Democrats: TRUMP STOLE CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS!!!!!1! Trump's office: They were declassified actually LOL

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[–]ActuallyNot 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (36 children)

A "standing order" is not how the classification of documents is changed.

"Merely proclaiming a document or group of documents declassified and doing nothing more would not suffice," Bradley Moss, a Washington, D.C.-based lawyer who works on national security cases, told PolitiFact.

Follow-through is required.

"He had to identify the specific documents he was declassifying, he needed to memorialize the order in writing for bureaucratic and historical purposes, and he needed to have staff physically modify the classification markings on the documents themselves," Moss said. "Until that was done, the documents, per the security classification procedures, still have to be handled, transmitted and stored as if they were classified."

Tom Blanton, director of the National Security Archive at George Washington University, agreed.

"If the documents are still marked classified 18 months after their removal from the White House," Blanton told PolitiFact, "then Trump was too busy to order them declassified at the time."

https://www.politifact.com/article/2022/aug/11/could-trump-argue-declassified-documents/

But in any case it will concern many republican voters that national secrets were taken to mar-a-lago and held in an unlocked room for a year by an ex-president. Whether or not the person taking them claimed to have changed the classification without telling anyone.

[–][deleted]  (27 children)

[deleted]

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

    Thanks, Dingleberry!

    I hadn't heard about the names of CIA agents.

    Again that is extremely serious.

    [–]iamonlyoneman[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (24 children)

    moscow

    "all roads lead back to russia" now you are nancy pelosi LOL

    get new material

    [–]ActuallyNot 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (23 children)

    To get a search warrant you have to have "probable cause" that a crime is being committed.

    There were three sections of federal law that breaches of which was were the target of the warrant. One of those was espionage.

    [–]iamonlyoneman[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (22 children)

    Why is DOJ asking the judge to keep their affadavit to obtain the search warrant under seal? Is it because their case is strong and righteous?

    [–]ActuallyNot 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (21 children)

    The usual reason that the DOJ does that is because if you telegraph the evidence you have, the people under investigation have an advantage in crafting any lies that they want to make up in their defence.

    It's better to question them first, and then show them the evidence.

    [–]iamonlyoneman[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (20 children)

    Difficulty: There's nothing because Don Trumpo is the cleanest POTUS in history LOL

    [–]ActuallyNot 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (19 children)

    Cleanest? Is that orange stuff disinfectant?

    Or are you claiming that all the crimes he's committed are less than every other presidents?

    [–]iamonlyoneman[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (18 children)

    If he had done literally anything illegal, he would be in jail because the entire establishment hates him. THey can't pin anything on him for a reason.

    [–]ActuallyNot 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (14 children)

    The wheels of justice turn slowly.

    [–][deleted]  (2 children)

    [removed]

      [–]iamonlyoneman[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

      • the man from whom classification flows can say how declassification goes

      • there was a SCIF

      • people who are concerned by literally anything in this event aside from that it happened at all . . . are not republicans

      [–]ActuallyNot 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

      • nope. A document's classification is written on the document.

      • There was not an scif at mar-a-largo. There wasn't even a lock on the door until trump was told to put a lock on the room. In a child course hotel. With the public and foreign nationals wandering around.

      • We have seen from the concern shown by Republicans about the use of a personal email server that they are extremely concerned by small risks of interception of classified documents. They will be more concerned by SCI top secret documents in a building that has had chinese spies wandering around it in the past.

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

      https://qr.ae/pvwpDb

      [–]ActuallyNot 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

      1) Agree, there was a SCIF at mar-a-lago. To clarify, there wasn't at the time of the search warrant. The SCIF was removed after trump left office.

      2) The documents were in an unlocked room that Trump's lawyers were told to put a lock on during the pre-search warrant negoatiations to get the top secret documents back from mar-a-lago.

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

      an*other lock. They were asked to put another lock.

      [–]ActuallyNot 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

      Nope. They put a lock on it:

      Months before the raid on his Mar-a-Lago residence, former President Donald Trump's lawyers recieved instructions to "secure the room" in which he stored his documents, sources told CNN.

      The sources told CNN aides added a padlock in order to secure the room.

      https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-asked-lawyers-add-padlock-office-before-fbi-search-2022-8

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

      CNN? How about the other side of the horseshoe, breitbart:

      But instead of "sources" here it is from the horse's mouth:

      “In early June, the DOJ and FBI asked my legal representatives to put an extra lock on the door leading to the place where boxes were stored in Mar-a-Lago – We agreed.”

      “They [the DOJ and FBI] were shown the secured area, and the boxes themselves,” he stated.

      https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/08/10/trump-doj-fbi-previously-asked-for-extra-lock-on-document-storage-room-they-broke-during-raid/

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

      CNN?

      Yep

      How about the other side of the horseshoe, breitbart:

      The other side of investigative reporting may well be fake news. But they don't get equal consideration.

      I can't get to trump's truth social, but daily wire in their article "Trump Says DOJ, FBI Asked Him To Put Lock On Door Leading To Documents In Early June", link to it.

      Perhaps you can read that from the horse's mouth. So to speak.

      [–]iamonlyoneman[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

      Donald Trump's office told Just the News on Friday that the classified materials the FBI seized from his Mar-a-Lago estate were declassified under a "standing order" while he was president that allowed him to take sensitive materials to the White House residence at night to keep working.

      inb4 leftoids lose their mind about this prerogative being exercised

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

      1) There's a process for declassifying a document

      • The president's instruction to declassify a given document would first be memorialized in a written memo, usually drafted by White House counsel, which he would then sign.

      • Typically, the leadership of the agency or agencies with equities in the document would be consulted and given an opportunity to provide their views on the declassification decision. As the ultimate declassification authority, however, the president can decide to override any objections they raise.

      • Once a final decision is made, and the relevant agency receives the president's signed memo, the physical document in question would be marked — the old classification level would be crossed out — and the document would then be stamped, "Declassified on X date" by the agency in question.

      Then and only then is the classification changed. A creepy orange man selling military secrets to his contacts at his golf club claiming that "Oh, but I reclassified them all in a standing reclassification order" does not, in fact, change the classification of any document.

      2) This is legally irrelevant. 18 U.S. Code § 793 - Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information does not talk about the classification of the documents, only that they are "information respecting the national defense"

      3) This is morally irrelevant, unless you are okay with an ex-president selling sensitive defence secrets to enemy nations if he can find a legal loophole.

      [–]iamonlyoneman[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

      We already went through this sweaty