Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2

[Rick Plant]

Trump Had More Than 300 Classified Documents at Mar-a-Lago

The National Archives found more than 150 sensitive documents when it got a first batch of material from the former president in January, helping to explain the Justice Department’s urgent response.



The initial batch of documents retrieved by the National Archives from former President Donald J. Trump in January included more than 150 marked as classified, a number that ignited intense concern at the Justice Department and helped trigger the criminal investigation that led F.B.I. agents to swoop into Mar-a-Lago this month seeking to recover more, multiple people briefed on the matter said.

In total, the government has recovered more than 300 documents with classified markings from Mr. Trump since he left office, the people said: that first batch of documents returned in January, another set provided by Mr. Trump’s aides to the Justice Department in June and the material seized by the F.B.I. in the search this month.

The previously unreported volume of the sensitive material found in the former president’s possession in January helps explain why the Justice Department moved so urgently to hunt down any further classified materials he might have.

And the extent to which such a large number of highly sensitive documents remained at Mar-a-Lago for months, even as the department sought the return of all material that should have been left in government custody when Mr. Trump left office, suggested to officials that the former president or his aides had been cavalier in handling it, not fully forthcoming with investigators, or both.

The specific nature of the sensitive material that Mr. Trump took from the White House remains unclear. But the 15 boxes Mr. Trump turned over to the archives in January, nearly a year after he left office, included documents from the C.I.A., the National Security Agency and the F.B.I. spanning a variety of topics of national security interest, a person briefed on the matter said.

Mr. Trump went through the boxes himself in late 2021, according to multiple people briefed on his efforts, before turning them over.

The highly sensitive nature of some of the material in the boxes prompted archives officials to refer the matter to the Justice Department, which within months had convened a grand jury investigation.

Aides to Mr. Trump turned over a few dozen additional sensitive documents during a visit to Mar-a-Lago by Justice Department officials in early June. At the conclusion of the search this month, officials left with 26 boxes, including 11 sets of material marked as classified, comprising scores of additional documents. One set had the highest level of classification, top secret/sensitive compartmented information.

The Justice Department investigation is continuing, suggesting that officials are not certain whether they have recovered all the presidential records that Mr. Trump took with him from the White House.

Even after the extraordinary decision by the F.B.I. to execute a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago on Aug. 8, investigators have sought additional surveillance footage from the club, people familiar with the matter said.

It was the second such demand for the club’s security tapes, said the people familiar with the matter, and underscored that authorities are still scrutinizing how the classified documents were handled by Mr. Trump and his staff before the search.

A spokesman for Mr. Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A spokeswoman for the F.B.I. declined to comment.

Mr. Trump’s allies insist that the president had a “standing order” to declassify material that left the Oval Office for the White House residence, and have claimed that the General Services Administration, not Mr. Trump’s staff, packed the boxes with the documents.

No documentation has come to light confirming that Mr. Trump declassified the material, and the potential crimes cited by the Justice Department in seeking the search warrant for Mar-a-Lago would not hinge on the classification status of the documents.

National Archives officials spent much of 2021 trying to get back material from Mr. Trump, after learning that roughly two dozen boxes of presidential records material had been lingering in the White House residence for several months. Under the Presidential Records Act, all official material remains government property and has to be provided to the archives at the end of a president’s term.

Among the items they knew were missing were Mr. Trump’s original letters from the North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, and the note that President Barack Obama had left Mr. Trump before he left office.

Two former White House officials, who had been designated as among Mr. Trump’s representatives with the archives, received calls and tried to facilitate the documents’ return.

Mr. Trump resisted those calls, describing the boxes of documents as “mine,” according to three advisers familiar with his comments.

Soon after beginning their investigation early this year, Justice Department officials came to believe there were additional classified documents that they needed to collect. In May, after conducting a series of witness interviews, the department issued a subpoena for the return of remaining classified material, according to people familiar with the episode.

On June 3, Jay Bratt, the chief of the counterespionage section of the national security division of the Justice Department, went to Mar-a-Lago to meet with two of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, Evan Corcoran and Christina Bobb, and retrieve any remaining classified material to satisfy the subpoena. Mr. Corcoran went through the boxes himself to identify classified material beforehand, according to two people familiar with his efforts.

Mr. Corcoran showed Mr. Bratt the basement storage room where, he said, the remaining material had been kept.

Mr. Trump briefly came to see the investigators during the visit.

Mr. Bratt and the agents who joined him were given a sheaf of classified material, according to two people familiar with the meeting.

Mr. Corcoran then drafted a statement, which Ms. Bobb, who is said to be the custodian of the documents, signed. It asserted that, to the best of her knowledge, all classified material that was there had been returned, according to two people familiar with the statement.

Mr. Corcoran did not respond to repeated requests for comment. Ms. Bobb did not respond to an email seeking comment.

Soon after that visit, investigators, who were interviewing several people in Mr. Trump’s circle about the documents, came to believe that there were other presidential records that had not been turned over, according to the people familiar with the matter.

On June 22, the Justice Department subpoenaed the Trump Organization for Mar-a-Lago’s security footage, which included a well-trafficked hallway outside the storage area, the people said.

The club had surveillance footage going back 60 days for some areas of the property, stretching back to late April of this year.

While much of the footage showed hours of club employees walking through the busy corridor, some of it raised concerns for investigators, according to people familiar with the matter. It revealed people moving boxes in and out, and in some cases, appearing to change the containers some documents were held in. The footage also showed other parts of the property.

In seeking a second round of security footage, the Justice Department wants to review tapes for the weeks leading up to the Aug. 8 search.

Federal officials have indicated that their initial goal has been to secure any classified documents Mr. Trump was holding at Mar-a-Lago, a pay-for-membership club where there is little control over who comes in as guests. It remains to be seen whether anyone will face criminal charges stemming from the investigation.

The combination of witness interviews and the initial security footage led Justice Department officials to begin drafting a request for a search warrant, the people familiar with the matter said.

The F.B.I. agents who conducted the search found the additional documents in the storage area in the basement of Mar-a-Lago, as well as in a container in a closet in Mr. Trump’s office, the people said.

Mr. Trump’s allies have attacked the law enforcement agencies, accusing the investigators of being partisan.

The intense public interest has now spurred a legal fight to see the search warrant’s underlying affidavit. On Monday, a federal magistrate issued a formal order directing the Justice Department to send him under seal proposed redactions to the affidavit underlying the warrant used to search Mar-a-Lago by Thursday, accompanied by a memo explaining its justifications.

In the order, the judge, Bruce E. Reinhart, said he was inclined to release portions of the sealed affidavit but wanted to wait until he saw the government’s redactions before making a decision.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/22/us/politics/trump-mar-a-lago-documents.html

[Rick Plant]

Former ethics czar blows up on Bill Barr for ‘distorting’ the case against Trump in the Russia probe



Former White House Ethics Czar and impeachment lawyer Norm Eisen criticized former Attorney General Bill Barr on Thursday after the Justice Department released the memo regarding whether or not Donald Trump should be charged for violating the law in the Russia investigation.

"Barr made up his mind in advance that he was going to give his patron, Donald Trump, a pass on these obstruction charges," Eisen explained. "There was powerful evidence here! On the fact! The memo soft pedals Donald Trump's dangling pardons, it says, 'Oh, he had some disagreements with witnesses.' No, Poppy! He was dangling pardons! He was engaging in conduct that any other — he was intimidating witnesses! Conduct that would have led to any other American who didn't work in the White House being prosecuted, on the law!"

Eisen said that he has written many times about the false claims that there was no case to be had regarding Trump's obstructions of justice.

"That's ridiculous!" Eisen exclaimed. "And then when they talk about the specific cases, Poppy, they distort them. Like the case that they focus on, that's on all fours with what Donald Trump did. There was an investigation he wanted to interfere with it. It is all wrong."

"First of all, there was underlying conduct that may have amounted to a crime," he continued. "Mueller didn't decide to charge it regarding Russia. But more fundamentally, if you look at those cases ... this memo also focuses on, Jim — in that case, the underlying conduct was stuff that would have been legal, except it was done with corrupt intent. I mean, come on!"

"The former president asked the White House counsel, Don McGann, to write a false memo lying about the investigation! Anyone else would be prosecuted for this. [But] Bill Barr wrote a memo to the White House before he was hired saying there were no crimes here. The fix was in. Don't listen to me. Two federal judges, one appointed by a Democrat, one by a Republican, have said that Barr's conduct was dishonest and it was."

Watch:

Trump delivered an 'ominous warning' to Merrick Garland as Mar-A-Lago probe heats up: columnist



Shortly before Attorney General Merrick Garland publicly commented on the FBI search at Mar-A-Lago, "a person close" to Donald Trump reportedly reached out to the Department of Justice to deliver a message from the former president.

The New York Times reported that associate wanted Garland to know the search had enraged the former president's supporters, and Trump wanted to know how he could "reduce the heat," but MSNBC columnist Steve Benen said the meaning behind that offer was coming into focus.

"The message wasn’t an explicit threat, per se, though Trump wanted the attorney general to know that, as far as the former president was concerned, the nation was outraged by the execution of a court-approved search warrant," Benen wrote. "Trump was apparently concerned about the consequences of the 'heat' and 'pressure.'"

Those concerns were obviously insincere, according to Benen, because Trump had stoked that anger himself by lashing out wildly against law enforcement after the search, and his attacks on investigators have only gotten worse since Garland commented on the case.

"But let’s also not miss the forest for the trees. Facing an intensifying federal investigation, and just days after the FBI executed a search warrant at one of his properties, Trump thought it’d be a good idea to deliver a message to the attorney general with an ominous warning about rising 'heat' and 'pressure ... building up,'" Benen wrote. "That’s not based on claims from unnamed sources; that’s what happened according to the former president’s own court filing."

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/13/us/politics/trump-classified-material-fbi.html

[Rick Plant]

Judge rules for release of redacted search warrant affidavit by noon Friday: report



U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart on Thursday ordered a release of a redacted version of the FBI affidavit that resulted in granting of a search warrant for Mar-a-Lago.

The Department of Justice had warned that the redactions might need to be so prevalent that the resulting document would do little to inform the public.

"I find that the Government has met its burden of showing a compelling reason/good cause to seal portions of the Affidavit because disclosure would reveal (1) the identities of witnesses, law enforcement agents, and uncharged parties, (2) the investigation’s strategy, direction, scope, sources, and methods, and (3) grand jury information protected by Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e)," the judge wrote.

"Based on my independent review of the Affidavit, I further find that the Government has met its burden of showing that its proposed redactions are narrowly tailored to serve the Government’s legitimate interest in the integrity of the ongoing investigation and are the least onerous alternative to sealing the entire Affidavit," Reinhart explained.

The judge ordered the Department of Justice to release the redacted affidavit by noon Eastern time on Friday.

Former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti said, "It’s important to note that the judge adopted the redactions proposed by DOJ. A lot of information will remain redacted, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we learn new details about the extensive dialogue between the Executive Branch and the Trump Team *prior* to the warrant."

https://www.rawstory.com/mar-a-lago-search-warrant-2657943275/

[Rick Plant]

Trump's 'Mar-a-Lago offensive backfires' as new disclosures point to 'serious breach': National Review writer



National Review writer Andrew McCarthy has been skeptical of the FBI's search of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort, but new disclosures made this week by pro-Trump writer John Solomon have left him far less doubtful about the merits of the search than before.

In a new analysis published by National Review titled "Trump World's Mar-a-Lago Search Offense Backfires," McCarthy argues that Trump has done himself no favors by trying to depict the search of his home as a politically driven raid by an out-of-control gestapo aimed at bringing him down at any cost.

This has been compounded, McCarthy believes, by Solomon's release of a letter from acting archivist Debra Steidel Wall to Trump's lawyers that outlined how he had not complied with the National Archives' repeated requests to return documents.

"Clearly, the purport of Solomon’s news report was to bolster the Trump narrative that Biden is using the Justice Department as a political weapon in hopes of eliminating Trump as his potential 2024 opponent," writes McCarthy. "Okay . . . but the problem is that Archivist Wall’s letter shreds Trump’s claim — most recently proclaimed in a lawsuit filed with great fanfare on Monday morning — that he has been completely cooperative and transparent in dealing with the FBI and the Justice Department, and therefore that the forcible search of his Florida estate was an unnecessary, inexplicable abuse of power."

And if it's true that Trump kept documents marked "top secret" that related to special access programs, McCarthy charges, then it would mark "an extraordinarily serious breach" in national security protocols.

He closes his analysis by warning Trump that he could really face criminal charges if he keeps going down his current path.

"If you are trying not to get indicted, the best defense is usually not a good offense," he concludes. "And it is never an offense that backfires."

Read the full analysis here:

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/08/trump-worlds-mar-a-lago-offensive-backfires/

[Rick Plant]

Trump has the ‘worst life ever lived by a former president’: MSNBC anchor says he is in ‘pure misery’



Donald Trump will have difficulty getting to sleep on Thursday evening as he lives with the misery of knowing tomorrow will be the worst day of his life.

That argument was made by MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell during the opening of "The Last Word."

"A 76-year-old retiree who is living on the full load of government benefits for his age group — Medicare, Social Security and in his case, government pension — and who has discovered that golf is the least effective form of exercise to control weight and stay in shape, is now a full year and a half into the worst life ever lived by a former president of the United States," O'Donnell began.

"Donald Trump, his life is a misery from the moment he wakes up too early in the morning, through those dark hours in the middle of the night when he is struggling against the insomnia to find some peace," he continued. "Peace that never comes. Pure misery, that is his life."

He compared Trump's post-presidency to that of disgraced former President Richard Nixon.

"Donald Trump does not have the comfort of a pardon to soften the agony of his days and nights and so Donald Trump's life now is much, much worse than the 20 years Richard Nixon spent in mere disgrace after the presidency," O'Donnell said. "I say mere disgrace, because Donald Trump spends every day and every night under disgrace and multiple threats of indictment"

"Donald Trump said he was insomniac long before he reached the presidency," he said. "How do you think Donald Trump is going to sleep tonight? tonight. Donald Trump knows that even the redacted version of the FBI affidavit released tomorrow is going to make tomorrow the very worst day of his life. So far. Only to be followed by even worse days including possible days in court, in federal court or in Georgia state court as a criminal defendant — criminal defendant Donald Trump. Donald Trump knows what is coming better than any of us do, Donald Trump knows what he did."

"Donald Trump's living an unprotected life," O'Donnell said. "And that terrifies him."

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

More Trump advisers called to testify in Fulton County



Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis revealed that three additional advisers to former President Donald Trump are being called to answer questions about the attempt to overthrow the 2020 election results in the state.

According to Politico, Mark Meadows, Sidney Powell and Phil Waldron are the three new witnesses who are being asked to answer questions before the special grand jury.

Meadows served as Trump's chief of staff in his final year in office. Meadows traveled to Georgia and tried to break into the rooms where election officials were matching voters' signatures on their ballots. Meadows then started talking to the lead investigator under the deputy secretary of state. He got the deputy's phone number and the following day Trump called her, asking for help on his election scheme.

Sidney Powell was among the legal team who "helped" Trump wage a kind of legal war to change the 2020 election. Recent reports have revealed that Powell also got access to files that were copied from Georgia voting systems.

"Plaintiffs in a long-running federal lawsuit over the security of Georgia’s voting systems obtained the new records from the company, Atlanta-based SullivanStrickler, under a subpoena to one of its executives," the Washington Post revealed Monday. "The records include contracts between the firm and the Trump-allied attorneys, notably Sidney Powell. The data files are described as copies of components from election systems in Coffee County, Georgia, and Antrim County, Michigan.

Waldron was also called by the House Select Committee investigating Jan. 6 and the attempt to overthrow the election. In their request for Waldron, they explained that he was among those who were circulating ideas around changing the election results. He was coordinating with the White House and members of Congress, and turned over "a blueprint for overturning a nationwide election" the committee characterized.

Read More Here: https://twitter.com/kyledcheney/status/1562903179716886528



Republicans are the ones behind the latest evidence against Trump: columnist



Former conservative Jennifer Rubin noted in her Washington Post column Thursday that it seems like lately, it's Republicans who are providing the evidence against former President Donald Trump.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), for example, is trying to dodge testifying before the Fulton County DA as part of the ongoing probe into whether former President Donald Trump did anything illegal when he demanded that the government find 11,780 votes so he could win the state.

Graham has claimed that he simply didn't know how to vote on Jan. 6, so that's why he called Georgia to ask whether the conspiracy theories were true about the election there. He didn't call any other states, however, where Trump and his allies were arguing the election was fraudulent. Graham maintains that he did nothing untoward, he just doesn't want to testify under oath about it.

Meanwhile, Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) is also trying to dodge the grand jury subpoena. He ultimately has appealed to the judge saying that if they could just put things on hold until after his election that would be super helpful. He's made it clear that he's willing to testify, but understandably he's trying to get Trump supporters to vote for him in November and videos of him walking out of the grand jury could make that difficult. Speaking to MSNBC on Thursday, former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner said that Kemp isn't likely to make it happen.

Rubin went on to quote the filing, which outlines what the grand jury wants to know from him. It makes it clear why this could make it difficult when factoring in his reelection. Courts, however, don't make decisions based on politics.

"Movant [Kemp] can testify inter alia about the existence of any evidence the Trump campaign or operatives provided to support their theory that Georgia’s election was 'rigged'; Movant can testify about the identity of the people who attempted to communicate with him and whether they identified as representatives of Mr. ‘Trump; he can testify to the number of times he received or made calls related to the Trump campaign’s allegations and demands that he take action; he can testify about the specific contents of his phone conversations; he can testify about the contents of his telephone conversation with Mr. Trump; he can testify about whether Mr. Trump told Movant that he “got Movant elected”; he can testify about ‘whether Mr. Trump specifically sought a “special election” or some other form of relief; he can testify about conversations about “election integrity”; he can testify about whether threats were made by Mr. Trump or others; he can testify about his responses to Mr. Trump," the court documents say.

The other Republican that Rubin cites is Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who Trump told to "find" the 11,780 votes. The former president has gone after both Raffensperger and Kemp, but failed in trying to bring them down.

In the Trump-Mar-a-Lago-documents scandal, where the calls were coming from inside the house as well. His former White House counsel, Pat Cipollone, and deputy Patrick Philbin, spoke to the FBI long before the search warrant was issued for the Palm Beach golf club.

Meanwhile, the director of the FBI was also a Trump appointee.

This week when Trump went "judge shopping" in an effort to stop the documents from being reviewed by the government until an impartial observer could discern whether they violated attorney/client privilege or executive privilege. Instead of going to US Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart, who is overseeing the case, Trump lawyers went to one of his own appointees, Judge Aileen Cannon. It didn't work, however. She too highlighted the incompetence of the Trump legal team.

So, as Rubin explained, it appears as though Republicans are the ones who are behind the latest attempt to bring down Donald Trump, even if it's unwittingly.

Read her full column at the Washington Post:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/24/brian-kemp-trump-georgia-investigation/

[Rick Plant]

President Biden @POTUS

To those Republicans in Congress who believe student debt shouldn’t be forgiven:

I will never apologize for helping America’s middle class – especially not to the same folks who voted for a $2 trillion tax cut for the wealthy and giant corporations that racked up the deficit.

https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1562840015834533890


Biden Slams ‘Extreme MAGA’ Movement, Says It’s ‘Like Semi-Fascism’

President Joe Biden appealed to Democrats and Republicans alike to vote in November to protect a slate of civil liberties.



President Joe Biden lambasted the philosophy behind his predecessor, Donald Trump, at a fundraising event on Thursday, saying the MAGA movement embraced by large sectors of the Republican Party was akin to “semi-fascism.”

The president, speaking at a Democratic fundraiser in Maryland, called out “extreme” Republicans and said he was concerned about the state of Democracy in America. Biden added he wasn’t sure if the hard-right tilt of the GOP was coming to an end or just beginning, warning those gathered to vote during November’s midterm elections to reject the “ultra MAGA agenda,” referring to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” mantra.

“What we’re seeing now, is either the beginning or the death knell of an extreme MAGA philosophy,” Biden said. “It’s not just Trump, it’s the entire philosophy that underpins the... I’m going to say something, it’s like semi-fascism.”’

Biden went on to say he didn’t realize how damaging Trump’s tenure in the White House had been to the country’s international standing when he first walked into the Oval Office. Those statements marked some of his sharpest comments yet aimed at the Republican establishment.

"I underestimated how much damage the previous four years had done in terms of America’s reputation in the world,” the president said, before adding he retained hope those losses could be regained.

“I believe there’s not a damn thing America can’t do if we set our mind to it,” Biden said.

The White House is hoping to ride a string of political victories into the November elections, including the landmark Inflation Reduction Act passed earlier this month and his decision to cancel up to $20,000 in student debt for millions of Americans. Democrats also hope to leverage nationwide anger over GOP efforts to limit access to abortion and voting rights and fend off Republican efforts to wrest control of either chamber of Congress.

Biden this week began a nationwide tour to support Democratic candidates running for congressional and local offices. He warned supporters Republicans wouldn’t stop at their recent victories after the Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade, but would move on to attack other civil liberties, including same-sex marriage.

“It’s not hyperbole now you need to vote to literally save democracy again,” the president told a crowd at the Democratic National Committee event Thursday, according to Reuters reports. “America must choose. You must choose. Whether our country will move forward or backward.”

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/biden-maga-semi-fascism_n_630825a9e4b063d5e619e130