Stasi Raid Mar-a-Lago

[Starlight]

The DOJ and FBI really, really, really don't want anybody vetting their work. I wonder why?

Because treason-Trump has shown he has one corrupt biased judge he appointed firmly in his pocket already interfering with the investigation, so they don't want treason-Trump interfering further with their investigation by appointing a different corrupt biased judge to sabotage their investigation of him on his behalf.

[Mountain Man]

Because treason-Trump has shown he has one corrupt biased judge he appointed firmly in his pocket already interfering with the investigation, so they don't want treason-Trump interfering further with their investigation by appointing a different corrupt biased judge to sabotage their investigation of him on his behalf.

Your delusions are certainly getting grander.

[Stoic]

I understood the question to be, "What information in those documents would pose a national security risk if it were to be made public?" And my answer was, "Almost certainly nothing."

The test for assigning Top Secret classification is whether its unauthorized disclosure could reasonably be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security.

The test for assigning Secret classification shall be whether its unauthorized disclosure could reasonably be expected to cause serious damage to the national security.

The test for assigning Confidential classification shall be whether its unauthorized disclosure could reasonably be expected to cause damage to the national security.

source

[Stoic]

Dude, that's not even alleged. You got this backwards.

Trump's communications with his attorneys enjoy privilege as a matter of law - same as yours. It does not need to be invoked unless challenged. That means that the state has grounds to believe privilege doesn't apply in which case it can go to the court and try to prove it.

Otherwise, privilege is attached to all communications with an attorney - yours included.

This is really dumb - stripping Trump of his rights to play 'gotcha' is just begging to lose those same rights for everyone.

If anyone wants to claim that the classified documents are covered by attorney-client privilege, then necessarily Trump classified his communications with his private attorneys. And the only way that would be acceptable is if disclosure of those communications could reasonably be expected to damage national security.

[Mountain Man]

Former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe questions the validity of the classified documents that were at Mar-a-Lago. It is his belief that they are not actual national security secrets but the "sources and methods" designation that the FBI and DOJ frequently use to hide their work product.

Keep in mind that as the DNI during 2020, Ratcliffe saw the documents that eventually became the material President Trump declassified and left with the DOJ to release after the Durham investigation was complete. If Ratcliffe’s suspicions are correct, and there is more valid reason to support his suspicions than oppose them, then the entire construct of the DOJ-NSD operation to retrieve those documents from Mar-a-Lago is factually one big cover-up operation.

https://theconservativetreehouse.com...lago-documents

[Stoic]

Former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe questions the validity of the classified documents that were at Mar-a-Lago. It is his belief that they are not actual national security secrets but the "sources and methods" designation that the FBI and DOJ frequently use to hide their work product.

Keep in mind that as the DNI during 2020, Ratcliffe saw the documents that eventually became the material President Trump declassified and left with the DOJ to release after the Durham investigation was complete. If Ratcliffe’s suspicions are correct, and there is more valid reason to support his suspicions than oppose them, then the entire construct of the DOJ-NSD operation to retrieve those documents from Mar-a-Lago is factually one big cover-up operation.

https://theconservativetreehouse.com...lago-documents

Not a surprising opinion, coming from him.

[NorrinRadd]

Not a surprising opinion, coming from him.

I doubt that anyone will really have an unbiased view.

[Mountain Man]

Not a surprising opinion, coming from him.

It's often the case that the truth is not surprising.

[Stoic]

I doubt that anyone will really have an unbiased view.

Agreed.

[Stoic]

It's often the case that the truth is not surprising.

True, as are many opinions.

[Starlight]

I see that now Trump has gotten his preferred Special Master, he's already having a falling out with him.

The Special Master has done the predictable first thing of asking the Trump team which of the documents Trump declassified before he left office, so he knows what the classification status is of the documents he is dealing with is.

And the Trump team has responded with essentially "not telling you, that might be our Hail Mary legal defense at the end of this when Trump is prosecuted".

And the Special Master has responded with "well if you're not going to tell me, I'll believe their classification status to be what the document folder covers say they are, i.e. classified".



P.S. I don't think it's been mentioned here yet, but the Trump teams' reasoning for selecting that Special Master was bonkers.

I'd worried they'd managed to select some Trump-appointed young crazy judge like Judge Cannon in Florida that he's been dealing with. But that's not the case here, this very old judge was on the FISA court for 7 years recently - a court generally widely viewed as very favorable to the government.

The bonkers theory that the Trump people had is that they had drunk their own kool-aid propaganda about how the FBI had 'lied' to the FISA court during the Russia investigation of Trump, and therefore believed that this single event would have radically alter the 78 year-old judge's opinion of the FBI negatively. They thought this one negative event would influence his view of the FBI more strongly than all his dealings with the FBI in his previous 5 decades of his working life.

But as Special Master his view of the FBI doesn't really matter because he's primarily dealing with the documents, not so much with the FBI. His view of Trump might matter like Judge Cannon's did. But the Trump team has no particular reason to believe he has a favorable view of Trump, and so far his public interactions with the Trump team haven't shown any, unlike Judge Cannon.

[Stoic]

I see that now Trump has gotten his preferred Special Master, he's already having a falling out with him.

The Special Master has done the predictable first thing of asking the Trump team which of the documents Trump declassified before he left office, so he knows what the classification status is of the documents he is dealing with is.

And the Trump team has responded with essentially "not telling you, that might be our Hail Mary legal defense at the end of this when Trump is prosecuted".

And the Special Master has responded with "well if you're not going to tell me, I'll believe their classification status to be what the document folder covers say they are, i.e. classified".



P.S. I don't think it's been mentioned here yet, but the Trump teams' reasoning for selecting that Special Master was bonkers.

I'd worried they'd managed to select some Trump-appointed young crazy judge like Judge Cannon in Florida that he's been dealing with. But that's not the case here, this very old judge was on the FISA court for 7 years recently - a court generally widely viewed as very favorable to the government.

The bonkers theory that the Trump people had is that they had drunk their own kool-aid propaganda about how the FBI had 'lied' to the FISA court during the Russia investigation of Trump, and therefore believed that this single event would have radically alter the 78 year-old judge's opinion of the FBI negatively. They thought this one negative event would influence his view of the FBI more strongly than all his dealings with the FBI in his previous 5 decades of his working life.

But as Special Master his view of the FBI doesn't really matter because he's primarily dealing with the documents, not so much with the FBI. His view of Trump might matter like Judge Cannon's did. But the Trump team has no particular reason to believe he has a favorable view of Trump, and so far his public interactions with the Trump team haven't shown any, unlike Judge Cannon.

I guess the DOJ knew what it was doing when they said he would be acceptable.

[Sparko]

I see that now Trump has gotten his preferred Special Master, he's already having a falling out with him.

The Special Master has done the predictable first thing of asking the Trump team which of the documents Trump declassified before he left office, so he knows what the classification status is of the documents he is dealing with is.

And the Trump team has responded with essentially "not telling you, that might be our Hail Mary legal defense at the end of this when Trump is prosecuted".

And the Special Master has responded with "well if you're not going to tell me, I'll believe their classification status to be what the document folder covers say they are, i.e. classified".

.

The special master isn't there to determine which documents are classified or not, he is supposed to be there to determine which documents have Attorney-Client Privilege.

[Stoic]

The special master isn't there to determine which documents are classified or not, he is supposed to be there to determine which documents have Attorney-Client Privilege.

He's there to determine which documents should be given back to Trump. Obviously, if they are classified, they can't be given back to Trump.

Trump and/or his minions have been claiming that the documents have been declassified, but only in such a way that they can't be punished for being dishonest.

[Sparko]

He's there to determine which documents should be given back to Trump. Obviously, if they are classified, they can't be given back to Trump.

Trump and/or his minions have been claiming that the documents have been declassified, but only in such a way that they can't be punished for being dishonest.

No, he is there to only give back attorney client privilege documents. The rest go back to the DOJ to sort through. I doubt Trump could claim a classified document was privileged since it would have had to be created and rated by the government at some point to be classified and that would be before Trump had it. A privileged document would be a document with private information shared between Trump and his Attorney, such as letters or emails discussing their strategy and such. That wouldn't be classified. The whole what is and isn't classified shouldn't have anything to do with that as far as I can tell. Now they might be wanting to use some documents in their case that they claim is not classified but the DOJ claims is, but that is for the courts to decide later.