vote-rigging Democrats or a politically motivated FBI. Popp noted a tweet by Charlie Kirk, the founder of conservative advocacy group Turning Point USA, which described the search of Mar-a-Lago as “a military operation against a political dissident.” He described it as just one example of the kind of “apocalyptic narrative” apparently inspiring more explicit calls for violence. While such “rhetoric is not violent in nature, it’s certainly fueling the violent comments we’re seeing in different spaces online,” Popp said. Kirk’s tweet was in line with calls to dismantle the FBI from far-right Republican lawmakers like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., and Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., or Florida Sen. Rick Scott’s comments comparing the FBI to the Gestapo in an interview with Fox Business. Moderate Republicans who have previously acknowledged how Trump’s words can inspire harm in the real world were also willing to jump to the former president’s defense. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., who said immediately after Jan. 6 that Trump “bears responsibility” for the Capitol riot, issued a statement Monday declaring that the Justice Department had “reached an intolerable state of weaponized politicization,” and threatening to launch an investigation if Republicans win back control of the House in the upcoming midterm elections. Even former Vice President Mike Pence, who was personally targeted by the violent mob on Jan. 6, expressed “deep concern” at what he called the “appearance of continued partisanship by the Justice Department.” This persecution narrative has formed the basis for a variety of violent posts that have popped up on many of the websites where Trump supporters discussed plans for Jan. 6, such as the pro-Trump message board TheDonald. It also seems to be drawing in some of the same people. In addition to Shiffer, who had not been charged in connection to Jan. 6, NBC News revealed that at least one user who posted about “civil war” on TheDonald following Monday’s raid is currently awaiting sentencing for his participation in the Capitol riot. “I think these insurrectionist attitudes haven’t gone away since Jan. 6, it just takes events like this for that to bubble back to the surface,” said Popp. Popp and Holt, however, noted that there are some key differences between the violent rhetoric stemming from the FBI search and that seen in the lead-up to Jan. 6, 2021, when Trump called his supporters to come to Washington for a “wild” protest to oppose the congressional certification of Biden’s victory in the 2020 election. Most notably, in contrast to Jan. 6, the violent discourse in recent days has not focused on a singular event or call to action. Popp and Holt predict that any action inspired by the raid is likely to be smaller and less concentrated than the insurrection that drew hundreds to the Capitol last year. | |
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| 08-13-22 08:40pm - 768 days | Original Post - #1 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Sometimes, your recollections of what happened during an event can be unclear. This is common. But a simple explanation of how the gun might have been able to fire is needed: I have read, many times, that old-time revolvers should have been carried with an empty load in the chamber under the hammer for safety reasons. To prevent accidental discharge. Or a simple explanation of how the gun was fired. The FBI is saying the old-time revolver could not have been fired without pulling the trigger. If the FBI is making a false statement, it would be hard as hell to sue them: but Alec Baldwin is getting smeared by this report. ----- FBI contradicts Alec Baldwin on ‘Rust’ shooting, says trigger had to be pulled: report NY Daily News Joseph Wilkinson August 13, 2022, 3:02 PM A distraught Alec Baldwin lingers in the parking lot outside the Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office in Santa Fe, N.M., on Oct. 21, 2021. A new FBI report contradicts Alec Baldwin’s account on the fatal shooting on the set of “Rust” last year. The actor said he didn’t pull the trigger, but the feds found that the old-school weapon, a .45 Colt single-action revolver, could not be fired without someone pulling the trigger, ABC News reported Friday. Investigators found that an accidental discharge was impossible in the quarter-cock, half-cock and full-cock hammer positions, according to ABC News. The gun “could not be made to fire without a pull of the trigger while the working internal components were intact and functional,” FBI investigators wrote, according to ABC. Baldwin, 64, said he cocked the hammer but never pulled the trigger on the gun before it fired a single bullet that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and wounded director Joel Souza on the western set at Bonanza Creek Ranch near Santa Fe, N.M. “The trigger wasn’t pulled. I didn’t pull the trigger,” Baldwin said in a December 2021 ABC News interview, two months after the Oct. 21 shooting. “I would never point a gun at someone and pull the trigger on them, never.” The shooting is still under investigation. No charges have been filed yet, but New Mexico authorities have stressed that the probe is ongoing. Baldwin has consistently argued that he’s not at fault and that whoever brought the loaded gun with live ammunition onto the set is the primary culprit. “Someone is responsible for what happened,” he said in the ABC interview. “And I can’t say who that is, but I know it’s not me.” | |
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| 08-13-22 08:30am - 768 days | #292 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
CONTINUED: Immerman said given the information that’s already emerged from the National Archives, it’s likely any classified information that went to Mar-a-Lago was mishandled en route. “When they’re moved you can’t just put them in a briefcase — they’re put in pouches that are double locked,” he said. “When I worked in national intelligence I could not carry documents by myself — I had to be accompanied by someone,” Immerman added. Noah Bookbinder, president of the left-leaning government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and a former federal corruption prosecutor, said, “If there were people who knew they were removing records they were not supposed to remove, they could have some legal exposure as well.” Trump has decried the search as part of an ongoing Democratic "witch hunt" against him. “After working and cooperating with the relevant Government agencies, this unannounced raid on my home was not necessary or appropriate,” he said in a statement Monday. Stephen Miller, a former senior White House adviser to Trump who still speaks regularly to the former president, said while he was not addressing any specifics regarding the filing or declassification of documents, suggestions that the former president broke the law represent a “completely backwards upside-down nonsensical understanding of our Constitution” because it essentially makes a president subservient to unelected “preening insufferable bureaucrats” in the branch of government the president controls. “The president can choose to use the declassification process or he can choose not to,” Miller said, “or you can merely by his actions move something from the classified to the declassified bucket list.” Bookbinder, whose organization filed lawsuits against the Trump administration for flouting record retention policies, said Trump and his aides also should have been well aware that the records they took didn’t belong to them. “These were all presidential records that should have been turned over to the National Archives,” Bookbinder said. “The White House counsel informed Donald Trump and others about their requirements under the Presidential Records Act. It would be hard for them to say they didn’t understand what their obligations are under the law here,” Bookbinder said. Immerman said he was distressed at the possibility of missing records, especially given reports of Trump destroying government documents during his time in office. "We don't know what was destroyed," Immerman said. "Speaking as a historian, it is extremely disconcerting and upsetting. At this point, I find it highly doubtful that we will be able to write a thorough and accurate history of the Trump administration. There will be holes in it." | |
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| 08-13-22 08:28am - 768 days | #291 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Trump says he declassified Mar-a-Lago documents. Experts say it's unclear whether that will hold up. If Dongle Trump gets away with his claim that he can wave a wand and make all classfied documents unclassified, then Sleepy Joe Biden will have lots of work ahead of him, trying to get the papers classified again. Does Dongle Trump really have the power to rewrite the laws? ---- ---- Trump says he declassified Mar-a-Lago documents. Experts say it's unclear whether that will hold up. NBC Universal Dareh Gregorian and Marc Caputo and Courtney Kube August 12, 2022, 12:34 PM Former President Donald Trump and his allies say that any sensitive White House documents he brought with him to his Mar-a-Lago estate had been declassified, but some legal and presidential record experts are skeptical of that claim — and say that Trump could be in criminal jeopardy regardless. While the Justice Department has a long history of prosecuting cases involving the mishandling of classified information, no such case has ever been brought against a former president — the one government official who can declassify information at will. "As the facts stand now, his defense would be, ‘I declassified those documents. I am not therefore in possession of classified documents now,'” said Charles Stimson, a senior fellow with the conservative Heritage Foundation and a former federal prosecutor. Others take a different view — including, it seems, the FBI, which executed a search warrant at Trump's Florida resort on Monday tied to classified information Trump allegedly took with him from the White House in January 2021. Trump lawyer Christina Bobb said Tuesday that the warrant left by agents indicated they were investigating possible violations of laws dealing with the handling of classified material and the Presidential Records Act. The 1978 Presidential Records Act, which requires presidents to turn over documents to the National Archives at the end of their administration, lacks an enforcement mechanism, but there are multiple federal laws regarding the handling of classified documents. Trump signed one such law in 2018, increasing the penalty for "unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material" from one year to five years in prison. But those in Trump’s orbit say that no president is personally bound by the removal and retention rules governing classified documents, which can be declassified if the president simply says they are, according to Ric Grenell, who was Trump’s acting director of national intelligence and who handled highly classified information. “There is no approval process for the president of the United States to declassify intelligence. There is this phony idea that he must provide notification for declassification but that’s just silly. Who is he supposed to notify? I think it’s the height of swampism to think the president should seek bureaucrats’ approval,” Grenell told NBC News, emphasizing that he wasn’t personally speaking for the president. Trump himself said on his Truth Social platform Friday, "It was all declassified." Richard Immerman, a historian and an assistant deputy director of national intelligence in the Obama administration, said that, while the president has the authority to declassify documents, there’s a formal process for doing so, and there's no indication Trump used it. “He can’t just wave a wand and say it’s declassified,” Immerman said. “There has to be a formal process. That’s the only way the system can work,” because otherwise there would be no way of knowing who could handle or see the documents. “I’ve seen thousands of declassified documents. They’re all marked ‘declassified’ with the date they were declassified,” Immerman said. That does not appear to have been the case with some of the documents that were returned to the National Archives from Mar-a-Lago this year. Archivist David S. Ferriero, an Obama appointee, said in a letter to the House Committee on Oversight and Reform in February that his agency had "identified items marked as classified national security information within the boxes” from Mar-a-Lago. Kash Patel, a Pentagon chief of staff during the Trump administration, told Breitbart News in May that the documents previously recovered from Mar-a-Lago had been declassified by Trump, but their markings were not updated. “Trump declassified whole sets of materials in anticipation of leaving government that he thought the American public should have the right to read themselves,” Patel said then. “It’s information that Trump felt spoke to matters regarding everything from Russiagate to the Ukraine impeachment fiasco to major national security matters of great public importance — anything the president felt the American people had a right to know is in there and more,” Patel said then, adding that he was with Trump when the then-president said, “We are declassifying this information.” Patel, who declined comment on the documents this week, told Breitbart that the “White House counsel failed to generate the paperwork to change the classification markings, but that doesn’t mean the information wasn’t declassified.” A source who had discussed the matter with Trump but was not authorized to reveal those conversations said the former president wasn't concerned with formal protocol. "We’ve told him there’s a process and not following it could be a problem but he didn’t care because he thinks this stuff is dumb,” the source said. “His attitude is that he is the president. He is in charge of the country and therefore national security. So he decides.” Bradley Moss, a lawyer who specializes in national security issues, said, "That's not how it works." "Trump could say we're declassifying this until he's blue in the face, but no one is allowed to touch those records until the markings are addressed," said Moss, a frequent Trump critic on Twitter. He noted that Trump and White House officials should have been aware that more would be needed to declassify documents given their own experience on the issue. In October 2020, Trump tweeted, “I have fully authorized the total Declassification of any & all documents pertaining to the single greatest political CRIME in American History, the Russia Hoax. Likewise, the Hillary Clinton Email Scandal. No redactions!” When news organizations sought to obtain the supposedly declassified documents, they were told they were still under wraps. Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows said in a sworn court filing in the case, “The president indicated to me that his statements on Twitter were not self-executing declassification orders and do not require the declassification or release of any particular documents.” In the current dispute, the apparent lack of a paper trail showing that Trump declassified the documents before he left office could be a problem for the former president, said Stephen Vladeck, a University of Texas School of Law professor who specializes in national security. “President Trump had the power to declassify whichever documents he wanted to while he was president, but not any longer. So I’m not sure it’s at all obvious that he could now claim that he declassified documents while he was still in office if there’s no evidence to support it,” Vladeck said. The Heritage Foundation's Stimson has a different view, given that Trump was once "the ultimate declassification authority." “If any president decides to declassify a document and doesn’t tell anybody — but he has made the decision to declassify something — then the document is declassified,” Stimson said. He added that “there’s a rich debate about whether or not a document is declassified if a president has decided but not communicated it outside of his own head,” but Stimson said he would rather be the defense than the prosecution if the dispute ever went to trial. Vladeck said Trump could still face legal ramifications regardless, because "some of the criminal statutes that are being discussed apply whether or not the underlying information is classified." "The Presidential Records Act and other similar statutes constrain President Trump’s ability to do what he wishes with at least some of the official documents from his tenure, regardless of whether those documents include sensitive national security information," Vladeck said. Moss said one of the laws that prosecutors could theoretically bring to bear against Trump is 18 U.S. Code § 793 — "Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information." The law penalizes "Whoever, lawfully having possession of, access to, control over, or being entrusted with any document, writing, code book ... or note relating to the national defense" who "through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed." It also penalizes someone who "willfully retains the same and fails to deliver it on demand to the officer or employee of the United States entitled to receive it." In this instance, the National Archives said it had been negotiating with Trump's team for the return of documents since last year, and Moss noted that Trump's lawyer acknowledged they met with Justice Department as recently as early June about records that were still missing. On Thursday, a source familiar with the matter confirmed to NBC News that Trump also received a federal grand jury subpoena demanding the return of sensitive documents the government believed he'd held onto. What is still unclear, however, is what exactly investigators were looking for at Mar-a-Lago, and whether they found it. "We don't know what we don't know," Moss said. | |
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| 08-13-22 08:15am - 768 days | #290 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Pipeline break spills 45,000 gallons of diesel in Wyoming. Dongle Trump says accidents happen. Was the spill deliberate, by the company, to make the land in Wyoming available for purchase at a low price because of the spilled diesel? And will the company make the US government responsible for cleaning up the spill, so the company can later sell off parts of the land for a huge profit? Dongle Trump is an undisclosed shareholder in the company. He is also getting paid for advising the company on legal and political issues. Has Dongle Trump registered as a lobbyist for the company? Public searches show no records of Dongle Trump as a registered lobbyist. But a close source says the company, Bridger Pipeline, has paid millions of dollars to Dongle Trump under the table. Because they think Dongle Trump is such a great leader. Note: the company is thinking of building pipelines in Florida, where Dongle Trump has a home. But Dongle says not to worry: the company has an excellent record. ---- ---- Pipeline break spills 45,000 gallons of diesel in Wyoming Associated Press MATTHEW BROWN August 13, 2022, 6:51 AM BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — A diesel pipeline in Wyoming owned by a company that's being sued by federal prosecutors over previous spills in two other states cracked open and released more than 45,000 gallons (205,000 liters) of fuel, state regulators and a company representative disclosed Friday. Cleanup work is ongoing from the spill that was discovered by the pipeline's operator on July 27, said Joe Hunter, Emergency Response Coordinator with the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality. The fuel spilled into sandy soil on private ranchland near the small community of Sussex in eastern Wyoming and did not spread very far, he said. Contaminated soil was being excavated and placed into a temporary staging area, and it will be spread onto a nearby dirt road where the fuel is expected to largely evaporate, Hunter said. The line is operated by Bridger Pipeline, a subsidiary of Casper-based True companies, according to an accident report submitted to the U.S. Coast Guard's National Response Center. The company initially reported only 420 gallons (1,590 liters) had spilled, but later revised its estimate to 45,150 gallons (205,250 liters), according to a National Response Center database. Bridger Pipeline spokesperson Bill Salvin said the initial figure was based on what company personnel saw on the ground and reported immediately. The volume estimate increased as the site was excavated, he said. True and its subsidiaries have a long history of spills. In May, federal prosecutors in Montana alleged that representatives of Bridger Pipeline had concealed from regulators problems with a pipeline that broke beneath the Yellowstone River near the city of Glendive in 2015. The break spewed more than 50,000 gallons (240,000 liters) of crude into the river and fouled Glendive's drinking water supply. In North Dakota, federal prosecutors and the state Attorney General's Office are pursuing parallel claims of environmental violations against a second True companies subsidiary responsible for a 2016 spill that released more than 600,000 gallons (2.7 million liters) of crude, contaminating the Little Missouri River and a tributary. Representatives of the companies have denied violating pollution laws and rejected claims that problems with the Montana line were concealed from federal regulators. The Wyoming spill was caused by a crack at a weld in the line, said Hunter, who did not know how long it was leaking before being discovered. The spilled fuel did not appear to reach any waterways and no enforcement actions for environmental violations were planned, he said. “I'm not saying there wouldn't be any down the road but for right now there won't be" any enforcement actions by the state, Hunter said. “It's an older pipeline and it's one of those things that happen.” The 6-inch (15 centimeter) diameter steel line was installed in 1968 by the original owner and later acquired by Bridger Pipeline, Salvin said. It was last inspected in 2019, using a device that travels inside the pipe looking for flaws, and no problems were detected, he said. “We're focused on minimizing the environmental impact and we're going to replace the soil and restore the land as close as possible to its original condition,” Salvin said. Kenneth Clarkson with the Pipeline Safety Trust, a Bellingham, Washington-based group that advocates for safer pipelines, said a thorough investigation into the spill's cause needs to conducted. “It’s frustrating to hear of another spill by Bridger Pipeline LLC," Clarkson said. "This spill of 45,000-plus gallons of diesel into rural Wyoming negatively impacts the environment, wildlife, and surrounding communities.” Violations of pipeline safety regulations would be handled separately and fall under jurisdiction of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, part of the U.S. Department of Transportation. Salvin said the agency has been notified about the spill, but officials did not immediately respond to questions from The Associated Press. Bridger last year reached a $2 million settlement with the federal government and Montana over damages from the Yellowstone River spill. The company was previously fined $1 million in the case by the Montana Department of Environmental Quality. ___ | |
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| 08-13-22 08:01am - 768 days | #289 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Low water levels at Lake Mead reveal human remains. Did Dongle Trump use the lake as a dumping ground for Mafia enemies? Did Dongle Trump order many hits we have yet to discover? Enquiring minds want to know: how many people were on Dongle Trump's hit list? ----- ----- Low water levels at Lake Mead reveal more than just human remains CBS News August 12, 2022, 9:32 AM Lake Mead National Recreation Area is showing the dramatic effects of falling water levels from the ongoing drought. The nation's largest reservoir is now giving up many of its secrets, including a fourth set of human remains discovered since May. Among those found were the remains of Daniel Kolod, who went missing in 1958. At the time, he was on a speedboat with one of his best friends, his son Todd Kolod told CBS News' partner, The Weather Channel. "My dad was 22. His buddy Mike was 23. And I think it was more boat than they could handle," Kolod said. Daniel Kolod's remains were found on May 7. Not even a week before, a woman had found a body in a barrel. The discoveries have prompted speculation that the lake was used as a burial ground by organized crime and gangs from the early days of Las Vegas, which is just a 30-minute drive from the lake. Former Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman was a lawyer and represented powerful people in Old Vegas. Despite the shock of a body being found in a barrel at the bottom of a lake, he said that he doesn't believe the death was mob-related. A sign marks the water line from 2002 near Lake Mead at the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Saturday, July 9, 2022, near Boulder City, Nev. The largest U.S. reservoir has shrunken to a record low amid a punishing drought. / Credit: John Locher / AP A sign marks the water line from 2002 near Lake Mead at the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Saturday, July 9, 2022, near Boulder City, Nev. The largest U.S. reservoir has shrunken to a record low amid a punishing drought. / Credit: John Locher / AP "Well, we would have heard if it was mob related. Why drive all the way out and put somebody in a barrel? They would want people to know it. It was to teach a lesson," Goodman said. Police are shocked at how low the water level at Lake Mead is and how it continues to recede — revealing bodies of the past. "We believe that that barrel was at one time under approximately 150 feet of water. I never dreamed I would see the lake this low," Las Vegas Metro Homicide Lt. Jason Johansson said. As more remains are uncovered, Kolod said the impacts of climate change tell a much darker picture. "If I could wave, a magic wand and erase the impacts of climate change and drought and agricultural consumption and make all that go away, I would gladly take having my dad's remains be lost forever. It's just not worth it," said Kolod. | |
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| 08-12-22 06:50pm - 769 days | #288 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
The truth exposed: the FBI is investigating Dongle Trump. But the GOP says what about Barack Obama? Didn't he take sensitive documents from the Whitest House? Arrest Obama, torture him and his wife and children, and force confessions that they were illegal aliens from outer space who stole the Whitest House from the American public. ----- ----- Fact Check: Did Barack Obama Illegally Take 30 Million Pages of Documents to Chicago? Aaron Parsley Fri, August 12, 2022 at 3:28 PM President Barack Obama is the subject of a new line of whataboutism that's emerged from conservatives hoping to change focus of the FBI's search for sensitive documents at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home to pretty much anything else. It didn't take long for Trump and his supporters to begin sowing doubt about the reasons behind the search of the property in Palm Beach, Fla., on Monday, which was reportedly part of an ongoing criminal investigation into the alleged mishandling of White House records. Trump called the search for documents — some of which were categorized as highly sensitive and potentially signify an obstruction of justice or violation of the Espionage Act — a "weaponization of the Justice System, and a coordinated attack by Radical Left Democrats." His son, Eric Trump, claimed President Joe Biden "absolutely signed off" on the search, calling it part of an "absolute coordinated attack," despite assurances that the White House had no prior knowledge of it. Republican Sen. Rand Paul even suggested the FBI might have planted evidence by asking during a Fox News segment, "How do we know that they're going to be honest with us about what's actually in the boxes? How do we know that was in the box before it left the residence?" And then there's the whataboutism, a tactic Trump deployed immediately. "Hillary Clinton was allowed to delete and acid wash 33,000 E-mails AFTER they were subpoenaed by Congress," he said in an initial statement about the search. Clinton may be an easy target for the MAGA crowd, but she's not the only one. Obama's now getting quite a few mentions as well. RELATED: Unpacking the Far-Right Terminology Aiming to Discredit the Federal Investigation into Donald Trump After The New York Post published an opinion piece, which claimed Obama sent 30 million pages of his administration's records to Chicago when he left office, Trump and his allies are running with the claim while ignoring key differences between how White House records were handled by the two former presidents. "At the end of his presidency, Barack Obama trucked 30 million pages of his administration's records to Chicago ... More than five years after Obama's presidency ended, the National Archives webpage reveals that zero pages have been digitized & disclosed," Donald Trump Jr. tweeted Wednesday. Fox News host Sean Hannity also made a declaration about Obama's alleged actions on his show: "They shipped 30 million pages of sensitive and possibly classified materials to Chicago, and, by the way, he has yet to return any of it to the National Archives. Not one page. So is his house about to get raided?" RELATED: 'Donald Is Furious Yet Scared': Movement in FBI Investigation Complicates Trump's Plans Trump himself asked on his social media site Truth Social, "What about the 30 million pages of documents taken from the White House to Chicago by Barack Hussein Obama? He refused to give them back? What's going on?" After Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that the Department of Justice filed a motion in a Florida court to unseal the search warrant obtained by the FBI and a property receipt from the search, Trump repeated the claim about Obama's "33 million pages of documents." The whole thing is a distraction when facts — rather than soundbites about 30 million missing pages — are considered. It's true that Obama White House records made their way to Chicago at the end of his second term. But the process of transferring the documents was done in cooperation with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), which legally owns those records under the Presidential Records Act. The 1978 law declares presidential and vice-presidential records property of the federal government, with the NARA responsible for the "custody, control and preservation" of the materials once a presidential administration ends. Rather than store the Obama records in a physical presidential library owned by the NARA as many of his predecessors have done, the Obama Foundation worked with the agency to digitize unclassified records. Touted as a "new partnership for the digital age," the digitization process was outlined in an agreement between the National Archives and the Obama Foundation. "The Parties agree that the Digitization Project will at all times be performed in accordance with the requirements of the Presidential Records Act (PRA) and other applicable federal law, and for the purpose of making the records more accessible to historians and the public pursuant to that Act," reads the agreement, which also explicitly states that the National Archives owns the Obama records and that they're held at a Chicago-area facility controlled by the agency. There is no evidence that Obama or his foundation did anything illegal in handling his presidential records, as NARA clarified in a statement released to PEOPLE Friday. "The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) assumed exclusive legal and physical custody of Obama Presidential records when President Barack Obama left office in 2017, in accordance with the Presidential Records Act (PRA)," the statement says. "NARA moved approximately 30 million pages of unclassified records to a NARA facility in the Chicago area, where they are maintained exclusively by NARA. Additionally, NARA maintains the classified Obama Presidential records in a NARA facility in the Washington, DC, area. As required by the PRA, former President Obama has no control over where and how NARA stores the Presidential records of his Administration." RELATED: Violent Rhetoric, Talk of Civil War Intensify in Extremist Circles Following FBI's Lawful Search of Mar-a-Lago In February, NARA said federal government officials had gone to Florida to retrieve 15 boxes of documents and other items that should have been handed over at the end of Trump's term in accordance with the law. Some of the retrieved documents were clearly labeled classified and included some documents designated "top secret." Trump denied any wrongdoing at the time. "It was a great honor to work with NARA to help formally preserve the Trump Legacy," he said in a statement. "The papers were given easily and without conflict and on a very friendly basis, which is different from the accounts being drawn up by the Fake News Media." Were Trump and his aides truthful during the process of returning the boxes? Did they hand over everything or were potentially sensitive materials still missing? Those are the questions federal investigators were looking to answer with Monday's search at Mar-a-Lago, and the property receipt unsealed Friday shows that multiple sets of secret documents were just recovered, suggesting he didn't hand it all over the previous time. RELATED: Trump Suspected of Violating Espionage Act, According to Mar-a-Lago Search Warrant To obtain a warrant to search for and retrieve Trump's White House records from Mar-a-Lago, the FBI needed approval from a "neutral and detached" federal judge. To get the judge's signature, investigators had to demonstrate probable cause by showing there was reasonable information to support the possibility that evidence of illegality will be found during the search. The execution of a search warrant does not mean that Trump committed or is accused of a crime. But there is an ongoing criminal investigation into whether Trump properly handled White House records after his presidency, which makes his case very different from Obama's. | |
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| 08-12-22 06:28pm - 769 days | #287 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
FBI search warrant shows Trump under investigation for potential obstruction of justice, Espionage Act violations Julia Nikhinson/AP Photo Betsy Woodruff Swan, Kyle Cheney and Nicholas Wu Fri, August 12, 2022 at 12:03 PM A search warrant newly unsealed on Friday reveals that the FBI is investigating Donald Trump for a potential violation of the Espionage Act and removed classified documents from the former president’s Florida estate earlier this week. A receipt accompanying the search warrant, viewed by POLITICO in advance of its unsealing, shows that Trump possessed documents including a handwritten note; documents marked with “TS/SCI,” which indicates one of the highest levels of government classification; and another item labeled “Info re: President of France.” Also among the items taken from Mar-a-Lago this week: An item labeled “Executive grant of clemency re: Roger Jason Stone, Jr.,” a reference to one of Trump’s closest confidants who received a pardon in late 2020. The warrant shows federal law enforcement was investigating Trump for removal or destruction of records, obstruction of justice and violating the Espionage Act — which can encompass crimes beyond spying, such as the refusal to return national security documents upon request. Conviction under the statutes can result in imprisonment or fines. The documents, unsealed after the Justice Department sought their public disclosure amid relentless attacks by Trump and his GOP allies, underscore the extraordinary national security threat that federal investigators believed the missing documents presented. The concern grew so acute that Attorney General Merrick Garland approved the unprecedented search of Trump’s estate last week. The disclosure of the documents comes four days after Trump publicly confirmed the court-authorized search of his Mar-a-Lago home by the FBI, marshaling his political allies to unleash fierce criticism of federal investigators. But the details in the warrant underscore the gravity of the probe — an unprecedented investigation of a former president for mishandling some of the nation’s most sensitive secrets. Trump has claimed since Monday that he has cooperated with investigators from the National Archives and FBI for months and that the unannounced search was an unnecessary escalation. But after several rounds of negotiations in which materials were recovered by the Archives, federal investigators came to believe Trump hadn’t returned everything in his possession. The search warrant, signed on Aug. 5 by federal magistrate judge Bruce Reinhart, revealed that dozens of items were seized, most of them described in vague terms like “leatherbound box of documents,” “binder of photos” and “handwritten note.” Other items on the list indicate the presence of classified material, describing them as “miscellaneous top secret documents” and “miscellaneous confidential documents.” Stone's attorney Grant Smith said that the longtime Trump ally "has no knowledge as to the facts surrounding his clemency documents appearing on the inventory of items seized from former President Trump’s home at Mar-a-Lago." Shortly after 3 p.m., the Justice Department confirmed that Trump’s lawyers would not oppose the public release of the search warrant and underlying receipt of materials, which had already begun to circulate widely. | |
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| 08-12-22 05:59pm - 769 days | #286 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Judge rules criminal case against Trump Organization can proceed. Finally, Dongle Trump will have his day in court. He's been fighting for years, to explain his innocence. But the Fifth Amendment is his bible, and he will use it heavily. ---- ---- Judge rules criminal case against Trump Organization and former CFO can proceed CBS News Graham Kates August 12, 2022, 8:21 AM A New York State judge ruled Friday that a criminal fraud and tax evasion prosecution against the Trump Organization and its former CFO, Allen Weisselberg, can proceed. Weisselberg and the company asked a judge in February to dismiss all 15 counts charged against them. Judge Juan Merchan dismissed one of several tax fraud counts against the Trump Organization, but allowed all others to remain. Attorneys for Weisselberg and the company did not immediately comment on Friday's decisions. The Trump Organization and Weisselberg accused prosecutors working for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg of targeting them "based on political animus" toward former President Donald Trump. Weisselberg also argued he had received immunity against certain federal charges when he testified to a federal grand jury investigating former Trump attorney Michael Cohen. Jury selection will take place on Oct. 24. Prosecutors said in a May 23 filing that the Weisselberg investigation was spurred by a Nov. 2, 2020 Bloomberg article about perks Weisselberg allegedly received. "The article outlined many of the key facts relevant to the crimes charged," Manhattan prosecutor Solomon Shinerock wrote in May. The Trump Organization was accused in July 2021 of providing executives with lavish untaxed perks, which prosecutors called "indirect employee compensation." Weisselberg, a 74-year-old who had been at Trump's side at the company for decades, was accused of receiving $1.7 million in perks — including an apartment and car. Weisselberg and the company have entered not guilty pleas. Merchan said that in September, he will hear arguments on a request by Weisselberg's team to suppress evidence from two Manhattan district attorney investigators who he said "struck up small talk" while Weisselberg was in custody. A statement attributed to Weisselberg from the conversation — in which he described the lengthy commute from his Long Island home — was included in court documents. Attorneys for Weisselberg, who is accused of moving into a New York City corporate apartment without paying taxes on the alleged perk, have argued he was essentially tricked into divulging information he might otherwise not have with a lawyer present. In the motion to dismiss charges, they claimed the company and Weisselberg were "improperly targeted" due to politics. They highlighted statements made by New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat who has been critical of Trump, a Republican. Two attorneys from James' office are assigned to the Manhattan district attorney's investigation. Trump sat for a court-ordered deposition on Wednesday in James' case, invoking the Fifth Amendment and then replying "same answer" hundreds of times during about four hours of questioning. Trump's attorneys have said previously they were concerned that Trump's deposition could be turned over to Bragg. Attorneys for James' office, and a judge overseeing her probe, have said that her investigators are allowed to do that. Weisselberg's lawyers also wrote in January that the charges against Weisselberg should be tossed because he received immunity against certain federal charges when he testified to a federal grand jury investigating former Trump attorney Michael Cohen. Shinerock replied that no one on his team "has ever seen or been briefed on the contents of Weisselberg's testimony" against Cohen, but claimed the federal immunity does not apply to the state charges filed against Weisselberg. | |
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| 08-12-22 05:55pm - 769 days | #285 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
FBI claims it took top secret documents from Dongle Trump's home. Dongle refutes these claims. Says he was using the documents as toilet paper, to wipe his ass. Dongle demands the Supreme Court investigate the FBI for taking paper products from his home. Dongle screams that he will release photocopies of all the documents in his home, on the internet. To show his innocence. And if the FBI wants to, they can kiss his ass. ------- ------- FBI removed top secret documents from Trump's home, Justice Department says Reuters Sarah N. Lynch August 12, 2022, 1:06 PM (Reuters) -FBI agents who searched former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home in Florida this week removed 11 sets of classified documents including some marked as top secret, the U.S. Justice Department said on Friday while also disclosing it has probable cause to believe he violated the Espionage Act. The bombshell disclosures were made in legal documents released four days after FBI agents carried out the search of Trump's residence based on a warrant approved by a federal magistrate judge. The Justice Department told U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart in its warrant application that it had probable cause to believe that Trump violated the Espionage Act, a federal law that prohibits the possession or transmission of national defense information. The list of documents is contained in a seven-page document that also includes the warrant to search the premises that was granted to the FBI by U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart, the newspaper said. The list did not provide any more details about the substance of the documents, it said. The reported revelations that Trump had documents labeled "top secret" could create major legal jeopardy for him. "Top secret" is the highest level of classification, reserved for the country's most closely held national security information. It is usually kept in special government facilities because its disclosure could cause grave damage to national security. Numerous federal laws prohibit the mishandling of classified material, including the Espionage Act as well as another statute that prohibits the unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material. Trump increased the penalties for this while he was in office, making it a felony punishable by up to five years in prison. Earlier on Friday, Trump denied a Washington Post report that the FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago home was for possible classified materials related to nuclear weapons, writing on his social media account that the "nuclear weapons issue is a hoax." Reuters could not immediately confirm the Washington Post report. Attorney General Merrick Garland has declined to publicly detail the nature of the investigation. Monday's search of Trump's home marked a significant escalation in one of the many federal and state investigations he is facing from his time in office and in private business, including a separate one by the Justice Department into a failed bid by Trump's allies to overturn the 2020 presidential election by submitting phony slates of electors. Garland on Thursday announced that the department had asked Reinhart to unseal the warrant that authorized the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago. This followed a claim by Trump that the search was political retribution and a suggestion by him, without evidence, that the FBI may have planted evidence against him. Trump's attorneys on Friday afternoon signaled they will not object to having the search warrant for his Florida residence unsealed to the public, the Justice Department said in a court filing, indicating the unsealing could come shortly. Reinhart had imposed a 3 p.m. EDT (1900 GMT) deadline for prosecutors to let him know if Trump's legal team will oppose the unsealing of the warrant. 'RELEASE THE DOCUMENTS' Late on Thursday, Trump released a statement on social media saying he did not intend to oppose its release. "Release the Documents Now!" Trump wrote. The investigation into Trump's removal of records started this year, after the National Archives and Records Administration, an agency charged with safeguarding presidential records that belong to the public, made a referral to the department. On Friday, Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence Committee called on Garland and FBI Director Chris Wray to release the affidavit underpinning the warrant, saying the public needs to know. "Because many other options were available to them, we're very concerned of the method that was used in raiding Mar-a-Lago," Representative Michael Turner, the committee's top Republican, told reporters. If the affidavit remains sealed, "it will still leave many unanswered questions," Turner added. In February, Archivist of the United States David Ferriero told House lawmakers that his agency had been in communication with Trump throughout 2021 about the return of 15 boxes of records. He eventually returned them in January 2022. At the time, the National Archives was still conducting an inventory, but noted some of the boxes contained items "marked as classified national security information." Trump previously confirmed that he had agreed to return certain records to the Archives, calling it "an ordinary and routine process." He also claimed the Archives "did not 'find' anything." Since Monday's search, the Justice Department has faced fierce criticism and online threats, which Garland have condemned. Trump supporters and some of his fellow Republicans in Washington have accused Democrats of weaponizing the federal bureaucracy to target him even as he mulls another run for the presidency in 2024. In another matter, Trump on Wednesday declined to answer questions during an appearance before New York state's attorney general in a civil investigation into his family's business practices, citing his constitutional right against self-incrimination. (Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch in Washington; additional reporting by David Morgan in Washington and Brendan O'Brien in Chicago; Editing by Will Dunham, Ross Colvin, Jonathan Oatis and Howard Goller) | |
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| 08-12-22 11:17am - 769 days | #284 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Dongle Trump says Fake News and Fake FBI agents raided his home and planted Fake documents. Fox News reports that Florida is considering separating from the Untied States of Trumperland to protect their most honored son, Dongle J. Trump. Also, if Dongle took a few records as souvenirs of his stay in the Whitest House, he was only trying to keep his memories alive. And if he was considering selling some papers to his friends in Russia and North Korea, it was only in the spirit of capitalism. Selling papers to Russia and North Korea would be a good thing. ------ ------ Trump denies report that FBI sought nuclear documents during Mar-a-Lago search NBC Universal Zoë Richards August 12, 2022, 4:38 AM Former President Donald Trump on Friday denied a report from The Washington Post that said FBI agents were looking for classified documents related to nuclear weapons, among other items, when they searched his Mar-a-Lago home this week. On his Truth Social platform, Trump said that "Nuclear weapons is a hoax, just like Russia, Russia, Russia was a hoax," referring to then-special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into the Trump campaign's ties to Russia. Trump attacked the officials involved with the search of his home, calling them "sleazy." NBC News has not independently verified the Post's report, published Thursday. Details of documents sought by the FBI, such as whether the nuclear weapons in question were tied to the United States or another country, were not immediately clear. Nor was it known if the agency found the documents it was seeking. The explosive report came just hours after Attorney General Merrick Garland said Thursday that he "personally approved" the warrant to search Trump’s Florida home Monday and that the Department of Justice had filed a motion to make the warrant public. The agency has also asked to make public the property receipt detailing what agents found inside the Trump property, Garland said. The Justice Department’s motion does not seek to make public the affidavit of probable cause, which includes the FBI’s justification for searching Mar-a-Lago. Trump this year had to return 15 boxes of documents that the National Archives and Records Administration said were improperly taken from the White House. But months later, and before the FBI conducted its search, Trump received a federal grand jury subpoena for sensitive documents the government believed he retained after his departure from the White House, a source familiar with the matter confirmed to NBC News. A separate source confirmed an earlier Wall Street Journal report by telling NBC News that “someone familiar” with documents inside Mar-a-Lago told investigators there may have been more classified documents at the club than were initially turned over, leading in part to the search Monday. Garland on Thursday suggested that Trump had not turned over all of the material sought by the Justice Department. Citing “two sources briefed on the classified documents” sought in the subpoena, The New York Times reported Thursday that federal officials were prompted to search Mar-a-Lago because uncollected material was particularly sensitive to national security. According to an order U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart issued Thursday, Justice Department officials will meet with Trump’s lawyers and determine whether he intends to fight the disclosure of the warrant and the property receipt, but he said Thursday night that he would be "encouraging" their release. “Not only will I not oppose the release of documents related to the unAmerican, unwarranted, and unnecessary raid and break-in of my home in Palm Beach, Florida, Mar-a-Lago, I am going a step further by ENCOURAGING the immediate release of those documents,” Trump said. The Justice Department must file a notice by 3 p.m. ET Friday to formally inform the judge of the Trump team’s intentions. | |
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| 08-12-22 11:08am - 769 days | #283 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
GOP says it stands above the law. Says it will use violence to destroy the FBI and any people who stand in Dongle Trump's path. Is that legal? Is that moral? Fuck legal, fuck moral, says the GOP. GOP rallies behind police who shoot black people. But the GOP is now saying, the FBI are not police, they are corrupt assassins who must be destroyed. "Let us stand firm with law and order", screams Dongle Trump, waving an AK47 in the air. ----- ----- Republican response to Trump FBI search raises specter of political violence against law enforcement Yahoo News Tom LoBianco August 12, 2022, 9:53 AM Death threats and calls for violence against federal law enforcement have surged following the FBI search of former President Donald Trump’s South Florida resort and home, punctuated by an incident Thursday when an armed suspect tried to enter an FBI field office in Ohio. But Republicans have largely been quiet about the spike of violent threats against law enforcement, despite making support for police a hallmark of their campaigns in response to Black Lives Matter protests against repeated local police shootings of unarmed Black people. In the immediate aftermath of the search, Trump supporters online, including one extreme-right activist who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, talked about being ready to use weapons (“lock and load”) and alleged the country was already in a state of “civil war” — repeating language long used by top cable pundit Tucker Carlson. In an interview Thursday morning on “Fox & Friends,” longtime anchor Steve Doocy pressed Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., on why Republicans were not doing more to tamp down threats — some from within their own ranks – against law enforcement. “A lot of agents are receiving specific death threats because there are a lot of people, online and elsewhere, who are demonizing the FBI,” Doocy said, citing attacks from Reps. Paul Gosar, of Arizona, and Marjorie Taylor Greene, of Georgia, extremist members of the House Republican conference. “Whatever happened to the Republicans backing the blue?” “We’re very strong supporters of law enforcement, and it concerns everybody if you see some agents go rogue,” said Scalise, the second-ranking Republican in the House, who himself was the target of political violence when a gunman aligned with the left shot lawmakers in 2018. Pressed on who specifically went “rogue,” Scalise said, “We want to find that out.” And during a press conference Friday of the top House Republicans overseeing the intelligence agencies and national security agencies, Rep. Elise Stefanik, one of Trump’s top allies, blasted federal law enforcement rather than decry the threats against the FBI. “House Republicans are committed to immediate oversight, accountability and a fulsome investigation ... regarding Joe Biden and his administration’s weaponization of the Department of Justice and FBI against Joe Biden’s political opponent,” the New York Republican said. Republicans are spurring further violence against law enforcement by toying with conspiracy theories and baseless allegations, said Trygve Olson, an expert on authoritarian tactics and an adviser to the Lincoln Project, a group of current and former Republicans who oppose Trump. “They are playing with fire in radicalizing people towards the FBI and the rule of law,” Olson said. “It is a very, very dangerous game. The kind of game that if it were happening in any other country would be setting off five-alarm fire bells at the State Department to speak out.” In a brief press conference on Thursday, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that he approved the search warrant and filed to have limited amounts of the search warrant and the findings included in its return released to the public. He then decried the threats of violence sent to himself and others in the wake of Monday’s search. Attorney General Merrick Garland Attorney General Merrick Garland on Thursday. (Susan Walsh/AP) “The men and women of the FBI and the Justice Department are dedicated, patriotic public servants every day,” Garland said. “They protect the American people from violent crime, terrorism and other threats to their safety while safeguarding our civil rights. They do so at personal sacrifice and risk to themselves.” Trump himself has pushed unfounded accusations about the unprecedented search of a former president’s home, and apparently decided not to fight the release of the search details, hours after Garland filed for its release. Not long after that, Trump rebutted a stunning Washington Post report that the materials he had taken included highly sensitive intelligence about nuclear programs by claiming, without evidence, that the FBI planted the evidence — the same unsubstantiated claim he made at the beginning of the week in fundraising appeals. | |
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| 08-12-22 11:00am - 769 days | #282 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Dongle Trump rewrites history. Says he was the real winner of the 2020 presidential election. Says he is the real, secret son of Adolf Hitler, the man who wanted to make Germany leader of the world. Since Hitler did not succeed, Dongle Trump has vowed that Dongle will be the future leader of the world. And all will bow down to Dongle in his glory. Also, the FBI will be dismantled, and a new, more powerful sect will be formed: the Acolytes of Dongle Trump. They will be card-carrying members of the New World Religion based on the tweets of Dongle Trump. “Trump declassified whole sets of materials in anticipation of leaving government that he thought the American public should have the right to read themselves.” Of course, the "public" only includes Trump's favorites, not the great unwashed masses. ---- ---- NBC News Trump allies say he declassified Mar-a-Lago documents. Experts say it's unclear whether that will hold up. Dareh Gregorian and Marc Caputo and Courtney Kube Fri, August 12, 2022 at 8:02 AM Allies of former President Donald Trump say that any sensitive White House documents he brought with him to his Mar-a-Lago estate had been declassified, but some legal and presidential record experts are skeptical of that claim — and say that Trump could be in criminal jeopardy regardless. While the Justice Department has a long history of prosecuting cases involving the mishandling of classified information, no such case has ever been brought against a former president — the one government official who can declassify information at will. "As the facts stand now, his defense would be, ‘I declassified those documents. I am not therefore in possession of classified documents now,'” said Charles Stimson, a senior fellow with the conservative Heritage Foundation and a former federal prosecutor. Others take a different view — including, it seems, the FBI, which executed a search warrant at Trump's Florida resort on Monday tied to classified information Trump allegedly took with him from the White House in January 2021. Trump lawyer Christina Bobb said Tuesday that the warrant left by agents indicated they were investigating possible violations of laws dealing with the handling of classified material and the Presidential Records Act. The 1978 Presidential Records Act, which requires presidents to turn over documents to the National Archives at the end of their administration, lacks an enforcement mechanism, but there are multiple federal laws regarding the handling of classified documents. Trump signed one such law in 2018, increasing the penalty for "unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material" from one year to five years in prison. But those in Trump’s orbit say that no president is personally bound by the removal and retention rules governing classified documents, which can be declassified if the president simply says they are, according to Ric Grenell, who was Trump’s acting director of national intelligence and who handled highly classified information. “There is no approval process for the president of the United States to declassify intelligence. There is this phony idea that he must provide notification for declassification but that’s just silly. Who is he supposed to notify? I think it’s the height of swampism to think the president should seek bureaucrats’ approval,” Grenell told NBC News, emphasizing that he wasn’t personally speaking for the president. Richard Immerman, a historian and an assistant deputy director of national intelligence in the Obama administration, disagreed and said that, while the president has the authority to declassify documents, there’s a formal process for doing so, and there's no indication Trump used it. “He can’t just wave a wand and say it’s declassified,” Immerman said. “There has to be a formal process. That’s the only way the system can work,” because otherwise there would be no way of knowing who could handle or see the documents. “I’ve seen thousands of declassified documents. They’re all marked ‘declassified’ with the date they were declassified,” Immerman said. That does not appear to have been the case with some of the documents that were returned to the National Archives from Mar-a-Lago this year. Archivist David S. Ferriero, an Obama appointee, said in a letter to the House Committee on Oversight and Reform in February that his agency had "identified items marked as classified national security information within the boxes” from Mar-a-Lago. Kash Patel, a Pentagon chief of staff during the Trump administration, told Breitbart News in May that the documents previously recovered from Mar-a-Lago had been declassified by Trump, but their markings were not updated. “Trump declassified whole sets of materials in anticipation of leaving government that he thought the American public should have the right to read themselves,” Patel said then. “It’s information that Trump felt spoke to matters regarding everything from Russiagate to the Ukraine impeachment fiasco to major national security matters of great public importance — anything the president felt the American people had a right to know is in there and more,” Patel said then, adding that he was with Trump when the then-president said, “We are declassifying this information.” Patel, who declined comment on the documents this week, told Breitbart that the “White House counsel failed to generate the paperwork to change the classification markings, but that doesn’t mean the information wasn’t declassified.” A source who had discussed the matter with Trump but was not authorized to reveal those conversations said the former president wasn't concerned with formal protocol. "We’ve told him there’s a process and not following it could be a problem but he didn’t care because he thinks this stuff is dumb,” the source said. “His attitude is that he is the president. He is in charge of the country and therefore national security. So he decides.” Bradley Moss, a lawyer who specializes in national security issues, said, "That's not how it works." "Trump could say we're declassifying this until he's blue in the face, but no one is allowed to touch those records until the markings are addressed," said Moss, a frequent Trump critic on Twitter. An aerial view of Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla. (mpi34/MediaPunch /IPX via AP file) An aerial view of Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla. (mpi34/MediaPunch /IPX via AP file) He noted that Trump and White House officials should have been aware that more would be needed to declassify documents given their own experience on the issue. In October 2020, Trump tweeted, “I have fully authorized the total Declassification of any & all documents pertaining to the single greatest political CRIME in American History, the Russia Hoax. Likewise, the Hillary Clinton Email Scandal. No redactions!” When news organizations sought to obtain the supposedly declassified documents, they were told they were still under wraps. Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows said in a sworn court filing in the case, “The president indicated to me that his statements on Twitter were not self-executing declassification orders and do not require the declassification or release of any particular documents.” In the current dispute, the apparent lack of a paper trail showing that Trump declassified the documents before he left office could be a problem for the former president, said Stephen Vladeck, a University of Texas School of Law professor who specializes in national security. “President Trump had the power to declassify whichever documents he wanted to while he was president, but not any longer. So I’m not sure it’s at all obvious that he could now claim that he declassified documents while he was still in office if there’s no evidence to support it,” Vladeck said. The Heritage Foundation's Stimson has a different view, given that Trump was once "the ultimate declassification authority." “If any president decides to declassify a document and doesn’t tell anybody — but he has made the decision to declassify something — then the document is declassified,” Stimson said. He added that “there’s a rich debate about whether or not a document is declassified if a president has decided but not communicated it outside of his own head,” but Stimson said he would rather be the defense than the prosecution if the dispute ever went to trial. Vladeck said Trump could still face legal ramifications regardless, because "some of the criminal statutes that are being discussed apply whether or not the underlying information is classified." "The Presidential Records Act and other similar statutes constrain President Trump’s ability to do what he wishes with at least some of the official documents from his tenure, regardless of whether those documents include sensitive national security information," Vladeck said. Moss said one of the laws that prosecutors could theoretically bring to bear against Trump is 18 U.S. Code § 793 — "Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information." The law penalizes "Whoever, lawfully having possession of, access to, control over, or being entrusted with any document, writing, code book ... or note relating to the national defense" who "through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed." It also penalizes someone who "willfully retains the same and fails to deliver it on demand to the officer or employee of the United States entitled to receive it." | |
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| 08-12-22 07:06am - 769 days | #281 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
The FBI is toughening up. They called the police on a man who fired a nail gun. Pretty soon, they say, they will be able to stand up to people with real guns. Of course, it helps that the FBI has not only thousands of hand guns, but also big rifles that fire real bullets. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green and Dongle Trump will lead a memorial for the fallen nail gun hero. ----- ----- Man who fired nail gun at FBI building called for violence on Truth Social in days after Mar-a-Lago search NBC Universal Ben Collins and Ryan J. Reilly and Jason Abbruzzese and Jonathan Dienst August 11, 2022, 4:44 PM A man identified by two law enforcement sources as Ricky Shiffer, who died in a confrontation with police after he fired a nail gun at a Cincinnati FBI building, appeared to post online in recent days about his desire to kill FBI agents shortly after former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence was searched. Two law enforcement officials confirmed Shiffer’s name. Shiffer was at the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, according to three people aiding law enforcement who saw him in photos taken from the day of the attack; however, it’s unclear whether he went inside the building. Shiffer frequently posted about his attendance at the Capitol on social media. On Truth Social, a social media platform founded by Trump’s media company, Trump Media & Technology Group, Shiffer appeared to have posted a message detailing his failed attempt to gain entry to the FBI building. “Well, I thought I had a way through bullet proof glass, and I didn’t. If you don’t hear from me, it is true I tried attacking the F.B.I., and it’ll mean either I was taken off the internet, the F.B.I. got me, or they sent the regular cops while,” the account @RickyWShifferJr wrote at 9:29 a.m. ET, shortly after police allege the shooting occurred. Shiffer posted to Truth Social multiple times in the days after the FBI searched Trump’s residence in Palm Beach, Florida, about wanting to engage in violence. One post called for people to arm themselves and be ready for “combat.” “We must not tolerate this one,” he wrote. Shiffer's Truth Social account, which was seen by NBC News on Thursday evening, has since become unavailable. After another user responded that his photo and information had been forwarded to the FBI, Shiffer’s account responded: “Bring them on.” A general view of the FBI Cincinnati Field Office after police closed Interstate 71 North after reports of a suspect attempting to attack on August 11, 2022. (Jeffrey Dean/Reuters) A general view of the FBI Cincinnati Field Office after police closed Interstate 71 North after reports of a suspect attempting to attack on August 11, 2022. (Jeffrey Dean/Reuters) In response to another user who asked whether Shiffer was advocating for terrorism, Shiffer’s account responded that users should kill FBI agents “on sight” and also target a vague list of enemies who try to stop the slayings. In reply to another user Tuesday, the account responded, “You’re a fool if you think there’s a nonviolent solution.” On May 7, Shiffer’s account replied to a post by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green, R-Ga., on Twitter, in which she wrote, “I know they are trying 1984, but I’m feeling 2016 vibes.” “Congresswoman Greene, they got away with fixing elections in plain sight,” Shiffer’s account wrote. “It’s over. The next step is the one we used in 1775.” On the same day, responding to a post by Donald Trump Jr. on Twitter imploring users to “Get ready” because “the midterm variant (of COVID-19) is coming and it’s going to be really scary,” referring to conspiracy theories that Covid-19 is manufactured or not dangerous, the account responded, “Do not comply.” Pro-Trump internet forums erupted with violent threats and calls for civil war in the hours and days after the Mar-a-Lago search, at least one of them from a person who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Many Republican lawmakers have criticized the Biden administration over the search. Attorney General Merrick Garland on Thursday called Trump allies’ criticism of the Justice Department “unfounded,” as did FBI Director Christopher Wray, who said Thursday that threats against the FBI “should be deeply concerning to all Americans.” Trump repeatedly posted to Truth Social after the search, including to insinuate that the FBI had planted evidence. | |
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| 08-11-22 11:00pm - 770 days | #280 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
North Korea declares victory over COVID. Says they used a brilliant scheme devised by Dongle Trump: gargle with bleach, and drink 16 fluid ounces of bleach every 2 hours. Dongle says he will visit North Korea as soon as he's elected President of the Untied States of Trumperland. And there will be a big party in celebration. Vlad Putin has promised to attend. ---- ---- North Korea declares victory over COVID, suggests leader Kim had it Reuters Hyonhee Shin and Josh Smith August 11, 2022, 5:31 AM SEOUL (Reuters) -North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has declared victory over COVID-19 and his sister indicated that he too caught the virus, while vowing "deadly retaliation" against South Korea, which the North blames for causing the outbreak. Kim ordered the lifting of maximum anti-epidemic measures imposed in May though adding that North Korea must maintain a "steel-strong anti-epidemic barrier and intensifying the anti-epidemic work until the end of the global health crisis", North Korea's KCNA news agency reported on Thursday. North Korea has never confirmed how many people caught COVID, apparently because it lacks the means to conduct widespread testing. Instead, it has reported daily numbers of patients with fever, a tally that rose to some 4.77 million. But it has registered no new such cases since July 29. Kim made his declaration in a speech on Wednesday at a meeting on COVID policy with thousands of unmasked officials sitting indoors, according to footage from state broadcasters. Kim's sister, Kim Yo Jong, also addressed the gathering and said the young leader himself had suffered from fever symptoms, according to KCNA, indicating for the first time that he was likely infected with the virus. "Even though he was seriously ill with a high fever, he could not lie down for a moment thinking about the people he had to take care of until the end in the face of the anti-epidemic war," she said in remarks broadcast on North Korean state television. Some of the officials at the meeting were shown wiping away tears as she spoke about her brother's illness. She did not elaborate on Kim's health but blamed propaganda leaflets from South Korea found near the border for causing the coronavirus outbreak. North Korean defectors and activists in the South have for decades floated balloons carrying anti-Pyongyang leaflets into the North, at times along with food, medicine, money and other items. Kim Yo Jong criticised South Korea's new government of President Yoon Suk-yeol for seeking to lift a 2020 ban on the leaflet campaigns, calling the South an "invariable principal enemy". "We can no longer overlook the uninterrupted influx of rubbish from South Korea," she said, threatening to "wipe out" South Korea's authorities. "Our countermeasure must be a deadly retaliatory one." South Korea's Unification Ministry, which handles cross-border relations, expressed regret about North Korea's repeated "groundless claims" regarding the origin of its COVID outbreak and its "rude and threatening remarks". Defence Minister Lee Jong-sup told reporters North Korea's accusation was "more likely making an excuse for provocations". 'FOSTERING UNITY' Analysts said although the authoritarian North has used the pandemic to tighten social controls, its victory declaration could be a prelude to restoring trade hampered by border lockdowns. "The meeting seems primarily aimed at fostering unity among the people but could also be to send a message to China that they're COVID-free and ready to restart trade," said Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul. Analysts have also said the easing of restrictions may clear the way for the North to test a nuclear weapon for the first time since 2017. North Korea's official COVID death rate of 0.0016%, or 74 out of some 4.77 million, is an "unprecedented miracle", its anti-virus chief Ri Chung Gil told the meeting. The World Health Organization has cast doubts on North Korea's assertions. "Whatever the truth behind the numbers, this is the story being told to the North Korean citizens. And right now the numbers are telling them that the epidemic is over," said Martyn Williams, a researcher with the U.S.-based 38 North Project. Like other countries, North Korea was likely balancing the need for control with public frustration with restrictions, he said. North Korea's declaration on COVID comes despite no known vaccine programme. Instead, it says it relied on lockdowns, domestically produced medicines, and what Kim called the "advantageous Korean-style socialist system". (Reporting by Hyonhee Shin and Josh Smith; Editing by Stephen Coates and Lincoln Feast, Robert Birsel) | |
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| 08-11-22 10:34pm - 770 days | #279 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Dongle Trump says when he returns to the Whitest House, he will put all his enemies in jail. With a sad heart, because Dongle is the most loyal, loving man, he will put his enemies in jail and prison, because it's the right thing to do. "We have to clean the swamp in Washington", screams Dongle. "And if that means putting Sleepy Joe Biden down, so be it!!!" "And if the FBI planted incriminating evidence at my Florida house, I will fight the corrupt FBI with all my strength", Dongle screamed. ----- ----- Trump says he won't fight move to unseal Mar-a-Lago search warrant NBC Universal Jonathan Allen and Vaughn Hillyard and Peter Nicholas and Carol E. Lee and Dareh Gregorian and Daniel Barnes and Kelly O'Donnell and Ken Dilanian and Kristen Welker and Phil Helsel August 11, 2022, 9:08 PM WASHINGTON — Attorney General Merrick Garland said Thursday that he "personally approved the decision to seek a search warrant" for former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort and that the Justice Department filed a motion earlier in the day to make the warrant public. Trump said late Thursday that he would not oppose the move. Speaking about his decision at a brief news conference, Garland said the department "does not take such actions lightly" and first pursues "less intrusive" means to retrieve material. Garland noted that it was Trump's "right" to reveal Monday's FBI search of his property and that all Americans are entitled to a presumption of innocence. Garland added that the Justice Department has asked to make public the property receipt detailing what agents found inside the Trump property. Trump’s attorneys had until 3 p.m. Friday to oppose the government’s motion to unseal the warrant. But Just before midnight, Trump said on his social media platform that he would not oppose the government's motion. “Not only will I not oppose the release of documents related to the unAmerican, unwarranted, and unnecessary raid and break-in of my home in Palm Beach, Florida, Mar-a-Lago, I am going a step further by ENCOURAGING the immediate release of those documents,” Trump said in part. Trump received a federal grand jury subpoena this spring for sensitive documents the government believed he retained after his departure from the White House, a source familiar with the matter confirmed. Garland's nod to "less intrusive" avenues for recovery of documents appeared to be a reference to the subpoena and suggested that Trump had not turned over all of the material sought by the Justice Department. Trump defended himself in a statement posted to his Truth Social media platform after Garland's remarks, claiming that his lawyers were "cooperating fully" and had developed "very good relationships" with Justice Department officials. "The government could have had whatever they wanted, if we had it," he wrote. "Out of nowhere, and with no warning, Mar-a-Lago was raided" by "VERY large numbers of agents, and even 'safecrackers.' They got way ahead of themselves. Crazy!" Conservative journalist John Solomon first reported Thursday afternoon that Trump was sent the subpoena months before the FBI searched his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida on Monday. The source familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the subpoena was related to documents that Trump’s legal team discussed with Justice Department officials at a previously reported meeting on June 3. The federal officials who went to Mar-a-Lago for the June meeting were "coming down to retrieve the documents that were being requested" in the subpoena, the source said, adding that the meeting was arranged with the Trump team's understanding that turning over relevant documents that day would fulfill the subpoena. Citing "two sources briefed on the classified documents" sought in the subpoena, The New York Times reported Thursday that federal officials were prompted to search Mar-a-Lago because uncollected material was particularly sensitive to national security. The source familiar with the matter told NBC News that Trump's lawyers last heard from the Justice Department before the FBI search shortly after the June meeting, when federal officials asked for additional security in the storage facility where documents were held. Trump's team added a second lock to the basement storage area, the source said. Trump this year had to return 15 boxes of documents that the National Archives and Records Administration said were improperly taken from the White House. A separate source confirmed an earlier Wall Street Journal report by telling NBC News that “someone familiar” with documents inside Mar-a-Lago told investigators there may have been more classified documents at the club than were initially turned over, leading in part to the search on Monday. During Thursday's remarks, Garland also defended the Justice Department against “unfounded” attacks made by Trump and his allies. “I will not stand by silently when their integrity is unfairly attacked,” he said. “Every day they protect the American people from violent crime, terrorism and other threats to their safety while safeguarding our civil rights.” FBI Director Christopher Wray, who was appointed by Trump, echoed those sentiments in a statement Thursday night. “Unfounded attacks on the integrity of the FBI erode respect for the rule of law and are a grave disservice to the men and women who sacrifice so much to protect others. Violence and threats against law enforcement, including the FBI, are dangerous and should be deeply concerning to all Americans," he said. "Every day I see the men and women of the FBI doing their jobs professionally and with rigor, objectivity, and a fierce commitment to our mission of protecting the American people and upholding the Constitution. I am proud to serve alongside them,” Wray added. Earlier this week, Trump attacked the FBI in a Truth Social post, with similar remarks from his allies. “Everyone was asked to leave the premises, they wanted to be alone, without any witnesses to see what they were doing, taking or, hopefully not, ‘planting,’” he wrote. “Why did they STRONGLY insist on having nobody watching them, everybody out?” Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy, a friend of the former president, said that while the two men had not discussed the investigation, “my guess is he’s pretty shocked.” Ruddy echoed Trump’s attacks on the FBI, calling the search a “publicity stunt” and depicting the Justice Department as politicized. Garland’s appearance Thursday followed an outpouring of criticism from Justice Department officials and alumni who faulted him both for his reticence amid the unprecedented search of an ex-president’s home and for failing to defend federal agents from unfounded claims that they had planted evidence. A former Justice Department official told NBC News: “In a normal investigation, secrecy is important and justified. But when you’re talking about sending dozens of FBI agents into the bedroom of the former president of the United States to go through his drawers, you need to explain what’s going on.” If not, this person added, “everyone will assume the worst.” “This is a completely unprecedented move by U.S. law enforcement, and I’m frankly astonished that no one has bothered to explain or justify it in any way.” The White House was not given advance notice of Garland’s remarks, a senior White House official said. Garland on Thursday put the onus on Trump to reveal more about the search, deflecting criticism that the Justice Department has been overly secretive. Under the motion filed by prosecutors, Trump now has two choices: He can allow the warrant to be made public, or he can keep it secret and risk appearing as if he has something to hide. “I thought it was both completely appropriate and absolutely brilliant to ask the president’s lawyers to weigh in on a decision to unseal,” said Chuck Rosenberg, a former U.S. attorney and FBI official who has worked in Democratic and Republican administrations. “If there’s no there there, you would expect the president agrees.” The Justice Department's motion filed Thursday does not seek to make public the affidavit of probable cause, which includes the FBI's justification for searching Mar-a-Lago. According to the court filing, a federal judge signed off on the search warrant last Friday. The filing notes that Trump and his lawyers have copies of both the warrant and a "redacted Property Receipt listing items seized pursuant to the search" — and that they can object to the public release of those documents. “Given the intense public interest presented by a search of a residence of a former President, the government believes these factors favor unsealing the search warrant" and related materials, the filing says. “That said, the former President should have an opportunity to respond to this Motion and lodge objections, including with regards to any ‘legitimate privacy interests’ or the potential for other ‘injury’ if these materials are made public.” The next step is for Justice Department officials to meet with Trump’s lawyers and determine whether he intends to fight disclosure of the warrant and the property receipt, according to an order Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart issued Thursday. The Justice Department must file a notice by 3 p.m. ET Friday to inform the judge of the Trump team’s intentions. | |
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| 08-11-22 05:50pm - 770 days | #278 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Garland gets down on his knees to beg forgiveness. Dongle Trump is innocent until proven otherwise. Please, let us honor the man who made America great again. But Dongle Trump has revealed the truth: the FBI had safecrackers enter Dongle Trump's home. A man's home is sacred. Dongle had the right to shoot the FBI agents who were breaking the law. And he could have ordered the Secret Service agents who protect all former presidents to open fire. But Dongle was patient. Dongle Trump deserves the Medal of Honor for not allowing the Secret Service to fire on the reckless and unlawful FBI agents who invaded his home. ---- ---- Garland says he moved to unseal Trump search warrant, defends DOJ from attacks NBC Universal Jonathan Allen and Vaughn Hillyard and Peter Nicholas and Carol E. Lee and Dareh Gregorian and Daniel Barnes and Kelly O'Donnell and Ken Dilanian August 11, 2022, 3:53 PM WASHINGTON — Attorney General Merrick Garland said Thursday that he "personally approved the decision to seek a search warrant" for former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort and that the Justice Department filed a motion earlier in the day to make the warrant public. Speaking about his decision at a brief news conference, Garland said the department "does not take such actions lightly" and first pursues "less intrusive" means to retrieve material. Garland noted that it was Trump's "right" to reveal Monday's FBI search of his property and that all Americans are entitled to a presumption of innocence. Garland added that the Justice Department has asked to make public the property receipt detailing what agents found inside the Trump property. Trump received a federal grand jury subpoena this spring for sensitive documents the government believed he retained after his departure from the White House, a source familiar with the matter confirmed. Garland's nod to "less intrusive" avenues for recovery of documents appeared to be a reference to the subpoena and suggested that Trump had not turned over all of the material sought by the Justice Department. Trump defended himself in a statement posted to his Truth Social media platform after Garland's remarks, claiming that his lawyers were "cooperating fully" and had developed "very good relationships" with Justice Department officials. "The government could have had whatever they wanted, if we had it," he wrote. "Out of nowhere, and with no warning, Mar-a-Lago was raided" by "VERY large numbers of agents, and even 'safecrackers.' They got way ahead of themselves. Crazy!" Conservative journalist John Solomon first reported Thursday afternoon that Trump was sent the subpoena months before the FBI searched his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida on Monday. The source familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the subpoena was related to documents that Trump’s legal team discussed with Justice Department officials at a previously reported meeting on June 3. The federal officials who went to Mar-a-Lago for the June meeting were "coming down to retrieve the documents that were being requested" in the subpoena, the source familiar with the matter said, adding that the meeting was arranged with the Trump team's understanding that turning over relevant documents that day would fulfill the subpoena. Citing "two sources briefed on the classified documents" sought in the subpoena, The New York Times reported Thursday that federal officials were prompted to search Mar-a-Lago because uncollected material was particularly sensitive to national security. The source familiar with the matter told NBC News that Trump's lawyers last heard from the Justice Department before the FBI search shortly after the June meeting, when federal officials asked for additional security in the storage facility where documents were held. Trump's team added a second lock to the basement storage area, the source said. During Thursday's remarks, Garland also defended the Justice Department against “unfounded” attacks made by Trump and his allies. “I will not stand by silently when their integrity is unfairly attacked,” he said. “Every day they protect the American people from violent crime, terrorism and other threats to their safety while safeguarding our civil rights.” FBI Director Christopher Wray, who was appointed by Trump, echoed those sentiments in a statement Thursday night. “Unfounded attacks on the integrity of the FBI erode respect for the rule of law and are a grave disservice to the men and women who sacrifice so much to protect others. Violence and threats against law enforcement, including the FBI, are dangerous and should be deeply concerning to all Americans," he said. "Every day I see the men and women of the FBI doing their jobs professionally and with rigor, objectivity, and a fierce commitment to our mission of protecting the American people and upholding the Constitution. I am proud to serve alongside them,” Wray added. Earlier this week, Trump attacked the FBI in a Truth Social post, with similar remarks from his allies. “Everyone was asked to leave the premises, they wanted to be alone, without any witnesses to see what they were doing, taking or, hopefully not, ‘planting,’” he wrote. “Why did they STRONGLY insist on having nobody watching them, everybody out?” Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy, a friend of the former president, said that while the two men had not discussed the investigation, “my guess is he’s pretty shocked.” Ruddy echoed Trump’s attacks on the FBI, calling the search a “publicity stunt” and depicting the Justice Department as politicized. “Unfounded attacks on the integrity of the FBI erode respect for the rule of law and are a grave disservice to the men and women who sacrifice so much to protect others. Violence and threats against law enforcement, including the FBI, are dangerous and should be deeply concerning to all Americans. Every day I see the men and women of the FBI doing their jobs professionally and with rigor, objectivity, and a fierce commitment to our mission of protecting the American people and upholding the Constitution. I am proud to serve alongside them.” Garland’s appearance Thursday followed an outpouring of criticism from Justice Department officials and alumni who faulted him both for his reticence amid the unprecedented search of an ex-president’s home and for failing to defend federal agents from unfounded claims that they had planted evidence. A former Justice Department official told NBC News: “In a normal investigation, secrecy is important and justified. But when you’re talking about sending dozens of FBI agents into the bedroom of the former president of the United States to go through his drawers, you need to explain what’s going on.” If not, this person added, “everyone will assume the worst.” “This is a completely unprecedented move by U.S. law enforcement, and I’m frankly astonished that no one has bothered to explain or justify it in any way.” The White House was not given advance notice of Garland’s remarks, a senior White House official said. Garland on Thursday put the onus on Trump to reveal more about the search, deflecting criticism that the Justice Department has been overly secretive. Under the motion filed by prosecutors, Trump now has two choices: He can allow the warrant to be made public, or he can keep it secret and risk appearing as if he has something to hide. “I thought it was both completely appropriate and absolutely brilliant to ask the president’s lawyers to weigh in on a decision to unseal,” said Chuck Rosenberg, a former U.S. attorney and FBI official who has worked in Democratic and Republican administrations. “If there’s no there there, you would expect the president agrees.” Representatives and attorneys for Trump did not immediately respond to requests for comment about whether he planned to fight Garland’s motion to unseal the search warrant. The Justice Department's motion does not seek to make public the affidavit of probable cause, which includes the FBI's justification for searching Mar-a-Lago. According to the court filing, a federal judge signed off on the search warrant last Friday. The filing notes that Trump and his lawyers have copies of both the warrant and a "redacted Property Receipt listing items seized pursuant to the search" — and that they can object to the public release of those documents. “Given the intense public interest presented by a search of a residence of a former President, the government believes these factors favor unsealing the search warrant" and related materials, the filing says. “That said, the former President should have an opportunity to respond to this Motion and lodge objections, including with regards to any ‘legitimate privacy interests’ or the potential for other ‘injury’ if these materials are made public.” The next step is for Justice Department officials to meet with Trump’s lawyers and determine whether he intends to fight disclosure of the warrant and the property receipt, according to an order Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart issued Thursday. The Justice Department must file a notice by 3 p.m. ET Friday to inform the judge of the Trump team’s intentions. An irony of the investigation is that it centers on paper records. As president, Trump had an aversion to reading briefing material that staff members would hand him, former administration officials said. David Shulkin, the former veterans affairs secretary, said that when he would meet with Trump in the Oval Office or an adjacent private dining room where the ex-president often worked with the TV tuned to Fox News, he was struck by the absence of paperwork. | |
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| 08-11-22 03:37pm - 770 days | Original Post - #1 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Aug 11, 2022 2:00pm PT Could Sylvester Stallone Get His Share of ‘Rocky?’ Legal Experts Explain Sylvester Stallone is synonymous with the character of Rocky Balboa, the scrappy underdog boxer who first brought him to the spotlight in the ’70s. But in recent years, Stallone has made it very clear that even though the films are inextricably linked with him, he’s not happy about the way the original deal was structured and thinks he should have received an ownership stake. On July 31, following the announcement of a “Rocky” spinoff film in development about the characters of Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren) and Viktor Drago (Viktor Drago), Stallone took to Instagram to express his frustrations about the direction of the expanding franchise, and particularly its longtime producer Irwin Winkler. In a since-deleted post, the actor called the 91-year-old producer and his children Charles and David Winkler “vultures” and “parasites” who he says are exploiting the franchise. Earlier in July, the actor posted another (also now deleted) Instagram of portrait of the producer as a serpent, voicing frustration that he had allegedly been deprived an equity stake in the “Rocky” franchise. Although Stallone’s invective against Winkler has heated up in the past month, it’s been bubbling for several years. In 2019, a year after the actor reprised his role as Rocky for the second spinoff “Creed II,” he sat down for an interview with Variety‘s former editor-in-chief Claudia Eller in 2019 to disclose his frustrations regarding the ownership situation of the franchise. Stallone — who wrote the screenplay for the film in three days, before selling the rights to producers Winkler and Robert Chartoff — said his anger came from the fact that the original deal deprived him of an equity stake in the franchise, a longterm asset that could be passed to his children after his death. “I was very angry. I was furious,” Stallone told Variety about the terms of the original “Rocky” contract. “‘Rocky’ is on TV around the world more than any other Oscar-winning film other than ‘Godfather.’ You have six of them, and now you have ‘Creed’ and ‘Creed II.’ I love the system — don’t get me wrong. My kids and their kids, they’re taken care of because of the system. But there are dark little segues and people that have put it to ya. They say the definition of Hollywood is someone who stabs you in the chest. They don’t even hide it.” Representatives of Stallone and Winkler did not respond to requests for comment on this story. Jason E. Squire, professor of cinematic practice at University of Southern California, called the situation of a major star directly and publicly calling out a prominent producer “very, very rare.” In terms of how Stallone and other stars get paid for their work on projects, Squire explains that stars usually get paid via cash upfront as well as back-end residuals dependent on the success of the film. In Stallone’s case, although he does not have ownership rights over the film, he continues to make money from the project via back-end payments. “Big stars are paid in two ways: cash up front, which is part of the budget, payable in weekly installments during shooting,” Squire said. “And then there’s the back end known as contingent compensation, which could be in the form of some kind of formula based on the success of the movie, the theory being sharing in the success.” While Stallone’s public dissatisfaction with the ownership situation hasn’t spilled over into any legal action, disputes over copyright and ownership over fictional characters are fairly common, and almost always go in the direction of the content owner. The comic book realm is particularly rife with with legal battles from the estates of creators like Jack Kirby over the characters they created — such as the Fantastic Four and X-Men — ending in courts ruling in Marvel or DC’s favor. James Sammataro, partner at Pryor Cashman and co-chair of the firm’s media and entertainment group, explains that these cases rest on a provision in copyright acts that Congress developed for cases before the current 1976 copyright act, due to an inequity of bargaining power in deals made before that time. In this provision, after a roughly 35-year period after the original deal, creators can issue “termination rights” to attempt to reclaim their copyright. The reason why many of these cases go in favor of the current rights holder, according to Sammataro, is because it rests on proving that the original work was developed outside of a “work for hire” situation, or that the project was developed without being commissioned by the rights holder for the express purpose of selling the work. With comic book properties especially, the cases have found that the works were made for hire, and as such the courts have sided with the rights holder. “When you do something as a work made for hire, your company that you’re rendering the services to becomes the owner,” Sammataro explains. “In most of those instances, the facts have lined up that it was a work made for hire, such that the employer or that company provided the tools, heavily edited the project, farmed out the work, essentially was the governing spirit behind the work and the person was more of a scribe as opposed to the creative source for it.” For a case that ended in success for the original writer, Sammataro pointed to a 2018 lawsuit regarding “Friday the 13th,” where original screenwriter Victor Miller received full ownership over the original screenplay after the court ruled in his favor, as an example of the termination rights succeeding. In that case, the court ruled in Miller’s favor by stating that the original screenplay was not made on a work for hire basis, not prepared within scope of employment, and that he was an independent contractor working on the project. Jody Simon, a lawyer for Fox Rothschild, who specializes in representing comic book creators and independent studios, says in the “Rocky” situation, the original script probably wouldn’t be considered work for hire due to the backstory of Stallone writing the script himself before shopping it to studios. However, he emphasized that doesn’t necessarily mean that Stallone has a case. Once he sold the script, it went under the ownership of Winkler, and whether or not he had an ownership claim depends on the specifics of the original deal. In the case of the “Drago” spinoff, where the character was introduced in the sequel “Rocky IV,” Stallone’s claim over the character is even hazier. As the character was introduced in a sequel after “Rocky” became an established property, the chances of the court ruling it was a work for hire situation is probably far greater. “From reading the articles, I don’t think Stallone was threatening to sue, I think he’s just complaining and trying to guilt Winkler into changing the economics,” Simon said. “I infer from the tone of what I’ve read in the press that he doesn’t have an ownership claim. If he had one, he probably would have asserted that.” | |
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| 08-11-22 02:26pm - 770 days | #277 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Dongle Trump stands for law and order. That's why he made it a felony to mishandle classified documents. This was done in 2018. But it's now 2022, and Dongle believes that the law does not apply to him. Dongle Trump enjoys unlimited immunity from persecution, due to his teflon halo, that he polishes daily. ---- ---- HuffPost Trump Made It A Felony To Mishandle Classified Documents In 2018 Sara Boboltz Wed, August 10, 2022 at 10:21 AM Few details have been made public as to why, exactly, the FBI and Department of Justice felt the urgent need to raid former president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort on Monday. Reports indicate Trump had been holding onto materials that were supposed to have been turned over to the National Archives. But officials have not commented on what was contained in those records ― and whether there are implications for U.S. national security. The lack of information leaves only speculation about what sort of potential criminal activity the Department of Justice is looking into. Oddly enough, one of the multiple laws covering the mishandling of government information is one that Trump himself amended during his tenure in the Oval Office, as pointed out by Tennessee state Sen. Jeff Yarbro (D) on Twitter. Tucked into a bill Trump signed into law in January 2018 was a provision increasing the punishment for knowingly removing classified materials with the intent to retain them at an “unauthorized location.” Previously, someone found guilty of this crime could face up to one year in prison. When former CIA Director David Petraeus was charged in 2015 with mishandling classified data, he pleaded guilty under this statute to avoid a felony charge, as Politico pointed out. A similar situation unfolded a decade earlier, when former national security adviser Samuel Berger pleaded guilty to removing terrorism-related materials from the National Archives in 2005. Now, a person convicted of violating this law can face up to five years in prison ― making it a felony-level offense to mishandle classified documents under 18 U.S.C. 1924. Could 2018 Trump have unknowingly put 2022 Trump in a tough spot? We don’t yet know. This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated. | |
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| 08-11-22 02:10pm - 770 days | #276 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
HuffPost Eric Trump's Accidental Confession About His Father Has Twitter Users Howling Ed Mazza Wed, August 10, 2022 at 1:57 AM Eric Trump may have revealed just a little too much about how the White House operated under his father. One day after the FBI executed a search warrant on Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, the son of the former president claimed that President Joe Biden must have approved the action. His reasoning: That’s how it worked when Trump was in office. Most modern presidents have taken pains to distance themselves from Justice Department operations with political implications. In this case, the White House said Biden found out about the search warrant the same way as everyone else: from the news. But as Twitter users were quick to point out, Eric Trump’s comments appeared to admit that wasn’t the case in the Trump White House: This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated. | |
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| 08-11-22 02:06pm - 770 days | #275 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
The Attorney General of the Untied States of Trumperland stands tall. He refuses to back down in the face of threats to the FBI. Says that Dongle Trump was given the chance to re-buff the armed FBI agents, if Dongle had used the incident to show that Dongle's Secret Service agents had opened fire on the FBI agents to protect the dignity and honor of Dongle Trump. But Dongle Trump, the loudmouth braggart, did not lead the Secret Service to attack the FBI. So both sides are claiming victory. God save the King. Err, Sleepy Joe Biden, I mean. Who will now ponder the GOP's requests to dismantle the FBI. The FBI can be useful: remember when Dongle Trump used the FBI to whitewash Brett Kavanaugh? ----- ----- Merrick Garland: DOJ asks judge to unseal Mar-a-Lago search warrant Yahoo News Caitlin Dickson August 11, 2022, 12:36 PM Attorney General Merrick Garland said Thursday that the Justice Department had filed a motion to unseal a search warrant and property receipt from the FBI’s recent search of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. Garland announced the motion at a press conference, marking his first public statement about the matter since Trump publicly confirmed the search at his Florida residence on Monday evening. Although he declined to answer questions or provide any further details about the search, Garland said that he “personally approved the decision to seek a search warrant in this matter,” adding, “The department does not take such a decision lightly.” Garland said that the search warrant “was authorized by a federal court upon the required finding of probable cause," and that copies of both the warrant and the FBI property receipt “were provided on the day of the search to the former president's counsel, who was on site during the search.” According to multiple reports, the raid was related to an investigation into Trump's potential mishandling of classified documents. In May, a federal grand jury began investigating whether he had mishandled top-secret documents, including taking 15 boxes of material to the Florida resort. Monday’s raid was first reported by Florida Politics — which said the FBI had executed a search warrant and left the premises — minutes before Trump posted his statement about it to his social media site, Truth Social. “These are dark times for our Nation, as my beautiful home, Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida is currently under siege, raided and occupied by a large group of FBI agents,” Trump said in his statement. Without evidence, he decried the search as “prosecutorial misconduct, the weaponization of the Justice System, and an attack by the Radical Left Democrats who desperately don't want me to run for President in 2024." Garland said Thursday that the search warrant “was authorized by a federal court upon the required finding of probable cause." Nevertheless, Trump’s outrage quickly reverberated across the right, as Republican lawmakers and conservative commentators jumped to the former president’s defense, echoing his claims of persecution and calling for the FBI to be dismantled. It didn’t take long for some of the rhetoric around the Mar-a-Lago raid to turn violent. Within hours of Trump’s statement announcing the raid, social media users from Twitter to more fringe platforms like Gab and Telegram were issuing calls for civil war and vowing to take up arms. At Thursday’s press conference, Garland sought to address what he called “recent unfounded attacks on the professionalism of the FBI and Justice Department agents and prosecutors.” “I will not stand by silently when their integrity is unfairly attacked,” Garland said. "The men and women of the FBI and the Justice Department are dedicated, patriotic public servants. Every day they protect the American people from violent crime, terrorism and other threats to their safety, while safeguarding our civil rights. They do so at great personal sacrifice and risk to themselves. “I am honored to work alongside them,” he added. | |
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| 08-11-22 12:45am - 771 days | #274 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
The head of the FBI comes out swinging. Says the FBI will attack all GOP lawbreakers who threaten the FBI. This includes slimy Baby-Face Lindsey Graham, the man who hides behind the US Constitution while breaking the law. Never before in the history of the Untied States of Trumperland has there been so much vile and bigoted behavior on the part of the GOP. The FBI will be cleaning house and putting leaders of the GOP, including Dongle Trump, in jail, as soon as Sleepy Joe Biden finishes his coffee break and noontime nap. Until Sleepy Joe finishes his nap time, the FBI is arming itself with 357 and 44 Magnums, the weapon of choice of our beloved hero, Dirty Harry Callahan. Although Dirty Harry has retired, Sleepy Joe is considering making Dirty Harry the head of an enforcement team that will crack down on white supremacists and antisemites gathering to mount an armed revolution. And if Dongle Trump, the real leader of this revolt, is caught with a smoking gun, he will be sent straight to prison. ----- ----- FBI's Wray denounces threats following search of Trump home Associated Press MARGERY A. BECK August 10, 2022, 11:21 PM OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The director of the FBI had strong words Wednesday for supporters of former President Donald Trump who have been using violent rhetoric in the wake of his agency's search of Trump's Mar-a-Lago home. Christopher Wray, who was appointed as the agency’s director in 2017 by Trump, called threats circulating online against federal agents and the Justice Department “deplorable and dangerous.” “I’m always concerned about threats to law enforcement,” Wray said. “Violence against law enforcement is not the answer, no matter who you’re upset with.” Wray made the remarks following a news conference during a long-planned visit to the agency’s field office in Omaha, Nebraska, where he discussed the FBI's focus on cybersecurity. He declined to answer questions about the hours-long search Monday by FBI agents of Trump's Palm Beach, Florida resort. It has been easy to find the threats and a call to arms in those corners of the internet favored by right-wing extremists since Trump himself announced the search of his Florida home. Reactions included the ubiquitous “Lock and load” and calls for federal agents and even U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to be assassinated. On Gab — a social media site popular with white supremacists and antisemites — one poster going by the name of Stephen said he was awaiting “the call” to mount an armed revolution. “All it takes is one call. And millions will arm up and take back this country. It will be over in less than 2 weeks,” the post said. Another Gab poster implored others: “Lets get this started! This unelected, illegitimate regime crossed the line with their GESTAPO raid! It is long past time the lib socialist filth were cleansed from American society!" The search of Trump's residence Monday is part of an investigation into whether Trump took classified records from the White House to his Florida residence, according to people familiar with the matter. The Justice Department has been investigating the potential mishandling of classified information since the National Archives and Records Administration said it had received from Mar-a-Lago 15 boxes of White House records, including documents containing classified information, earlier this year. | |
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| 08-10-22 04:29pm - 771 days | #273 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
GOP is accusing Sleepy Joe Biden of being a secret Nazi who is going after Dongle Trump. Dongle Trump admits, with a teary eye, that he is probably the most corrupt president of the Untied States of Trumperland we've ever had. But Dongle says he is not to blame: my family forced me into the Mafia, where, to make my bones, I seduced and killed innocent women who were thinking of cooperating with the FBI. My manhood and good looks were the key to my success as an enforcer and assassin for the Mafia. And that is why I need billions of dollars for legal fees against the Untied States criminal division: support me in my fight to make America Free, White, and Sexist. ------ ------ Yahoo News Absent details, Republicans flock to Trump's side after FBI search at Mar-a-Lago Tom LoBianco Tom LoBianco·Reporter Wed, August 10, 2022 at 6:53 AM For 24 hours after the FBI executed a search warrant at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and residence in South Florida — the first time FBI agents have raided the home of a former U.S. president — Republicans of almost every stripe flocked to Trump’s defense, all using variations of the long-standing trope that a dark cabal was out to get him. Trump’s family members and current and former top advisers accused the Biden administration of using Nazi-style tactics in executing a criminal search warrant. Hardly a mention was made of the apparent reason for the search in the first place — Trump’s allegedly illegal removal of highly sensitive government documents from the White House and a series of reports about his habit of destroying documents. At the core of the latest twist in the GOP’s awkward dance with Trump since the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol is a belief that Republican voters — in this moment, at least — have been re-energized by the view that the “deep state” is out to get Trump while giving a pass to President Biden’s son Hunter and to Hillary Clinton. An external view of the Mar-a-Lago resort and residence. Former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla. (Marco Bello/Reuters) “It seems a really extreme reaction [from the FBI] when they were negotiating, and it’s about presidential records, when contrasting with how Hillary was treated and how Hunter was treated,” a former Trump adviser said Tuesday. “Republican voters are now reactivated and re-angered that there are two systems of justice in this country.” (Asked what they thought would have happened if former President Barack Obama had removed classified documents the same way Trump had, the former adviser said the Justice Department probably would have phoned politely and asked for their return.) “This is to show that they’re doing something, since the clock is running out ahead of the midterms,” said one Trump adviser. “It will backfire.” Donald Trump. Donald Trump speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas on Aug. 6. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images) Behind the scenes, the stunning search fueled concern around the escalating legal problems for Trump — stemming from his reported destruction of records, his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss and other matters. Rolling Stone reported Tuesday that Trump was building another in a string of criminal defense teams to work on his behalf. “A f****ing mess,” said one veteran Republican operative. Another coined it “chaos.” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday that Biden had no advance knowledge of the search and batted away questions about what the agents were seeking. But absent further details on the nature of the search — Eric Trump said on Fox News that the FBI sought papers related to the Presidential Records Act — the latest stunning event around Trump played out almost entirely in the political sphere, with a keen focus on the 2024 shadow primary for the Republican nomination. Donald Trump and family members, and Marjorie Taylor Greene. Trump acknowledges the crowd while standing with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, second from right, his son Eric, right, and Eric's wife Lara at the Bedminster Invitational LIV Golf tournament in Bedminster, N.J., in July. (Seth Wenig/AP) On Fox News Monday night, the former president's daughter-in-law Lara Trump, who at one point was considered a possible Senate candidate, said that the raid likely means Trump will announce his third bid for the White House in a few days. (Some aides previously promised he would announce before July 4 of this year. Other Trump advisers have tamped down talk of his announcing his third run before the 2022 midterms are done.) Trump’s campaign-in-waiting blasted appeals to his fundraising lists almost immediately after the search on Monday — saying in one fundraising request that his “beautiful home” had been “raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents” and writing in a text blast to his supporters that “Dems broke into the home of Pres Trump.” Meanwhile, the wide-open field of possible 2024 contenders, who were long reluctant to weigh in on revelations from the Jan. 6 hearings over the last two months, blasted Biden and the Justice Department. A stop sign in front of a gated entrance to Mar-a-Lago. A stop sign outside Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday. (Marco Bello/Reuters) Even Republicans who long ago broke with Trump, including former Vice President Mike Pence, who was almost attacked by the pro-Trump mob on Jan. 6, and Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, decried the search on Trump’s property — though both said the public needs to know more about what agents are seeking, a request that could potentially damage Trump. Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., a rising star in the party who is often floated as a possible 2024 contender, told CBS News, “We need to let this play out and see exactly what happens.” The lone big-name Republican who sided with the Justice Department on Tuesday was former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a former federal prosecutor, who told Sirius XM’s Julie Mason that the search of Trump’s safe at his Mar-a-Lago residence was “fair game.” | |
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| 08-10-22 09:19am - 771 days | #272 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Dongle Trump scrambling for more donations. His ex-wife died, and he holds out his hands for donations because she died. His home was raided by the FBI, and he holds out his hands for donations because he wants more money from suckers. Dongle has over $100 million in a PAC, that he will have trouble spending legally. But there's never enough money to fill Dongle's greed. ----- ----- Trump team sent MSNBC's Lawrence O’Donnell an email fundraising off Mar-a-Lago raid Yahoo TV Stephen Proctor August 9, 2022, 11:57 PM Lawrence O’Donnell kicked off Tuesday’s The Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell by showing an email he’d received from former President Donald Trump’s fundraising team. On Monday, the FBI raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Fla., reportedly searching for classified material that the former president took with him when he left office in violation of the Presidential Records Act. O’Donnell showed the email on the screen as he read it aloud. “Mar-a-Lago was raided,” the email began. “The radical Left is corrupt. We must return the power to the people. Please rush in a donation immediately to publicly stand with me against this never-ending witch hunt.” While it may seem inappropriate to fundraise after the FBI executed a lawful search warrant on your property, this sort of thing is not out of the ordinary for the former president. In a statement Trump posted last month announcing the death of his ex-wife Ivana, there was a donation link included at the bottom. This latest fundraising attempt came with a suggested donation and a deadline. “He thinks I’m good for $45. That’s what his email list managers tell him,” O’Donnell said. “And there's a deadline. Deadline for my contribution of $45 is immediately. Immediately. I gotta drop everything and contribute.” O'Donnell noted that Trump’s presidency made history in myriad ways. For example, he was the first U.S. president to visit North Korea, he was the first to be impeached twice, the first former president to have his home raided by the FBI, and as O’Donnell pointed out, the first to raise money off of that. “Once again, Donald Trump makes American political history, presidential history, with that email,” O’Donnell said. “An email about, ‘My house got raided by the FBI, so please give me a political contribution.’ No one’s ever done that before. That is pure Donald Trump.” The Last Word With Lawrence O'Donnell airs weeknights at 10 p.m. on MSNBC. | |
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