https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1565756415209361409?t=wr-x_S8ywa7J9Ux0ZNZhyA&s=19
“People say this was unprecedented. Well, it’s also unprecedented for a POTUS to take all this classified information & put 'em in a country club, ok? And how long is the govt going to try to get that back?” – Bill Barr bodies Trump on Fox News even as anchors try to defend him
The Justice Department court filing, filed under seal earlier this week but unsealed by a judge Friday, also shows investigators found more than 40 empty folders with “classified” banners on them at Mar-a-Lago. It’s unclear what happened to the information that had been inside the folders.
They also found almost four dozen empty folders marked “Return to Staff Secretary/Military Aide,” according to the detailed property inventory.
The government has not publicly indicated that it believes any classified documents are missing. In a court filing earlier this week, it noted that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is leading a damage assessment of the documents removed from Mar-a-Lago, to determine the potential risk to national security that “improper storage of these highly sensitive materials may have caused” and identify “measures to rectify or mitigate” such damages.
Honestly Trump’s dumbass probably let all kinds of foreign agents into Mar-A-Lago to wander around freely. A few hundred bucks and some flattery will probably get you whatever you want from him. How many attractive women has Trump ever said no to?
My kid threw a party last night, but I only found empty beer bottles, so at least there was no drinking.
Good thing he didn’t have nuclear secrets, right? Right!?
A document describing a foreign government’s military defenses, including its nuclear capabilities, was found by FBI agents who searched former president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence and private club last month, according to people familiar with the matter, underscoring concerns among U.S. intelligence officials about classified material stashed in the Florida property.
Some of the seized documents detail top-secret U.S. operations so closely guarded that many senior national security officials are kept in the dark about them. Only the president, some members of his Cabinet or a near-Cabinet-level official could authorize other government officials to know details of these special-access programs, according to people familiar with the search, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive details of an ongoing investigation.
Yeah but it’s not like he has US nuclear secrets, so we’re all good. right?
Guardian has some major shit.
Worst fucking president ever. Yes, worse than Harding.
I’m not certain that he’s defeated Buchanan in that regard, but he certainly has come close.
We still don’t know the extent of Trump’s destruction, but yes, it will be a close contest between those two. If Trump ends up getting our overseas operatives killed then that might be worse than Buchanan.
Agree…although I think it’ll be tough to beat shrugging and saying “oh, well” when several states move to secede because they didn’t like the outcome of an election.
The question is, could Buchanan have prevented the war. And I’m not sure that he could have.
The only possible means of avoidance would be to compensate all of the slave owners, which would have been hugely expensive, although the war was also hugely expensive. I believe that the idea was floated at least once and the slave owners said “no”.
So while Buchanan’s actions were pretty bad, I don’t know the extent to which history may have been different had he acted differently. Maybe it would’ve been another generation before the war happened?
I don’t see Buchanan making every Presidential decision about his bottom line. Stealing classified documents, asking a foreign government for some dirt on an opponent, calling an elections official to “find” more votes, generally being an ass at fascist-style rallies, etc.
He did intervene in the Dred Scott Decision.
He vowed a single term, and did not run in 1860.
The country was a shitshow heading swiftly for secession/war, though that was predicted 60 years before when the Constitution was ratified, since nearly every single major decision in the USA (including intervening in Dred) was about keeping slavery to keep the Union together.
i think the argument is that buchanan let the south prepare for war during his lame duck period.
different actions would not have prevented the civil war entirely, but could have saved lives by allowing the north to crush the south before things really got going.
i don’t know enough civil war history to be able to critically evaluate that claim.
I’d disagree somewhat.
Buchanan’s reaction to secession was, essentially to do nothing and twiddle his thumbs through his lame duck period.
He could have mobilized the north to put down the rebellion, or (perhaps more in keeping with his stance/views) he could have moved to negotiate the a peaceful dissolution of the Union, sort of a 19th century Brexit (but-for slavery).
(Remember that the argument Lincoln made to support raising an army was that federal property in the south was being commandeered. Theoretically, war could possibly have been avoided had there been some negotiation regarding a transfer of federal properties…although I suppose it’s debatable whether the incoming GOP-controlled Congress would have gone along with the idea.)
I’d certainly agree that the most recent prior President (whose name I hate to utter, since my mother taught me not to say dirty words) is a much worse human being than Buchanan was…but I’m not certain that the sh*tshow of the prior administration surpasses Buchanan’s.
You probably need a couple of decades of separation to make a more objective comparison.
Odds are this has already been happening. There has been a sharp uptick in recent years and Trump being loose with our info is a likely culprit.
If one were trying to distill the question of whether Buchanan or Tr*mp was the worst President, I think you could (over-)simplify the question to: Was it worse to facilitate the de facto uncontrolled breakup of the country, or to attempt the demise of representative democracy?
I can see the argument being made that 45 was worse than 15…but I think it’s a debatable point, rather than a slam-dunk.
Not only the agent (who can get out of harm’s way) but those agents’ contacts as well.
so, Buchanan was just lazy? Seems that what Trump is doing is worse.
IFYQ
This. As I said before, we don’t yet know the full extent of the damage Trump did. It’s a very different beast than Buchanan.
