Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2

[Rick Plant]

Chris Christie @GovChristie

When your own handpicked AG calls your conduct reckless and totally wrong, then you know you’re in trouble. This is what happens when you keep top secret government documents in a spare bathroom at your country club.

https://twitter.com/GovChristie/status/1667953098902450176


Chris Christie says it right. It's a shame that more Republicans can't be like Christie.

These Republicans are screaming and yelling defending Donald Trump's clear treason. But they want to go after and jail Trump's political opponents based on conspiracy theories and phony accusations.

Donald Trump was caught red handed with the goods, which are top secret classified documents and top secret nuclear documents and MAGA Republicans are yelling the "Deep State" is going after Trump. How is anybody "going after" Trump when he had the documents stashed in a shower at his residence? Trump was asked repeatedly to turn over these sensitive documents but he refused. So, are we just going to forget about it and let Trump hold possession of our most sensitive information? That's what these Republicans want. These people are absolutely insane.

Trump was showing off these highly sensitive documents to anyone who came over to Mara a Lago. Top Republican donors, wealthy businessmen, book ghostwriters, you name it were being shown these top secret classified documents by Trump. And none of these people had a top security clearance to view these highly classified documents. Only a select few people are allowed access to these top secret classified documents but Trump was showing these off to private citizens who are not allowed to even be near them. And right wing Republicans feel this isn't a serious matter.

That's why Republicans are not fit to govern. They do not care about our national security or the lives of Americans. They don't care about the risks it poses to other countries either. Since Republicans are not serious about Unted States national security, they have no business holding a government office. Republicans took an oath to defend America and the Constitution of the United States of America, not to take a MAGA oath to protect Donald Trump from putting America and the world in harm's way.                       

Who knows who saw these documents. Someone could have taken a picture of these highly sensitive documents and given them to enemy countries. This directly puts our national security and American lives in danger. Not to mention other countries, because it was revealed that top secret information on other nations were amongst these highly sensitive documents. Nuclear war could break out if the wrong people got hold of these documents. So, Donald Trump put the entire world at risk and right wingers are screaming that it's a "witch hunt" and "partisan politics". No, Trump was caught red handed with the goods and Republicans still don't want him to be prosecuted.

The question needs to be asked, what can Trump do before these Republicans finally say he needs to be prosecuted and imprisoned for his crimes?

Trump committed clear treason by trying to steal the presidency from Biden via a violent coup and insurrection. Republicans say "that's not a big deal". Trump was caught red handed stealing and hiding top secret nuclear documents and Republicans still say "that's not a big deal". So, what can Trump do before these Republicans finally say "it's a big deal". The answer is "nothing" because these right wingers feel Donald Trump can do whatever he wants.       

When are these right wingers going to admit Donald Trump is a brazen criminal who will be in prison for espionage?

They never will because MAGA is a cult and Donald Trump is their cult leader. According to them, Donald Trump can do whatever he wants and he should never have to face the justice system like any other American.                   

If you've seen right wing television in the last couple of days, or the Sunday shows on the main networks, we have right wing Republicans using their usual "whataboutisms". They do this to deflect Trump's treason and try to project fake crimes on Trump's political opponents.

We hear the famous "what about Hillary Clinton? What about Joe Biden?"

Both Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden were never charged with any crime, nor is there any evidence against them that they committed any crimes. Republicans in Congress did several investigations and they all turned up absolutely nothing. So, even after all those phony investigations that Republicans found nothing, they still falsely accuse both of imaginary crimes. After they have nothing on them, Republicans are now falsely accusing the Justice Department of "covering up" when there is no evidence of that. It's all lies and propaganda just for a pathetic attempt to take the heat off Trump's treason.

These right wing Republicans need to end their "whataboutisms" and their over the top outrage and accept that Donald Trump stole nuclear documents which is illegal. They need to accept Trump is a brazen criminal who will face the justice system. Republicans need to end this nonsense and quit protecting a brazen criminal.

The most important part of our government and our leaders is to protect the lives of Americans and our country.

Top secret classified documents are the most important part of our government and national security which affects the lives of Americans and basically the existence of the United States. If top secret classified documents ever got into the wrong hands it could absolutely be catastrophic for us and the world. And we have Donald Trump, a private citizen, hoarding our most top secret classified documents in a shower at his residence and showing them off to his guests. He was recorded on tape discussing these documents admitting they were never declassified after he was publicly lying that they were. Donald Trump stole highly sensitive documents to take home to his residence and Republicans scream "the Deep State and Joe Biden is out to get Trump for political reasons". No, Trump is a brazen criminal who got caught stealing top secret classified documents. That is his own doing. 

So, Republicans want to protect Donald Trump so he can hold our most sensitive information as a trophy piece and for conversation purposes at his parties. Anyone could have access to these top secret classified documents. But Republicans do not care, their only interests is to appease Donald Trump and to protect him from his crimes. Republicans do not take the United States or our national security as a serious matter and they are not fit to govern.

Remember this well when you vote next year. Do you want a political party that jeopardizes our national security and the existence of the entire world? I sure don't. What about you?                                 

[Rick Plant]

Just something to think about....

[Joe Elliott]

Trump says that his being indicted for:
  + taking classified documents
  + lying to the Justice Department about whether he still had them
  + tampering with witnesses to get them to lie about this matter.
is an example of "election interference at the highest level".

No, that is not "election interference at the highest level". "Election interference at the highest level" is:
  + Calling the Georgia Secretary of State and telling him:
        ++ Just find my 11,780 votes, just enough to win.
        ++ If Brad does not do that, it would be a crime, something that he could go to prison for.
                     If Trump had successfully pressured 3 other Secretary of States to do something similar, Brad may have gone to prison. And may yet go to prison, if Trump wins in 2024 and gets
                     total control of the Justice Department.
  + Calling on a mob to storm the Capitol, preventing Mike Pence from certifying the election. And texting the mob in mid riot, reminding them that Mike Pence was the main target. Don't be distracted
      into going after secondary targets, like Pelosi. Go get Mike Pence.

What does not indicting Donald Trump looks like? It looks like allowing any former President a free license to commit any crime he wants to. Indeed, if this privilege is held by Trump, I don't see why this privilege does not belong to anyone who announces his candidacy for President. Why couldn't Trump have been free of being charged with any crime as soon as he announced his candidacy for President in 2015?

[Rick Plant]

Trump's 'witch hunt' claim destroyed by Republican legal expert: No 'business near power'

A Republican columnist rejected former President Donald Trump’s cries of “witch hunt” and victimization – and urged his prosecution.

Writing for the conservative National Review, Andrew McCarthy - a former prosecutor who authored a book called ‘Ball of Collusion: The Plot To Rig An Election And Destroy A Presidency – said GOP arguments that Trump’s enemies were aiming to bring him down make no sense.

“Now, since we’re hearing a lot, and we’re going to hear a lot more, about selective prosecution, about the sense that the “boxes hoax” is the “biggest witch hunt of all time,” understand this,” he wrote.

"The evidence of this soliloquy — wherein it was Trump-splained that a “great job” by a lawyer entails making incriminating evidence disappear and taking the fall for it so the client escapes jeopardy — does not come from Donald Trump’s enemies.”

Instead, he said, the 37-count indictment leveled at Trump comes from evidence gleaned from the former president’s own lawyers.

He went on: “These are not the people who want to take him out. This is not Joe Biden, Liz Cheney, congressional Democrats, or the “fake news” media. It’s not even RINO Republicans or that (apparently) fiercest of political combatants, “Ada” Hutchinson.

“No, the evidence comes from Trump’s lawyers. The people who were trying to minimize his criminal exposure and push back against his destructive tendencies. The people who were trying to help him.”

Included in the evidence are notes made by lawyer Evan Corcoran, detailing conversations in which Trump discussed denying he has classified documents and even suggested they be destroyed.

“As for Trump, say what you want about Democrats being out to destroy him,” McCarthy wrote. “I know all about that — wrote a book about it, in fact. But if Trump ends up being destroyed in this case, it will be based on the accounts of people who had his best interests at heart.”

He added: “Every official who is entrusted with access to the nation’s secrets, and who then betrays that trust by willful law violations and cover-ups, should be prosecuted. Every . . . single . . . one.

“And none of them has any business near power.”

Read More Here: https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/06/why-trumps-witch-hunt-cries-ring-hollow-in-face-of-doj-indictment/



'Zero courage': Ex-GOP strategist torches members who stand by Trump

An MSNBC panel on Sunday fiercely rebuked the defiantly nonchalant reactions by many Republicans to the historic federal felony charges filed against former President Donald Trump.

"I don't know. After reading those forty-nine pages, it was impossible for the special counsel to not indict Donald Trump," host Jonathan Capehart opined.

Capehart's guest, ex-Republican strategist Matthew Dowd, showed no mercy toward Trump's defenders.

"Well, you know, it, it's as if, if Mike Pence is saying, 'if Donald Trump breaks the law, nobody should ever hold him accountable.' That's actually what he's saying. And as I listen to Christina, who's absolutely right about this, about Mike Pence — but Mike Pence is just one of many — is that I'm reminded of what Maya Angelou said, which is courage is the most important of all the virtues because it's the only one that allows us to practice the other virtues consistently," Dowd said.

"There is a complete abject lack of courage of Mike Pence, Ron DeSantis, every, uh McCarthy, Speaker McCarthy," Dowd continued. "All these others have zero cur courage, zero courage, and the other one — so you put that in one bucket — the other bucket that I think is most, is also upsetting is the sort of 'Sergeant Schultz Brigade' of the Republican Party, which is, I see nothing. I know nothing. I'll say nothing.

"And they just sit by apathetically understanding Donald Trump and the corruption that exists around Donald Trump and the danger of Donald Trump, but will absolutely act like their fingers are in their ears. They close their eyes and they want nothing to do with saying or doing anything about 'em. And I put Mitch McConnell in that bucket."

AFP



Former GOP head trolls members for defending Trump: 'It feeds their base'



The former chairman of the Republican National Committee hit out at party members for backing former President Donald Trump, suggesting they were turning a blind eye to major crimes so they could benefit politically.

Michael Steele told MSNBC’s Yasmin Vossoughian Sunday that the 37-count indictment was not being taken seriously by many in the party.

And he singled out Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), the head of the House Judiciary Committee that's looking into "weaponization" of federal law enforcement, for particular criticism.

“It's all politics with Republicans,” he said.

“They're not taking it seriously at this point. No one wants to acknowledge we are in this conversation, we're watching this narrative unfold because of what Donald Trump did. Read the indictment – I guarantee you, those Republicans that you've been focusing on from Lindsey Graham down. If they've read that and they were honest, they could not go on the air and say what they said.”

He said, if they had read it, then they were deliberately ignoring what was in it.

“Or they read it and they just want to continue with the political anti-Biden or anti-deep state narrative, because it feeds their base," he said. "They're fundraising off of this. They're rallying support around Trump, around this.

“I'd like to ask Jim Jordan, what did you think of Bill Barr's comment that Donald Trump was toast? Because the evidence in the indictment was so damning. Bill Barr, you remember him? You know what role he played, going into the Mueller trial?

“...if that guy is looking at this and going this is not good. How can you stand up and make the claim that you are making that this is all political?

“This is the bottom line. It's not all political.”

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

'He's toast': Bill Barr 'shocked' by Trump's 'damning' Espionage Act charges



Former Attorney General Bill Barr said former President Donald Trump could be "toast" after being charged under the Espionage Act.

During an interview on Fox News, Barr was asked about Trump's recent federal indictment.

"What about this chief argument that comes up for the president's allies and his legal team that this should have been handled under the Presidential Records Act, not this Espionage Act charge and other federal statutes that were used here?" host Shannon Bream wondered.

"It started out under the Presidential Records Act and the archives trying to retrieve documents that Trump had no right to have," Barr replied. "But it quickly became clear that what the government was really worried about were these classified and very sensitive documents."

Barr said he was "shocked by the degree of sensitivity of these documents and how many there were."

"And so the government's agenda was to get those, protect those documents, and get them out," he continued. "And I think it was perfectly appropriate to do that. It was the right thing to do."

"And I think the counts under the Espionage Act that he willfully retained those documents are solid counts," Barr added. "But I do think that even half of what Andy McCarthy said, which is if even half of it is true, then he's toast. I mean, it's a pretty, it's a very detailed indictment, and it's very, very damning."

Watch:

Trump could sit in a jail cell for '4 to 5 hours' before arraignment: former Southern District of Florida prosecutor



Appearing on MSNBC on Sunday morning, a former prosecutor for the Southern District of Florida explained what Donald Trump will experience when he turns himself into the authorities in Miami next week to face a 37-count indictment.

Speaking with host Katie Phang, former U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Sloman walked host Katie Phnag through the stages of the former president's arraignment and said, if normal procedures are followed, he could be held in a jail cell for hours before entering the courtroom.

Asked if Trump will be handcuffed, Sloman said he wasn't sure before adding, "I know that for regular people, when you voluntarily surrender, at about eight or nine in the morning, an agent who is in charge of the case takes the defendant into custody. The pretrial services department does a full and complete history of the defendant for the three PM arraignment."

"During that period the defendant sits in a jail cell for the four or five hours, awaiting the appearance," he added. "I don't know whether the same is going to be true for Mr.Trump but for regular people that is the way it works."

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

How secret were the documents found at Mar-a-Lago?



(Reuters) - The 37-count indictment against Donald Trump unsealed on Friday accused the former president of risking some of the most closely guarded U.S. government secrets by storing classified documents in unsecured areas of his Florida resort.

The documents, according to the indictment, included details about U.S. nuclear weapons, spy satellites and the U.S. military. They were produced by the Pentagon and arms of the U.S. intelligence community, including the CIA, the National Security Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office and other agencies.

"The unauthorized disclosure of these classified documents could put at risk the national security of the United States, foreign relations, the safety of the United States military, and human sources and the continued viability of sensitive collection methods," the indictment said.

Here are some of the documents mentioned in the indictment:

\- A document marked TOP SECRET//[redacted]/[redacted]//ORCON/NOFORN that the indictment says concerned "nuclear capabilities of a foreign country."

ORCON means that the material in the document cannot be disseminated outside the U.S. government department that originated it without prior approval.

\- A document marked SECRET//FORMERLY RESTRICTED DATA that the indictment says concerned "nuclear weaponry of the United States."

According to a Department of Energy training guide, the Formerly Restricted Data, or FRD, classification is used for materials downgraded from a higher classification that relate "primarily to the military utilization of atomic weapons."

"Formerly does not mean unclassified," says the guide.

Examples of FRD provided by the guide includes quantities of nuclear weapons in the U.S. stockpile, warhead yields and their locations.

\- A document marked TOP SECRET//SI//NOFORN//FISA that the indictment says concerned "military capabilities of a foreign country and the United States, with handwritten annotation in black marker."

NOFORN means the document cannot be shared with a foreign government. FISA refers to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and means the material is from intercepted communications.

\- Six top-secret documents marked TK, standing for Talent Keyhole, a classification for materials related to U.S. spy satellites.

The indictment says these documents concerned the military capabilities of foreign countries.

(Reporting by Jonathan Landay; Editing by Daniel Wallis)

© Reuters



Trump is walking into his 37-count federal indictment 'blinded to the danger he is in': analyst



According to one political analyst, Donald Trump's rich history of involvement in civil lawsuits has given him a false sense of security as he faces real jail time should he gets a guilty verdict in any one of the 37 federal charges in his indictment.

In a column for Politico, Jack Shafer wrote that the former president has long boasted he knows the ins and outs of the court system after decades of civil lawsuits filed against himself and his Trump Organization.

Because of that, Shafer suggested the former president is in for a rude awakening when he is arraigned in Florida next Tuesday.

Writing that "Trump has been a party to so many legal actions — both suing and being sued," that he feels he has a handle on how to direct his attorneys to proceed, Shafer added that the former president's previous experience has "blinded him to the danger he is in."

Shafer added that civil suits are "the padded playroom in which Trump has cavorted his entire professional life," and he explained that jail time was never on the table with them. But now it is.

"Criminal cases don’t pit one person or organization against another. They are reserved for crimes against the state or society, and the plaintiff isn’t Joe or Doris or some regulatory body, it’s the big, angry fist of government. When you lose in this venue, you don’t write a check. You’re often sentenced to prison," he explained before adding, "Prosecutors seek justice, not compromise, and they’re relatively immune to the field disturbances that rattle civil litigators. Did Trump’s attorneys not tell him that?"

The analyst added that the newest indictment related to top secret government documents he refused to return could have been the easiest case to avoid by just complying.

"Inside his own bleached skull, Trump must now be imagining that he can run out the criminal clock too, just as he did in so many civil cases," he wrote.

He concluded, "A normal person would not assume they could win all four or five (or however many) criminal cases. A normal person would never put all his eggs in the single basket that says, 'Win the White House, Get Out of Jail Free.' A normal person would never count on DeSantis to deliver. And a normal person would never find himself in this pickle. But Donald Trump is not a normal person."

Read More Here: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/06/09/trump-criminal-indictment-00101351



Bill Barr rebuts Trump's claim about indictment: He is not a victim

Former Trump administration Attorney General Bill Barr says that the Department of Justice charges filed against former President Donald Trump resulting from the classified documents probe are not part of a "witch hunt" as Trump and his allies claim.

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

Prosecutors charged Trump with 37 felonies, including 31 counts under the Espionage Act of “willful retention” of classified records.

A federal indictment unsealed Friday charges former President Donald Trump with 37 felony counts stemming from an investigation into the presence of a trove of classified information at his Florida estate and other locations after he left office.

Prosecutors led by special counsel Jack Smith allege that Trump arranged to remove a massive collection of highly sensitive classified material — much of which consists of intelligence about the “defense and weapons capabilities” of the United States and foreign countries — to his private residence as he left the White House in January 2021.

He had aides stash those records in boxes that also included personal items and ordered them shipped to his estate in Mar-a-Lago at the end of his tenure, according to the indictment. The 49-page charging document also says that on at least two occasions, Trump showed classified records to visitors without security clearances at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey — including the map of a military operation to a representative of his political committee.

Trump is facing 31 counts of violating the Espionage Act through “willful retention” of classified records, plus six counts — including obstruction of justice and false statements — stemming from his alleged efforts to impede the investigation. Nauta was also charged with six felonies related to the alleged cover-up.

“We have one set of laws in this country,” said Smith, briefly addressing the media after the unsealing of the indictment. “They apply to everyone.”


Donald Trump is facing 31 counts of “willful retention” of classified records, as well as several counts related to his alleged effort to obstruct the investigation. | Justice Department via AP



This image, contained in the indictment against former President Donald Trump, shows boxes of records being stored on the stage in the White and Gold Ballroom at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla. | Justice Department via AP




https://www.politico.com/news/2023/06/09/trump-indictment-read-00101292



Where Documents Were Found at Mar-a-Lago - The New York Times





Photos show classified documents in ballrooms, bathrooms at Mar-a-Lago

The Department of Justice released new photos of the documents found at former President Trump's Mar-a-Lago home. The photos show the alleged stored boxes in Trump's ballroom, bedroom, bathroom and shower. NBC's Julia Ainsley reports.

Watch: