FBI Raid on Mar-a-Lago

[PatientZombie]

would be curious of the 33% to see who believes:

1. He had them, but none actually classified (or still classified)
2. He never had them, all planted
3. He never had them, the pictures were phony and nothing was found
4. He had them at some point, but turned all over upon request
5. He had them, they might have been classified, but it his right, so I answered not to feed into the leading question

[Mathman]

@Nick_Papagiorgio

basically a legal version of put up or shut up

Yup, and the other version of put up or shut up is, if these are declassified, then let’s FOIA them and see what we see.

I assume his lawyers are having a grand old time trying to explain things like this to him.

[PatientZombie]

@Maphistos_Sidekick

“In any event, at least for these purposes, the declassification argument is a red herring because declassifying an official document would not change its content or render it personal.”

this should be bumped as long as the discussion goes on

[Maphistos_Sidekick]

@ArthurItas

They probably believe Trump when he says he could declassify anything just by thinking about it.

Also as supreme leader he had the right to take anything from the White House that he wanted to for his own personal use.

And it is fair to note that the current President does have nearly unlimited power to classify or declassify documents. The tricky bit is whether it’s sufficient for the President to simply wave his hands or have a blanket rule…or if there’s a formal process that has to be followed (including marking up the documents to reflect the change in classification).

I understand the latter is true, but I don’t think it’s necessary to be a cult member to believe the former is the case if they haven’t been exposed to the official rules.

[SredniVashtar]

@Maphistos_Sidekick

And it is fair to note that the current President does have nearly unlimited power to classify or declassify documents. The tricky bit is whether it’s sufficient for the President to simply wave his hands or have a blanket rule…or if there’s a formal process that has to be followed (including marking up the documents to reflect the change in classification).

I understand the latter is true, but I don’t think it’s necessary to be a cult member to believe the former is the case if they haven’t been exposed to the official rules.

Trump has been sloppy with classified documents before. Most typically Trumpian, there was the time he tweeted this image, revealing to the world the power of our satellites.

Can President Trump Really Tweet A Highly Classified Satellite Photo? Yep, He...

It opened the same can of worms then. And I think people more or less vaguely agreed that the president can implicitly declassify a top-secret document by tweet.

But of course here he didn’t tweet anything. He just stole them. And they are still classified, since we certainly aren’t allowed to see them. And he doesn’t have the power, anymore, to declassify them. And the whole classification process is largely unrelated to the actual law anyway.

[MayanActuary]

@PatientZombie

would be curious of the 33% to see who believes:

1. He had them, but none actually classified (or still classified)
2. He never had them, all planted
3. He never had them, the pictures were phony and nothing was found
4. He had them at some point, but turned all over upon request
5. He had them, they might have been classified, but it his right, so I answered not to feed into the leading question

You’re missing an option-
Didn’t follow the news about the mar a lago raid, so they guess probably not.

[Actuary321]

I thought I had read that the ‘official rules’ are baked into executive orders which have never been ultimately decided to actually restrict the executive.

[funkingded]

I don’t think it helps to assume rational thought when there is no evidence of rational thought.

[Rastiln]

@Maphistos_Sidekick

And it is fair to note that the current President does have nearly unlimited power to classify or declassify documents.

Sorta nearly unlimited.

It’s generally held that the President cannot declassify documents related to nuclear weapons. However there’s no precedent for it so this isn’t settled procedure. If those foreign nuclear capability documents were in fact declassified, a TON of people would be FOIA’ing them.

Same could be said for our foreign secret intelligence operatives (that is, they’d be FOIA’d immediately and people would die), but to my understanding he could declassify those. However it seems mostly agreed-upon he can’t say “anything I thought in my head should be declassified is after the fact.” The Special Master seems to have reaffirmed that.

[ArthurItas]

Agree that the president has broad powers to declassify, and that things classified by statute may be excluded from that power (like the nuclear secrets and foreign operatives). None of this has ever been tested in court though, nor has not following proper declassification procedures.
Here’s an interesting article on that topic:

Can Trump Just Declare Nuclear Secrets Unclassified?

If Trump truly declassified everything that ever left the oval office automatically just by thinking about it, it should all be available for any of us to access via a FOIA request. That could get interesting.

Even if he magically declassified everything, it wouldn’t mean he couldn’t be prosecuted under the Espionage act if the DOJ goes down that road. It also wouldn’t mean he could abscond with whatever he wanted to, or sell the stuff for personal gain if it ever gets that far. None of this stuff has ever been tested because no president has ever behaved in this fashion before.

[J0EBL0W]

@ArthurItas

None of this stuff has ever been tested because no president has ever behaved in this fashion before.

Yeah. He’s uniquely horrible.

[Whiskey]

@PatientZombie

yes, but a third of Independents?

The joke is that these people are “independent”
They likely are bunch of free thinkers.
Or those “independents” that voted for Trump twice because “both parties are the same”
Or those Q that think Republicans are too liberal.

[ArthurItas]

Special master directs Trump team to state on record whether they believe the FBI planted evidence.

[magillaG]

This reminds me of the challenges to the 2020 election.

Lying to the public about conspiracies is one thing.

Going on the record in court is very different.

[ArthurItas]

@magillaG

Going on the record in court is very different.

Yep. Same with the magical declassification by just thinking about it. Lawyers aren’t willing to risk their livelihood making these arguments in court. Let’s see if they try to tapdance around this one too.

[NormalDan]

I love that about the legal system.

So much shit about what about this, or that, or wait no that!

OK fine write down your actual view.

Oh, uh… nevermind.

[YankeeTripper]

I’m seeing Trump May have taken the WH call logs form J6 to MAL

[Triweasel]

I always wondered why they couldn’t find those. Seems like important info for the Jan. 6th committee. Hopefully they can see them before they wrap up their report.

[Indy]

@YankeeTripper

I’m seeing

Link?

[YankeeTripper]

https://twitter.com/TristanSnell/status/1577103320660905986

Not sure if there is conformation or not.