Biden says Russia is clearly 'losing the war in IRAQ'

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[–]weavilsatemyface 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (9 children)

He's claiming to have superpowers of vocabulary

I never said that Trump has the vocabulary of (say) the late Clive James. I said he knows how to push people's buttons. Short, snappy sentences with simple words are best if you want to appeal to the hoi polloi. He won't attract one single extra vote by using sesquipedalian lexemes in place of ordinary language.

Besides, many intelligent people write short sentences with simple words. Ernest Hemingway sends his greetings. One of the most powerful verses in the bible is two words: "Jesus wept."

You're very wrong about that.

Executive order 13526 says I'm not.

The Espionage Act is frequently and widely abused in the US:

and "defence information" is meaningless.

But under American law, the same law applies to presidents and ex presidents as crackwhores and ex crackwhores.

Indeed. If a crack whore becomes president, executive order 13526 will apply equally to her as it does to Obama, Trump and Biden, and she too will be able to declassify documents on a whim.

[–]ActuallyNot 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (8 children)

Short, snappy sentences with simple words are best if you want to appeal to the hoi polloi.

"China has 1.4 billion people, we have 325 -- probably 325 million approximately -- nobody can give the exact count, we're trying to get an exact count but you have, over the years, many illegals who have come into the country, so it depends on how you want to count it." - Donald Trump being snappy

Other examples of snappy oratory from Donald Trump:

  • "Possibly it's one of the reasons -- certainly it's one of the very big reasons trade and things related to trade that I got elected in the first place -- I've been talking about it for a long time, along with many other subjects, frankly."

  • "But it's still -- we've done a great job, get no credit for it and I don't want the credit, I want the people that have done this great job -- the people that have done such an incredible job in building the ventilators and doing the testing and building a testing platform that's been amazing."

Executive order 13526 says I'm not.

You're very wrong about that too.

From your link

1) Classification doesn't expire because an ex president wills it:

"If the original classification authority cannot determine an earlier specific date or event for declassification, information shall be marked for declassification 10 years from the date of the original decision, unless the original classification authority otherwise determines that the sensitivity of the information requires that it be marked for declassification for up to 25 years from the date of the original decision."

2) The declassification procedure is detailed. It does not include an ex-president thinking about it.

The Espionage Act is frequently and widely abused in the US:

Illegally keeping government information, revision to give it back, and lying about having it will lead to charges under the espionage act.

If a crack whore becomes president, executive order 13526 will apply equally to her as it does to Obama, Trump and Biden, and she too will be able to declassify documents on a whim.

Wrong and also irrelevant.

The declassification procedure detailed in your linked order does not include "on a whim". Moreover Trump is on tape saying that he didn't declassify the documents about the invasion plan of Iran was still classified.

“It is like, highly confidential,” Trump told those present, “see as president I could have declassified it… Now I can’t, you know, but this is still a secret.”

And the charges bright under the espionage act are USC 18 section 793

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/793

You'll notice that it's about defence information. It doesn't mention the classification status of the information.

[–]weavilsatemyface 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Donald Trump being snappy

Is there something wrong with those sentences? They make sense to me. You probably hear sentences more mangled a dozen times a day and don't even notice. Some of them obviously are following on from a previous sentence and so they don't express a complete thought on their own.

"Donald Trump is a bad speaker" is a weird hill for you to die on. A bit like "Bill Clinton and JFK were not popular with the ladies." Shall we compare him to Joe Biden or George Bush Jr? Or Dan Quayle?

I'm reminded of this experiment: what if Clinton and Trump swapped sexes?

[–]ActuallyNot 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Is there something wrong with those sentences?

They're not snappy.

The "snappy" line for explaining why Trump's got the vocabulary of a precocious three year old didn't work.

[–]weavilsatemyface 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

And the charges bright under the espionage act are USC 18 section 793

The espionage act is the weapon the US government uses when the gloves come off and they go full on authoritarian. Is quite ironic that Trump is being hit by it too.

After spending months attacking Trump for holding onto "Top Secret" documents, the prosecutors presumably realised exactly the point people have been saying all along: the president, and former presidents, are legally empowered to implicitly declassify any documents they like by simply treating them as declassified. This was enshrined in precedence going back to Bush and Clinton and possibly even further back, and then made explicit by Obama. Quote:

As the Times points out, "prosecutors would not technically need to prove that [the documents at Mar-a-Lago] were still classified because the Espionage Act predates the classification system and does not refer to it as an element."

Since the original legal theory that Trump had broken the law by holding onto classified documents failed to hold water, the prosecution had to find another excuse to go after him. And the Espionage Act is great for that because it is so easy to abuse. For example:

Joe Biden just admitted publicly that the US military is all but out of 155mm artillery shells, and that's why they're sending cluster munitions to Ukraine. Many people have attacked him for this, claiming that he's revealed information related to national defence to America's enemies. Which is true, since levels of munitions is related to national defence, and America's enemies have access to the Internet and media where Biden's comment has been widely reported.

Of course it's a stupid accusation, since everyone already knows that America is out of munitions and cannot ramp up production to levels needed to fight a peer adversary like Russia or China. But regardless of whether it is a stupid claim or not, under the Espionage Act Biden has just committed a crime:

"Whoever, lawfully having possession of, access to, control over, or being entrusted with ... information relating to the national defense which information the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation, willfully communicates, delivers, transmits ... the same to any person not entitled to receive it ..."

Oops. Maybe Trump and Biden can share the same cell in Guantanamo Bay? 😃

Of course this assumes that the Justice Department is applying the law equally to everyone. And if you think that, I've got a great NFTs to sell you.

That's the problem with the Espionage Act: it is so overly broad and sweeping (almost anything could be related to "national defence" under a sufficiently imaginative prosecutor) that it is easy to abuse. And so it has been abused.

[–]ActuallyNot 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

the president, and former presidents, are legally empowered to implicitly declassify any documents they like by simply treating them as declassified.

Oh, ex presidents too?

You think Jimmy Carter can will secret documents into different classifications by thinking about it too?

That's kind of funny.

"In my administration, I'm going to enforce all laws concerning the protection of classified information. No one will be above the law." - Trump 2016

“As president, I could have declassified, but now I can’t,” - Trump 2021

"Secret. This is secret information. Look, look at this" - Trump 2021, same recording as above.

Since the original legal theory that Trump had broken the law by holding onto classified documents failed to hold water, the prosecution had to find another excuse to go after him

The charges weren't changed. Crimes under the espionage act, and mishandling of NARA documents were the ones on the search warrant.

And since the video evidence shows Nauta moving boxes out of the store room the day before Trump's attorneys searched the room to comply with the grand jury subpoena for their return, we know that Trump was attempting to conceal that he had documents.

Biden did nothing of the sort, and you know it.

[–]weavilsatemyface 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Oh, ex presidents too?

You think Jimmy Carter can will secret documents into different classifications by thinking about it too?

Carter doesn't have access to secret documents any longer and cannot just walk into the White House to get them.

But I expect that if it was discovered that he had taken home some documents in 1980, and 43 years later they were discovered in his sock drawer, or a private think-tank they would probably be covered by the same precedent and Executive Order.

“As president, I could have declassified, but now I can’t,” - Trump 2021

Oh so now Trump is considered the ultimate authority on the law? 🙄

Trump hasn't been charged with being wrong, or being inconsistent, or being mistaken about his failure to declassify the documents.

The charges against him don't even require that the documents be classified. They could be a menu from the White House canteen and the Espionage Act could still apply, provided the prosecutor can come up with a sufficiently imaginative story as how that could effect national security.

Doesn't even have to be that imaginative: if Putin knows what they are serving in the canteen, he could sneak into the warehouses distributing the food and poison it. Actually most judges don't even require a theory for how something affects national security, they're quite happy to believe the prosecutor when he says "we can't tell you how because it is classified". Kinda like juries that believe cops who repeat the catchphrase "I feared for my life" when they shot somebody in the back as they were lying face down on the street in handcuffs...

[–]ActuallyNot 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Carter doesn't have access to secret documents any longer and cannot just walk into the White House to get them.

Oh! Ex-presidents can only change the classification of a document if that document is in their hand?

I didn't see that bit about proximity to the document in any of your links to the law. Can you point out the part where it says that?

Oh so now Trump is considered the ultimate authority on the law? 🙄

Nope.

But it shows that he didn't declassify the document. And it shows that he understands that an ex-president can't.

The first part is important for the trial, because it shows criminal intent.

The charges against him don't even require that the documents be classified.

The ones on the search warrant didn't. But Smith can bring other charges. The photographic evidence in the indictment show that there were crimes being committed with respect to the handling of classified documents.

They could be a menu from the White House canteen and the Espionage Act could still apply, provided the prosecutor can come up with a sufficiently imaginative story as how that could effect national security.

The document that we have in the tape recording was the attack plan for the invasion of Iran.

That's the one that they could release what it was.

[–]weavilsatemyface 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Oh! Ex-presidents can only change the classification of a document if that document is in their hand?

The precedent and executive order imply that a president does not have to do anything special to declassify a document (although of course they can go through normal channels if they so choose). The mere act of treating the document as if it were unclassified by, for example, giving it to aides without clearance, or taking it home, makes it so.

Carter, as a former president, cannot do anything at all with documents he doesn't already possess, so he cannot treat them as unclassified if he doesn't already have them. If he does have them now, it would be because he already declassified them in 1980 when he took them home.

But it shows that he didn't declassify the document. And it shows that he understands that an ex-president can't.

So what's your theory here? That Trump is a paragon of virtue who has never lied or bent the truth, and would never, ever big note himself by pretending to be showing classified documents? That everything he says is 100% accurate and he is incapable of misspeaking or being mistaken about the classification status of a document? That by merely stating that the document is classified, he has reclassified it as secret?

There is no executive order or precedent that ex-presidents can reclassify documents as secret. So it doesn't matter if Trump said the document is secret. He was lying, or mistaken.

But as you say, the Espionage Act doesn't require the document to be secret. If the DoJ wanted to, they could go after somebody for showing a copy of the New York Times to a journalist on the theory that the NY Times contains information that could be useful to America's enemies. The Espionage Act does not require the information be secret, or classified, or define a threshold of "militarily useful", and the mere fact that it is common knowledge is no defence.

And if the defendant was Donald Trump, after six years of unrelenting propaganda that Trump is a Russian agent, you could easily find tens of thousands of jury members who would willingly convict him.

The document that we have in the tape recording was the attack plan for the invasion of Iran.

That's impossible. Only Russia invades other countries. They must have been plans to deliver freedom to Iran.

[–]ActuallyNot 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The precedent and executive order imply that a president does not have to do anything special to declassify a document

Does it now? Declassification and downgrading is part three of the executive order isn't it?

The mere act of treating the document as if it were unclassified by, for example, giving it to aides without clearance, or taking it home, makes it so.

Would this come under section 3.3 Automatic declassification?

So what's your theory here?

Trump took and kept from NARA documents that were classified. Moreover he knew they were classified, and that they hadn't been declassified. So we have him committing the crime, but we also have criminal intent.

That by merely stating that the document is classified, he has reclassified it as secret?

The claim that he can declassify things with his mind has no basis in law. Important for the criminal trial is that he knew that. Because as with most crimes, you can't be guilty if you didn't intend to commit a crime.

But as you say, the Espionage Act doesn't require the document to be secret.

Yes. The search warrant and indictment were focused carefully to avoid issues with potentially violent Trump supporters influenced by the stuff Trump was spouting on truth social.

He's been charges are under the laws Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information, Tampering with a witness, victim, or an informant, Destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in Federal investigations and bankruptcy, Fraud and false statements: Statements or entries generally.

And it notes 18 U.S. Code § 2 - Principals, which means he's getting charged with actions of his minions:

(a)Whoever commits an offense against the United States or aids, abets, counsels, commands, induces or procures its commission, is punishable as a principal.
(b)Whoever willfully causes an act to be done which if directly performed by him or another would be an offense against the United States, is punishable as a principal.

None of those depend on the classification of the documents, but the indictment details the mishandling of classified information, while making it clear that Trump knew that what he was doing was criminal.

That's impossible. Only Russia invades other countries. They must have been plans to deliver freedom to Iran.

Sure. But such freedom might have become urgent if their uranium purification progressed past the point of weapons grade.