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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Bluff Called

Bluff Called

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Well, I guess we found the end of Merrick Garland’s patience with Trump and his enablers’ bullshit.

If you missed it, here’s the C-Span recording of his statement. Basically, the DoJ has moved to unseal Trump’s search warrant. Garland said he personally approved the search warrant, that the decision wasn’t taken lightly and normally they’d use less intrusive means, and, finally, fuck everyone who shit on the FBI and DoJ prosecutors (paraphrasing).

Here’s the DoJ filing [pdf] to unseal the search warrant and property receipt in the search of Trump’s swamp palace. This is exactly what Trump didn’t want, and the filing almost dares him to object:

The public’s clear and powerful interest in understanding what occurred under these circumstances weighs heavily in favor of unsealing. That said, the former President should have an opportunity to respond to this Motion and lodge objections, including with regards to any “legitimate privacy interests” or the potential for other “injury” if these materials are made public. Romero, 480 F.3d at 1246. To that end, the government will furnish counsel for the former President with a copy of this Motion.

Edited to add: As Marcy Wheeler points out, the documents that the DoJ is moving to unseal are precisely and only the ones that would have been furnished to Trump when the search took place.

Reader Interactions

233Comments

  1. 1.

    Anonymous At Work

    Can Trump contest the request to unseal the warrant?  I am a lawyer but this is outside my working knowledge.

  2. 2.

    Jerry

    Is Trump allowed to share the warrant with the public if he wants to? Or is it under some sort of gag order?

  3. 3.

    Elizabelle

    FAFO.

    I hope we see the various agencies stomping on Trump, hard, when he pulls this shit.  He is trying to rile people up, and injuries and deaths could ensue.

    And the press should stop reporting GOP comments and spin in good faith.  Take away their oxygen.  They are trying to pull our society and institutions apart.  Stop giving them the megaphone and headlines they seek.

  4. 4.

    insert clever nickname here mistermix

    @Anonymous At Work:  Yes he can contest it and I would bet he does for some made-up bullshit reason that basically amounts to delay.

    @Jerry:  He can share it at any time, but it’s obviously better for him to spin bullshit, fact-free fairy tales for the eager consumption of the DC press.

  6. 6.

    RepubAnon

    It’s easier to complain if the facts are hidden.  Trump will likely fight unsealing because that’s who he is. Hopefully, he’ll lose quickly. Regardless, criminal charges should follow.

  7. 7.

    Jerry

    @insert clever nickname here mistermix: He can share it at any time, but it’s obviously better for him to spin bullshit, fact-free fairy tales for the eager consumption of the DC press.

    OK, got it.

    So yeah, if the search was truly just a witch hunt, Trump would’ve shared the warrant with the public by now.

  8. 8.

    Cameron

    @Elizabelle: As long as he’s indicted in the next month or so, I hope Republicans DO continue mouthing off about this – and then have it shoved back in their faces right up until Election Day.

  11. 11.

    Elizabelle

    @Cameron:   I wonder how much closer Trump moved his indictment date with NY State after his parade of taking the Fifth yesterday?

    I know some courts do not want to file charges so close to election time, but not doing so will interfere just as badly, in Trump’s case.

    No kid gloves for him.

  12. 12.

    Tony Jay

    Okay, this is really nice work.

    What’s that, esteemed members and supporters of the Republican Party? You wanted to know exactly what the F.B.I. were looking for, didn’t you? That’s what you said, isn’t it?

    Well, here you go, then. Show us all your happy faces.

    It is to laugh.

  14. 14.

    MazeDancer

    Rumour has it Trump has 14 days to respond.

    That would mean 14 days of what you afraid of, Donnie?

  15. 15.

    MattF

    I think accusations that the FBI was planting evidence are what crossed the line. And maybe my Twitter feed is biased, but the accusation seemed to be very common. Garland had to do something to respond.

  16. 16.

    Anonymous At Work

    @insert clever nickname here mistermix: Contesting for BS reasons that amount to a delay is a bit harder to do in court, since the attorney has to attest that the reason is in good faith.  Judges also get pissed when you do that (see also Jones, Alex).

    Also, Trump’s running through attorneys pretty quickly and if *this* set of legal meat-puppets gets into trouble, like his election attorneys, his legal problems will mount (see also, again, Jones, Alex).

  17. 17.

    Booger

    Unfortunately, the warrant can’t be unsealed because his tax returns, which were being audited, bigly, are now in the hands of the House of Representatives. Just as soon as they’re done with them, it can be unsealed.

  18. 18.

    Cameron

    That a society becomes so crazy that an AG known for his thoughtfulness and judicious character feels compelled to make this statement is appalling.  On the bright side, it doesn’t spell anything good for Your Favorite President Who Has Been Treated Worse Than Abraham Lincoln.

  19. 19.

    Tony G

    I’m not a lawyer, and I am extremely ignorant of this type of thing, but I do not understand why the full text of the search warrant should not be fully available to the public.

  20. 20.

    Birdie

    All that press conference proves to me is that it’s Trump and the GOP turning the DOJ into a political weapon.

    DOJ were in contact, communicated the need multiple times in advance, and would have collected the documents this week without anyone being the wiser. Trump decided to put it on blast as a “raid” and the howler monkeys fell in line.

    It’s always, always projection.

  21. 21.

    Martin

    @Tony G: Search warrant is also used to find evidence of crimes committed by other people, so making search warrants public by default would compromise many cases. So by default they are sealed. Garland is saying that unsealing it will do more good than harm, probably somewhat motivated by people now going into FBI offices threatening to shoot them up.

  22. 22.

    different-church-lady

    I can hardly wait for Alex Jones’ lawyer to send the warrant to CBS by accident.

  23. 23.

    Another Scott

    @Tony G: IANAL either, but I would assume that it has things like phone numbers and e-mail addresses and so forth for the receiving party and/or their lawyers to contact at the FBI/DOJ, so they probably will redact those before the release.  At a minimum.

    There may be other sensitive information that should stay out of the public as well (maybe even Privacy Act stuff).

    Garland’s people and the courts will get this right.  It takes some time.

    My $0.02.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  24. 24.

    Gregory

    @Tony G: IANAL but I imagine it’s because “We, the FBI, just seized this highly specific list of incriminating evidence from The Soon To Be Defendant” can be prejudicial to a jury pool.

    The FBI was being nice by withholding the list that Trump didn’t want to share, and now the Republicans have loudly demanded it, so Garland gets to accede to their demands and release information Trump doesn’t want released.

  25. 25.

    dr. bloor

    @Elizabelle: He was deposed for a civil suit yesterday; if anything, his refusal to offer any information at all prevented NYS from getting new leads/filling in blanks related to any criminal proceedings they might be considering.

    I haven’t been tracking this all that closely, but I’ll be astonished if he’s indicted for anthing anywhere within the next month.

  29. 29.

    Ken

    @Another Scott: They will presumably also not make the mistake of redacting a PDF document by adding black rectangles over the text. It seems to be a curiously-common failure mode in the legal profession.

    (Which is not to say it’s limited to them; Retraction Watch occasionally has a paper where the images of Western blots or whatever have been edited by the same technique.)

  30. 30.

    HumboldtBlue

    Jonathan Turley has the most punchable face of all the hacks at Fox. Just a lying, smarmy, dissembling asshole.

  31. 31.

    Roger Moore

    @insert clever nickname here mistermix:

    He can share it at any time, but it’s obviously better for him to spin bullshit, fact-free fairy tales for the eager consumption of the DC press.

    Which is exactly why DOJ is moving to unseal. It makes it clear who wants the information to be out and who wants it kept secret. The usual suspects will blithely ignore this, but I think most of the public will figure it out.

  32. 32.

    Jeffro

    AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH-HA-HAH!!!

    The whole of the Fox/GQP Noise Machine got way, way out over their skis on this one.  Let’s be sure the whole. world. knows.

  33. 33.

    MattF

    Trump responds:

    I continue to ask, what happened to the 33 Million pages of documents taken to Chicago by President Obama? The Fake News Media refuses to talk about that. They want it CANCELED!”

  34. 34.

    Barbara

    @Tony G: In addition, in keeping with innocent until proven guilty, it’s potentially prejudicial for a prosecutor to publicize the elements of a criminal investigation, which would include the basis for a warrant and maybe the warrant itself. In this case, the FBI did not announce the warrant. Trump did.

  35. 35.

    Wyatt Salamanca

     I guess we found the end of Merrick Garland’s patience with Trump and his enablers’ bullshit.

    I wonder how that scumbag Mitch McConnell is feeling today given how he fucked over Garland’s SCOTUS nomination.

  36. 36.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Gregory: That was my understanding. It’s better for the case if the DOJ doesn’t release the warrant on their own – Trump could claim they poisoned the jury pool and so on by putting out evidence they hadn’t had a chance to refute.

    That’s why it’s important that they’re giving Trump the opportunity to object. If he doesn’t, then he can’t claim this was a problem in the eventual court case. If he does, he obviously looks like he’s hiding something.

  38. 38.

    MisterForkbeard

    @dr. bloor: The NY AG has indicated she’s going to pursue getting the Trump Org liquidated and its charter revoked. The law in question says that NY can do this for companies that engage in continued and repeated lawbreaking.

  40. 40.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Maybe, just maybe all those months of keeping shit on the down-low was actually a sign that Garland knows how to play this game much better than his very loud, very online critics…

  41. 41.

    MisterForkbeard

    @MattF: Such weak sauce. You can take documents! You can’t take classified documents if you’re not cleared for them or storing them in the correct way, and you certainly can’t show them to people.

    That’s so fucking sad.

  42. 42.

    jonas

    @dr. bloor: That’s my impression as well. His lawyers (wisely) told him to stfu in the civil deposition so that nothing he said there could jeopardize him in the criminal case. Meanwhile, Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg has supposedly gotten cold feet on proceeding with that case. I don’t think this is going anywhere unless they flip Weisselberg and if he hasn’t talked now, he’s probably not going to ever.

  44. 44.

    MazeDancer

    Judge issues instructions Trump’s response due 8/25

    update: Judge says they gotta say yay or nay by tomorrow. Then they have 2 weeks for getting in their argument.

  45. 45.

    jonas

    @MattF: Obama snuck 33 million pages of top secret natsec material out of the WH when he left and refused to return it when the NAA and FBI demanded it back? Wow. I did not know that.

  46. 46.

    HinTN

    Digby reports that Doocy is reading from a script and pushing Scalise about assertions of rogue agents. Fox must be seriously considering their culpability and liability in pushing this shit.

  47. 47.

    MisterForkbeard

    @HinTN: The script is what’s interesting. That means he’s been told to ask very specific questions and push back a little.

  49. 49.

    bbleh

    @Tony G: @Martin: @Another Scott: @Gregory: @Barbara:  I think it varies by jurisdiction, but many warrants also list the laws of which they’re searching for evidence of violation.  (In this case that might even be, say, the Espionage Act!)  Releasing that information would be like discussing an investigation publicly — we’re looking into whether person X violated law Y — and that’s a big no-no.

  51. 51.

    Ken

    @MisterForkbeard: So he didn’t learn anything when his “charity” foundation was dissolved by New York for continued and repeated lawbreaking?

    Hmm, come to think; does anyone know if that kind of inference is allowed when corporations are involved? Do we have to pretend that the Trump Foundation and the Trump Organization are completely different entities, with no possibility of any bad behavior leaking from one into the other?

    (Reminded again of a Pratchett novel, where the Patrician was questioning the Discworld’s “Agatean Wall” (Chinese wall) as applied to corporate directors:  “So this works even when, as in this case, the wall has to run through the middle of one person’s head?”)

  53. 53.

    Jeffro

    @MattF: he’s…he’s going to try and pretend that President Obama took an entire trainload of classified documents to Chicago?  And that whatever trumpov had at MAL, and however he handled those docs, and however he let people see/copy/buy them…PBO did the same?  And he thinks people will buy that??

    Some will, of course, but he has to be losing some number of people somewhere for whom each new bit of stupidity is the last straw, the scales that fall from their eyes, the thing that made them decide that supporting this orange clown just isn’t worth the cognitive dissonance anymore.  Buried his wife at his golf course to get a tax break?  I’m out.  Pled the 5th 400+ times?  Gotta go, Donnie.  Tried to say that Barack-freaking-Obama carted off 33M state secrets and deserved an FBI raid?  Um Don my man, the guy is so squeaky clean that he got elected president as a Black man in America.

    However…when we get to the very last trumpov supporter, that person’s mind is going to be TOTALLY IMPENETRABLE to reality.  Dense like a white dwarf star, stronger than Captain America’s shield.  It’ll be quite something.

  55. 55.

    Cameron

    @MattF: I wish I could respond to this in person.  I’d say, “Sir” – with tears in my eyes – “Sir! Shut the fuck up, you moron.”

  56. 56.

    Ken

    @MisterForkbeard: Yeah, my reaction when someone said “Doocy’s gone rogue” was that these Fox interactions are about as “spontaneous” as those on any reality program.  And people make snide remarks about the quality of community theater acting….

    (I understand that “The Apprentice” was unique in this regard, since someone couldn’t be trusted to follow the scripting and was likely to cut the wrong person each week.)

  58. 58.

    Betty Cracker

    A pre-press briefing tweet from Balloon Juice favorite M. Haberman:

    Some senior GOPers have been warned by allies of Mr. Trump not to continue to be aggressive in criticizing the DOJ and F.B.I. over the matter because it is possible that more damaging information about Mr. Trump related to the search will become public.

    Barn door, horses, etc.

    Also, Marcy Wheeler:

    CNN’s version [of the June meeting that preceded the raid] suggests that Trump’s lawyers showed the head of the espionage division of DOJ classified documents, but only agreed to hand over those that were Top Secret or higher.

    “During the meeting, Trump’s attorneys showed the investigators documents — some of them had markings indicating they were classified. The agents were given custody of the documents that were marked top secret or higher, according to a person familiar with the matter.”

    That suggests even after turning over 15 boxes of documents, Trump still had highly classified documents lying around the basement of a building riddled with counterintelligence concerns. And when the head of the espionage department came to collect classified documents, Trump withheld less classified ones.

    Of course they had probable cause there were classified documents still at Mar-a-Lago. Trump’s lawyers told DOJ there were.

    Holy shit if true!

  60. 60.

    Ken

    @Cameron: I’d say, “Sir” – with tears in my eyes – “Sir! Shut the fuck up, you moron.”

    I think his lawyers have that covered.

  62. 62.

    JPL

    @JPL: bingo

    Baier: You have President Obama who took a ton of documents and said he was going to put them online. They’re not online yet. You can’t search them yet but no one was breaking down a door. Was it a National Security issue at that level? We don’t know.

    Acyn (@Acyn) / Twitter

  63. 63.

    Fair Economist

    Seems like the Reich Wing was really flatfooted by Garland’s announcement. I’m not seeing much coming out of them right now.

  67. 67.

    Jeffro

    @Fair Economist: they can’t help themselves – they’ve had 30 years of their constant outrage being THE topic of the day, every day, in our news media + they’re so well coordinated and unthinking, they just parrot each other’s shit all day long.

    So they tee off wildly (especially when cued up by the dumb orange megaphone) and then…whoops…lookee here, they’re way out over their skis on the facts and they’re up against a Dem administration (and AG, especially) who aren’t just going to roll over here.  Oopsie!

  68. 68.

    hueyplong

    @JPL: So Trump was president for 4 years, yet no one under his dictator’s whim went after Obama for taking documents?  This doesn’t make any sense, though of course very little those people believe makes any sense.

    MSNBC says Trump has until 3 pm tomorrow to respond.  I’m very much looking forward to reading the brief and anticipate doing some laughing.

  69. 69.

    Geminid

    A federal judge just dropped the hammer on former Rocky Mount, Virginia police sergeant Thomas Robertson. D.C. District Judge Christopher Cooper sentenced Robertson to 87 months, 60 months and six months on three charges relating to his assault on the Capitol and its police on January 6. The sentences are to be served concurrently.

    After the Insurrection Robertson aggravated his situation by trying to keep an arsenal of firearms and texting friends about plans to shoot federal officers. Robertson explained to Judge Cooper that he’d been drinking too much and fell into “some bad rabbit holes.”

    From Marcy Wheeler Twitter.

  70. 70.

    Cameron

    @HumboldtBlue: Christ, that was disgusting.  I have a bad feeling I live around a lot of folks like that.  Maybe I’m better off being a weird old hermit.

  74. 74.

    dm

    I assume Obama took documents in electronic form, meaning: the archives had copies.

    The Pod Bros, who spent time in the White House, were marveling at the idea of documents on paper.  Apparently the Obama White House did everything electronically. The Presidential Daily Briefing came on an iPad set to erase itself after a couple of days.

    The mere fact of the existence l of this stuff on hard-copy is itself petty suspicious.

  75. 75.

    hueyplong

    @Geminid: Having summer interned for the US Atty where that judge sits, I will drink a toast tonight.  The hammer really needed to be dropped.

  78. 78.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Tony G: Most things in the investigative portion of a criminal proceeding are not public.  A lot of investigations  go up blind alleys and you don’t want innocent people’s information made public.  Also, you don’t want to give away info to the guilty.

  79. 79.

    Soprano2

    @HumboldtBlue: Those Jordan Klepper videos are gold! The Trumpers seem to believe he must be one of them because he’s a white male, so they don’t quite get what he’s doing until it’s too late for them.

  80. 80.

    Jim Appleton

     

    @Ken:  Part of the beauty of what Garland just did is that the motion is about evidence sought, not what was obtained.

    His implied challenge to TFG is that this information alone is enough to leave iDJT and his sycophants painted into a corner increasingly not to their liking

  85. 85.

    E.

    @HumboldtBlue: Those poor people. They are completely unequipped to make rational inferences, or to understand evidence, or to use language to make a reasoned argument. I wonder what it is like to be so helpless.

  86. 86.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Hating Hillary didn’t make you a progressive in 2016. Y’all elevated some real radical bigots like Liz Breunig and Glenn Greenwald and Tulsi Gabbard as real leftists, when they and you just have a big misogyny issue.

  87. 87.

    Geminid

    @JPL: I like how the judge gave a tight deadline for trump to contest unsealing the warrant.

    I think federal judges are getting fed up with trump and his supporters. The magistrate who issued the search warrant has received death threats on top of some vile anti-semitic abuse.

  89. 89.

    hueyplong

    At times like this, when something has just happened, it’s good to look to MTG.  She parrots Trump’s thoughts without a thought of filtering them or slightly amending to avoid obvious pitfalls for him or for herself.

    And when she’s silent in reaction to an event, it’s really special (and likely means she was a participant in whatever wrongdoing is being described).

  92. 92.

    Ken

    I think this suggestion from Nancy Lee Grahn is worth following up:

    Dear @FBI, I know u don’t need advice from a soap star, but having been in 10 or 10k implausible storylines in my 37 yrs, may I recommend digging up Ivana. Cleary it didn’t take 10 pall bearers to carry a liposuctioned 73 yr old who methinks was in her weight in classified docs.

  93. 93.

    gvg

    @Elizabelle: He is not running in this election. Sure his reputation has some impact on other republicans, but in the past it has only been the actual candidate running who were protected sort of by the no announcements by the DOJ. So really I think this is total trying to move the goalposts of peoples understanding of what that means and we need to all push back hard to anybody who says that.

  94. 94.

    Geminid

    According to WKRC-TV Twitter, the standoff between police and the guy who attacked the Cincinnati FBI office has ended. I guess we’ll have more details before too long.

  97. 97.

    bbleh

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I believe federal magistrate judges are appointed by the federal judges in the relevant district, ie they are not nominated by the president (nor, I would assume, subject to Senate confirmation).

  98. 98.

    HumboldtBlue

    Asha Rangappa:

    Between Jan. 6 and the purloined documents, Trump is in the crosshairs of charges for both seditious conspiracy and espionage. These are the two crimes we have in the U.S. code that are as close as you get to treason. And yet people want this man to be president again. smh

  101. 101.

    Jeffro

    @HumboldtBlue:

    LOL’d at:

    • the lady who wanted an outsider (for change), and also Ron Johnson (to prevent change)

    DID NOT LOVE

    • crazy people STILL talking about “ping pong pizza” and kids(!)
    • “gematria” – OMG
    • really any of it

    Is it cheese poisoning or something up there in WI?

  102. 102.

    bbleh

    @Geminid: So does two “believe/not sure” (see #97) count as one reliable opinion? Or is it the opposite, eg more likely urban myth?

    I smell a dissertation here …

  103. 103.

    Frank Wilhoit

    @dr. bloor: Are you forgetting the First Law of Questions, Lawyer Edition?  They already had everything they needed.  Trump could have either (1) embarrassed himself by confirming, (2) embarrassed himself by perjuring, (3) embarrassed himself by taking the 5th, or (4) really embarrassed himself by not showing up.  Are there any other options (that do not involve the Moon falling out of orbit)?

  105. 105.

    Danielx

    Tomorrow is going to be lit.

    Also too, you couldn’t get 33 million pages of documents in a boxcar.

  106. 106.

    Geminid

    @Jeffro: @RonFilipkowski tweets good material about trumpers at the rallies. Filipkowski just relies on the interviews done by the right wing media covering the events, and some of the folks are really out there.

  113. 113.

    HumboldtBlue

    Keith Boykin:

    Trump attacks CNN
    Cesar Sayoc sends pipe bombs to CNN

    Trump tweets “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!”
    Plotters try to kidnap Michigan governor

    Trump attacks BLM
    Kyle Rittenhouse kills 2 BLM activists

    Trump attacks election
    Insurrection at Capitol

    Trump attacks FBI
    FBI field office breached

  114. 114.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Ken: ​

    I think she may be right. I saw the picture of 9 pallbearers carrying an obviously heavy coffin, but she was supposedly cremated. Very odd. There may be another reason that coffin is buried on his property.

    I wish I didn’t live in a world where soap-opera stuff like this was entirely plausible.

  117. 117.

    Another Scott

    @MisterForkbeard: Oooh.  Nice.

    Too many people don’t realize that having the state-granted legal protections of a Corporation (etc.) isn’t some right like Liberty.  There are responsibilities that come with it – obeying the bookkeeping and reporting rules, operating within the law, etc., etc.  It’s long past time that these businesses that abuse the protections of being Incorporated are subject to stricter oversight and consequences.

    Thanks.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  121. 121.

    HumboldtBlue

    Not mine, but this is exactly what’s gonna happen.

    Prediction: Trump is going to say he really wants the warrant and property receipt to be unsealed, but his lawyers are telling him it’s not legally advisable. So he is reluctantly going to follow their advice.

  124. 124.

    bbleh

    @HumboldtBlue: But they gotta give reasons, no? Merely objecting isn’t necessarily sufficient. It’s up to the judge. No idea what the relevant factors/tests are tho …

  126. 126.

    opiejeanne

    @Ken: That 73 yo ex wife was cremated. So what exactly was in that freaking coffin with her ashes, if her ashes were even in there?

  130. 130.

    Another Scott

    @Fair Economist: Garland didn’t deny that he’s a baby-eating lizard creature from Zebulon-5 at his briefing on Thursday.  We’re not saying he is, but it’s important for you to understand that he didn’t deny it. – Fox News Personality, probably.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  131. 131.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Danielx: So I did the calculations. You could fit 33 million pages of paper documents into roughly two standard boxcars. If you use 60′ cars instead of 50′, you’d fit with some room left over.

  132. 132.

    Ken

    @Barbara: Well that’s not gonna happen while Trump is in charge of the funeral arrangements.

    (I admit I’m a little unclear just why the ex-husband was in charge. Was it through the spawn?)

  135. 135.

    Geminid

    @bbleh: I think the process is that trump has to give notice that he’s contesting unsealing the warrant by 3pm tomorrow; if so then the two sides file motions and argue, and the judge decides by August 24 whether to unseal it.

  139. 139.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Frank Wilhoit: Probably not. It would depend on the documents, but a good rule of thumb is that a letter-sized page scanned and converted to PDF runs ~2MB. 33 million of them would put you in the range of 64 terabytes. Even if they were  only 1MB when scanned, you’re still around or above 30 terabytes.

  141. 141.

    MisterForkbeard

    @JPL: …because they weren’t classified and Obama clearly told the DOJ what he had?

    These chucklefucks aren’t even trying. They’re just going straight to “but the black guy did a thing once!”

  144. 144.

    JPL

    @Omnes Omnibus: Can he then appeal that ruling?

    What happens if he appeals and the DOJ agrees with the NYTimes that it’s in the public interest, can trump appeal that?

  149. 149.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @JPL: A decision by a magistrate judge can be challenged in front of a district court judge.  That decision could then be appealed.   Let’s see if he objects and then files valid objections before we worry about appeals.

  150. 150.

    Another Scott

    @Gin & Tonic:

    AliExpress has “16TB” [sic!] SSDs for $21.30. Obama could have taken all that stuff back to his library in Chicago for less than $100!!1

    ;-)

    Back in olden days, there were people claiming to sell gigantic thumb drives on Amazon for almost nothing. (While it would tell the OS that it was huge, the controller would simply overwrite stuff if you stored more than its tiny real capacity. If it worked at all.)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  152. 152.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Jeffro: If President Obama took classified documents, why didn’t the DOJ under Trump go after him? Didn’t Trump sign legislation making the unauthorized possession of classified documents a crime (it used to be a misdemeanor)?

  154. 154.

    trollhattan

    If 1/6 lands smack in Turtle’s kitchen, I will be a very happy person.

    August 11, 2022 at 4:30 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard

    The January 6 Committee has recently interviewed former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and is in talks with former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos as well as former National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien, CNN reports.

    It comes after former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with the panel on Tuesday. The 25th Amendment was a topic of focus during Pompeo’s meeting.

  160. 160.

    Geminid

    @Omnes Omnibus: We should have never given up the Northwest Territories!

    First those people from Wisconsin came down and stayed from 1861 to 1865. They were not invited, but when did that ever matter to a Yankee?

    And ever since the second World War those darn Badgers have been coming back! Two of them were my parents.

  163. 163.

    Bill Arnold

    @Ken:
    You may have also seen (writer) Charlie Stross’s riff (tongue in cheek) on that Ivana’s Coffin Truther thing:

    Yep, sounds like a plan. (Normally nope, but Trump acts like a mobster and? “Two bodies/one coffin” was totally how the old school mob rolled. Let’s see what else is buried down there with Ivana. Then give her a decent reburial somewhere that isn’t her hated ex’s personal urinal. t.co/3u1chX4D3r
    — Charlie Stross (@cstross) August 11, 2022

  167. 167.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @twbrandt (formerly tom): Trump is already trying to block unsealing the warrant? LOL

    Since it would be irresponsible not to speculate; that Salon article this morning was arguing Trump is really terrified of everything and hides from his fears with his narcissism.  If that’s true it’s quite likely Trump refused to read the warrant,  just assuming the warrant is pure nightmare fuel, the actual documents will turn out to be something petty and if Trump had handed the stuff over this would be no big deal but instead he landed himself in serious legal trouble hehe.

  169. 169.

    Ken

    @HumboldtBlue: As I recall that was the go-to solution every time he tweeted out a photo revealing US spy satellite technology, or accidentally told the Russian ambassador about Israeli intelligence assets in Syria, or — well, the list goes on.

    But that only worked because there were people who filled out the paperwork, after the fact, to officially declassify those things. Without the paperwork, he’d have nothing.

    Now to read your link and see if I guessed right.  EDIT: Yes, except politifact is invoking “unprecedented”, which appears to be the hot new legal term du jour meaning “eh, who knows”. Or maybe “our systems really were not set up for this level of criminality at the top”.

  171. 171.

    Mike in NC

    I noted that the day the FBI visited Mar-A-Lago, there was suddenly a ‘Trump 2024’ sign in somebody’s yard in our development. Today I looked for it and it was gone. There must have been some angry complaints on that street.

  172. 172.

    Geminid

    @Omnes Omnibus: That was a lean machine Sherman marched out of Atlanta: 60,000 picked men. They ended up camped on the Potomac. Their Grand Review was on a different day than that of the Army of the Potomac. One reason for this was to avoid fights.

  173. 173.

    Bill Arnold

    @HumboldtBlue:

    Could Trump argue he declassified the documents found in the Mar-a-Lago search?

    Well, Joe Biden is now President of the United States, and he could easily say that he, in his mind, informally reclassified everything Trump took to MAL, as soon as he (Joe Biden) took his oath of office.

  174. 174.

    cintibud

    FBI attack suspect is decease

     

    ETA State Police attempted to negotiate, went nowhere, moved in, suspected raised weapon and was shot

  179. 179.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Jeffro: he’s…he’s going to try and pretend that President Obama took an entire trainload of classified documents to Chicago?

    My god, the visions of a long passenger train with “AntifaTrak” speeding too Chicago with Obama smiling in the observation car is hilarious.  And you are right, these MAGA dimbulbs will swallow this patently obvious nonsense.

  183. 183.

    cintibud

    @satby: I didn’t hear that on the local news. Where did you see that? They only mentioned his name less than 5 min ago. Ricky Fuckwad or something like that

  189. 189.

    Ken

    @cintibud: So we’ll never be able to determine why this lone lunatic chose to attack the FBI.

    (Assuming that as usual we attach no weight whatsoever to the sixteen social media posts, video blog, and mural painted on the side of his van where he said he was doing it because Fox News told him that the FBI was corrupt and attacking President Trump. EDIT: Or, I now see, to his being at the January 6 rallies. Or that his confession/attack plan was posted on his Truth Social account.)

  193. 193.

    bbleh

    @HumboldtBlue: @Ken:  sure, but there are procedures for declassification, no matter who authorizes it. Documents are logged wherever they go, and logs have to be updated. Typically markings are struck, with notations as to when and by whom. It’s not like some Hogwarts thing, where it’s done as soon as it’s willed. And if those things didn’t happen…

  196. 196.

    satby

    And in better, long overdue news:

    BREAKING: Cleveland #Browns announce the signing of controversial QB Colin Kaepernick to a 1-year deal, per Adam Schefter. Sources say the deal is worth $5 million plus “starter bonuses” if he wins the QB job over presumed starter Jacoby Brissett.

  197. 197.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Bill Arnold: Basically, yeah.

    If Trump is going to claim he secretly declassified these files without any documentation, Biden can easily just say that the files were reclassified when he became president and just forgot to tell anyone.

    The fact that the DOJ and Records Admin were telling Trump that he held currently classified data illegally. And that’s really it – Trump isn’t the classification authority at that point.

  200. 200.

    Scout211

    @HumboldtBlue:

    Here you go, from the The National Archives.

    I’m not sure I am fluent in government-speak, but it looks like the only time there doesn’t need to be a review is when the President and his staff declassify documents originating in their office.  (Whatever that means . . )  If I am reading it correctly, that means a review needs to happen for other agency documents.  But maybe someone who is more fluent in this can respond.

     

    Sec. 3.5. Mandatory Declassification Review.
    (a) Except as provided in paragraph (b) of this section, all information classified under this order or predecessor orders shall be subject to a review for declassification by the originating agency if:
    (1) the request for a review describes the document or material containing the information with sufficient specificity to enable the agency to locate it with a reasonable amount of effort;
    (2) the document or material containing the information responsive to the request is not contained within an operational file exempted from search and review, publication, and disclosure under 5 U.S.C. 552 in accordance with law; and
    (3) the information is not the subject of pending litigation.
    (b) Information originated by the incumbent President or the incumbent Vice President; the incumbent President’s White House Staff or the incumbent Vice President’s Staff; committees, commissions, or boards appointed by the incumbent President; or other entities within the Executive Office of the President that solely advise and assist the incumbent President is exempted from the provisions of paragraph (a) of this section. However, the Archivist shall have the authority to review, downgrade, and declassify papers or records of former Presidents and Vice Presidents under the control of the Archivist pursuant to 44 U.S.C. 2107, 2111, 2111 note, or 2203. Review procedures developed by the Archivist shall provide for consultation with agencies having primary subject matter interest and shall be consistent with the provisions of applicable laws or lawful agreements that pertain to the respective Presidential papers or records. Agencies with primary subject matter interest shall be notified promptly of the Archivist’s decision. Any final decision by the Archivist may be appealed by the requester or an agency to the Panel. The information shall remain classified pending a prompt decision on the appeal.

  205. 205.

    Baud

    I wonder if the classified document was an assessment of the national security risk posed by Donald Trump.

  206. 206.

    geg6

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    Been looking for you.  If you like podcasts, check out Crooked City:Youngstown.  It’s in Apple podcasts.  I’m obviously not a native but live close enough and have spent much time there, especially in my younger days in the early 80s (yes, I have stories).  I’m not done yet, but I’m loving getting more of the story of the wars between the Pittsburgh mob and the Cleveland mob than I understood then.  Also lots of Jim Trafficant stuff.  I think you’d enjoy it.

  209. 209.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @satby:

    Excellent indeed! Not a big football fan, but Kaepernick was definitely blacklisted for his protest for BLM.

    I still see idiots wearing “I stand for the flag” T-shirts around

  210. 210.

    trollhattan

    @Baud: They could have just harassed him with drones until he ran out of nails, then nabbed the dude.

    Not white?

  214. 214.

    Captain C

    @trollhattan:

    If 1/6 lands smack in Turtle’s kitchen, I will be a very happy person.

    Perhaps his beard wife’s family is coming to the conclusion that the Moscow Turtle has outlasted his usefulness.

  215. 215.

    Ken

    @trollhattan: Not white?

    No, very white, if they’ve found the right Truth Social account. And how many Truth Social accounts could be out there, with posts laying out plans to go attack an FBI office today?  Fifty, sixty tops. But all of them very white.

  217. 217.

    Another Scott

    @Geminid: I imagine someone is furiously typing up a 20 page letter to send to TFG’s flunkies.  After all, it worked for Bill Barr.

    Come to think of it, Barr is available, isn’t he? Of course, he and TFG didn’t part on the greatest terms, but a sweet-talking letter to TFG can probably smooth things over…

    :-/

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  218. 218.

    Ken

    @Baud: Adam was saying he was tired the other night, but I assumed that was from swimming the last 500 meters from the submarine to the Saky air base while carrying a dozen H.E. devices. If he also had to put together an assessment of the Trump security risk*, I can see why he was exhausted.

    * Speaking of 33 million pages…

  221. 221.

    JPL

    Ricky thought the nail gun would break the bullet proof glass.   wtf His rifle wouldn’t but his nail gun would.

  222. 222.

    Geminid

    @trollhattan: The guy had an assault rifle, and fired some shots at police while he was being chased. The nail gun was for breaking through bullet proof glass at the FBI office, but it did not work. It may have been the type with blank .22 loads that will drive hardened nails into concrete or steel.

    The twitter feed Satby linked to at #184 includes some truthsocial posts that are apparently from the guy. One was a call to arms made last night, and another seems to have been posted after his assault on the FBI’s bullet proof glass failed and he was running.

  225. 225.

    misterpuff

    @Geminid: Chernow posits that the Army of the Potomac  went first to honor them as a fighting force (and the defeat of Lee under Grant’s leadership) and the Armies of the West went second, so they wouldn’t overshadow the Army of the Potomac, even though the Army of the West basically kept the Union in the fight and in many ways really defeated the Confederates.

  226. 226.

    Captain C

    @satby: While I’m glad for Mr. Kaepernick, I’m also kind of glad he hasn’t been taking dozens of CTE-inducing hits every season over the last five or so years.  Certainly, for that span he’s been better than most backups and at least a third (if not fully half) of the starters in the NFL.

  227. 227.

    Geminid

    @misterpuff: One reason Grant forced the end of the siege of Petersburg and Richmond was that he wanted the Army of the Potomac to have the credit for ending the war. They did a lot of good fighting in the eastern theatre even though they did not get very far.

  228. 228.

    Geminid

    @Captain C: I’m hoping that Kaepernick and Jacoby Brisset have a whole season to show what they can do. DeShaun Watson is set to return after six weeks, but the NFL is appealing for a full year’s suspension and I hope they get it.

  230. 230.

    satby

    @Captain C: I’m not a football fan, but Kaepernick chose that for his life and has paid dearly for his dignified, peaceful protest. He’s stayed in training this whole time, I read somewhere. So I hope he does well, becomes the starter QB, and signs lots of deals.

  231. 231.

    Kathleen

    @Geminid: The standoff lasted most of the day. About 3:45 Police drew him out, he started firing, police fired back and he was killed. Very little information at the first press conference conducted by (I believe) a Clinton County LEO. Just saw an alert flash on my screen – suspect had ties of 1-6 riots.

  233. 233.

    sdhays

    How did this stuff make its way to Mar-a-Lardo in the first place? It’s not the kind of thing that I would suppose is laying around in your average West Wing filing cabinet. It’s pretty inconceivable that they were “accidentally” hoovered up in the mad dash out of the White House after January 6.

    Preznit Ketchup-Walls doesn’t do his own packing (it’s hard to believe he can dress himself) and his impatience with details is well known. So who spear-headed compiling this list of classified material? And did they do it merely with Trump’s approval, or were they acting on a high-level direction from Trump?

    Charges for someone must be coming for something like this.

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