Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

They are not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

I would try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

Petty moves from a petty man.

Dear elected officials: Trump is temporary, dishonor is forever.

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

How stupid are these people?

I really should read my own blog.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

Dumb motherfuckers cannot understand a consequence that most 4 year olds have fully sorted out.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

If you voted for Trump, you don’t get to speak about ethics, morals, or rule of law.

Disappointing to see gov. newsom with his finger to the wind.

When they say they are pro-life, they do not mean yours.

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Thursday Evening Open Thread: Onto the Pyre

Thursday Evening Open Thread: Onto the Pyre

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Thursday Evening Open Thread 1

(John Deering via GoComics.com)

 
This is the most persuasive theory I’ve seen yet: Trump walked off with all those boxes because he could, because they might have something he could use against his enemies…

I specifically remember, during the latest Jan6 Committee hearing, that Mark Meadows burned a whole bunch of paperwork in his WH office just before getting winkled out. And earlier this week, IIRC, Mr. Meadows was warned to stop having phone conversations with Individual Number One…



… Not information that would interest foreign dictators (he’s already turned everything potentially useful over to Putin, and Jared has done the same for the Saudis). Or even industrial / trade info (TFG, and the people he might trust on such topics, have less understanding of actual technology than my cats, who know how to work their kibble dispenser). But there are — might be — all kinds of useful blackmail material against the rest of his Republican cronies!

Reader Interactions

142Comments

  1. 1.

    H.E.Wolf

    Die Mühlen Gottes mahlen langsam, aber sie mahlen außerordentlich fein

    [Tip of the hat to our valued Malaysian correspondent]

  2. 2.

    Formerly disgruntled in Oregon

    Blackmail material, eh?

    Oh yeah – that’s right up TFG’s alley. That’s his bread and butter.

  3. 3.

    dmsilev

    The guy who tried to attack the FBI Cincinnati office was killed by police.

    An armed man wearing body armor tried to breach the FBI’s Cincinnati field office Thursday, authorities said, sparking an hours-long standoff with officers, who said they killed the man after trying “less-than-lethal tactics” to detain him.

    I’m sure we’re all shocked, shocked to learn this bit about him:

    State and federal officials declined to name the man or describe a potential motive. However, a law enforcement source told The Washington Post that investigators have identified him as Ricky Shiffer.

    […]

    In May, a Twitter user named Ricky Shiffer said he was present at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and suggested the attack was carried out by left-wing radicals in a reply comment to a photograph that showed rioters scaling the walls.

    “I was there,” the user posted. “We watched as your goons did that.”

    In a separate reply that day, the user referred approvingly to the Proud Boys, an extremist right-wing group, several of whose leaders face charges in the Capitol riot, in response to a comment about the Supreme Court.

  4. 4.

    gwangung

    I’m starting to think that just started grabbing stuff, “just in case”, and never got around to looking through them to see what was useful.

  6. 6.

    Baud

    But there are — might be — all kinds of useful blackmail material against the rest of his Republican cronies!

    And now Dark Brandon has it!

  7. 7.

    Will

    I honestly can’t see this being over Kim Jong love letters. I also don’t know if his lackeys were smart enough to have stuff incriminating them shipped to MAL in hopes it wouldn’t be found.

    My god honest wish is that he took some seriously classified Air Force or Space Force info cause he is such a plane nut. That is also the kind of stuff that to me would warrant such a search.

  9. 9.

    ColoradoGuy

    My half-baked theory is that highly classified data in the MAL documents showed up in one or more intelligence intercepts from China, Russia, or North Korea, or maybe all three.

    We know TFG sees everything as something to sell, to anyone who will buy. We also know he has no concept of loyalty, to anyone or any entity, including the USA. As mentioned above, he can barely read, and is not going to scan boxes and boxes of documents filled with Federal acronyms and technical gibberish. But he would certainly see them as potentially valuable to the right buyer.

  11. 11.

    Scout211

     @ AnneLaurie: But there are — might be — all kinds of useful blackmail material against the rest of his Republican cronies!

    That is my guess.  Remember that big  trip to Russia  during the 4th of July holiday in 2018? There has to be other security breaches that he can use to keep them in line.

    But I also wonder about Jared and the rest of the family’s background checks and all the other shady deals they made during their time in the White House.  Someone could use that information to manipulate him and his family. ETA:  Or prosecute them.

    But there is always the money and power that secrets can bring.

    I guess the list is endless when you are a narcissistic sociopath.

  13. 13.

    CaseyL

    Blackmail for Trump; actionable in terms of indictments for Garland’s DOJ.

    I would love nothing more than to see half three-quarters all the GOP indicted for sedition, insurrection, espionage, etc.

    I mean, run-around-the-house-screaming love it.

  16. 16.

    Ken

    @ColoradoGuy: highly classified data in the MAL documents

    DEFENSE LAWYER: “Objection! There’s no proof these documents came from MAL!”

    PROSECUTION: “Your honor, they all have ketchup stains.”

    JUDGE: “Objection overruled.”

  18. 18.

    was2blue

    This stealing of gov’t documents had me thinking of J Edgar Hoover collecting compromising bits on his political enemies & any who might challenge his domain.  Trump’s neice, Mary, mentioned that Trump pulls people into his entourage by creating or finding compromising facts about them that they’re loathe to become public.  So my speculation had been that Trump was hoping to find dirt in the files that could be used to manipulate his foes…  Given the national security & classified dimension, perhaps he was focused internationally.  Again.  Just spinning my wheels…

  19. 19.

    Ken

    @Baud: I’m still kind of hoping they get him for destruction of official documents, and the fine is $1000. Per document. Four years of tearing up everything they handed him bites back hard.

  20. 20.

    HumboldtBlue

    And the other thing is, the FBI and DOJ were both overly accommodating to Trump through all of this, to the point they said nothing of the search warrant. It was Trump who announced that to the world, and now he’s gonna find out, between this and Tish James, here’s hoping his final years are as miserable as possible.

  23. 23.

    JaneE

    I remember hearing things about Trump ordering things classified that really shouldn’t have been because he wanted to control access to what they contained.  Presumably something embarrassing.  Some of this could be that, something he did not want to see the light of day.

  24. 24.

    SpaceUnit

    A more sinister explanation would be that he gathered the kinds of classified information that his Russian handlers ordered him to get.

  25. 25.

    Bupalos

    I honestly don’t think this spectacle will wind up in a good place really…but I can’t help joining in. Back to the Trump Show.

  26. 26.

    Ken

    @Old School: Don’t be silly, Nixon had all those destroyed back in 1973.

    Speaking of Nixon, his twitter account notes: “They took security tapes. It’s not about the documents; it’s about who’s been near the documents.”  Interesting point. I’d heard they took tapes a couple of months ago, I wonder if more recent ones were taken with Tuesday’s warrant.

  27. 27.

    bbleh

    Since we’re speculating wildly, my guess would be that he had been squirreling stuff away at the WH for years, for a variety of reasons/whims (I like that, I want that, that will make person X come begging, ooo that could hurt me but I don’t wanna burn it, oh I could totally sell that, etc.) and often on the spur of the moment, and never got around to actually dealing with the stuff he had stashed, so he just jammed it all in boxes and took it with him.  He certainly never would have considered the legality or propriety of any of it; he was the king and the king gets to do what he wants.

  29. 29.

    Another Scott

    I’m sure someone made this point already, but IMO, he took the documents because he could. He thought and acted as if the rules didn’t apply to him, so he didn’t bother following them. He wanted them, so he took them. It doesn’t matter what the “rules” were – the rules are for little people.

    I don’t think there was some grand plan to sell them. He wanted to be able to go to parties and whisper in some important person’s ear, “You know, when I was in the White House I had the Pentagon working on this amazing widget – want to see a picture??”

    Of course, having stuff to blackmail others isn’t impossible either, given his mantra of “hitting back 10x as hard” at his enemies… But mainly, he thought he could do what he wanted and figured nobody would challenge him on it because almost nobody had his entire life.

    We’ll see!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  31. 31.

    JaySinWA

    Placing my theory down, based on T’s lack of desire to read or ability to plan. He set Jarvanka with the task of grabbing what they thought would be useful. He doesn’t know exactly what they have but knows it isn’t good to be caught with.

    As to why now, NSA surveillance of one of their contacts pinged for an active transaction or T’s compulsive bragging. The target may be Jared caught earning his $2B.

  32. 32.

    Ksmiami

    @ColoradoGuy: I think this is exactly right. Intelligence knows what he took and saw it being used by our enemies in an obvious manner. That is why the judge et Al signed off- not for some nefarious GOP blackmail bait

  33. 33.

    MattF

    I think the big fuss made over classified information made Trump assume it’s important. But he wouldn’t spend the time and effort necessary to determine what’s actually important. Then the question is, what stuff did he actually take? Is it just throwing random stuff into boxes? No one knows. We shall see.

  34. 34.

    dlwchico

    Probably the invite list or more to those cocaine orgies that Madison Crawford was talking about.

  35. 35.

    Geminid

    @bbleh: Apparently the FBI had a specific descripion of what they intended to seize. That would be in the warrant. If it’s unsealed there may be redactions to protect classified material. There’ll still be plenty unredacted, and I have a hunch it will be very damaging to trump. So trump will probably fight to keep the warrant sealed.

    I think he’ll lose. Between the death threats against the issuing magistrate and the stories trump’s camp is putting out about the FBI planting evidence, the judge is probably ticked off and will tell trump to pound sand. Appelate judges will be inclined to back the judge up, too.

  36. 36.

    Scout211

    @Ken:

    I hadn’t read that about security tapes being seized.  Do you mean video feed from the security cameras?

    Remember during the hearings we learned that all the video from the security cameras while he was lazing in his dining room while the Capitol was breached was wiped clean. I wonder who was in the room with him and what they talked about.

    Too many possibilities here, it’s like a game of clue. But endless.

  37. 37.

    Martin

    So, there’s a whole bunch of new reporting out there about Trumps declassification of docs related to the Russia investigation and ordering them to give John Solomon access to them. It’s a strange timing. I wonder if he was burying evidence related to Russia.

    But earlier I thought that there would be no charges related to the search warrant – that the national archive just wanted their shit back, but after watching Garland and following the aftermath, I’m not so sure. 24 hours to respond to unsealing the warrant? The court is treating him like a criminal, not a former president. That’s new.

  39. 39.

    gene108

    @Scout211:

    But I also wonder about Jared and the rest of the family’s background checks and all the other shady deals they made during their time in the White House. Someone could use that information to manipulate him and his family.

    I like this line of thinking. Trump, Jared, and Ivanka had a ton of conflicts of interest while in government. We know Trump lied about trying to get a hotel built in Moscow, during the 2016 campaign.

    Maybe these documents show foreign entities trying to blackmail the Trumps and Kushner over their international business dealings?

    Or possibly the family trying to shake down foreign governments to get favorable treatment for their businesses?

  40. 40.

    misterpuff

    @JaneE: The Magic Classified Safe where the notes on the Ukraine “perfect” phone call went. Did he remember to get those notes out of the Magic Safe?

  42. 42.

    Baud

    @hilts:

    Just learned that agents went through the First Lady’s closets and rummaged through her clothing and personal items. Surprisingly, left area in a relative mess. Wow!” added Trump.

     
    Yeah, he didn’t write that.

  43. 43.

    boatboy_srq

    I’m going to go out on a different angle here. Bear with me.

    If there’s one thing we’ve learned about Lord Dampnut, it is that he’s petty. The slightest slight, the least impediment, and he holds on and does his damnedest to pay it back.

    The documents spirited out of the WH don’t have to have anything seriously incriminating for the GQP leadership itself, although if they did it would be delicious.

    But what if they hold intel on people well-placed in finance, or with substantial wealth that could be, um, leveraged? We also know Lord Dampnut is the world’s third worst businessman, losing money right and left. He can’t even make money running a casino FFS. And the US banks have all decided he’s not creditworthy, and Alfa Bank and Deutsche Bank are now closed off to him. Consider what he could do with proofs of how the Kochs are pushing ALEC to drive the agenda, or Adelson and Mercer and Pope are running their states’ GQP machines for their own personal benefit. All the campaigns those individuals fund; and most important of all to Dampnut all that cash would now be available to him and his spawn to prop up his PVD-dusted empire.

    This fits Lord Dampnut’s scale, both his own and his family’s (with possible exception of Le Jared, who’s already sorted with Saudi blood money petrodollars), his vengefulness, his twisted ideas of social climbing, and his conviction that he’s The Great Dealmaker.

  44. 44.

    Baud

    @hilts:

    Also too

    Just learned that agents went through the First Lady’s closets and rummaged through her clothing

     
    I don’t care, do u?

  46. 46.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @hilts: either it was part of the warrant and there was a reason for it, or it wasn’t and it didn’t happen. I know which way I’d bet

  47. 47.

    hilts

    @Baud:

    I’d like to know more about what’s being done to compel testimony from Dan Scavino who was Trumpy’s director of social media.

  48. 48.

    patrick II

    Normally potentially harmful information is not released by the FBI too near to elections (Comey being the notable excepton ) . If Trump’s documents show that a congressmen was a participant in an insurrection, shouldn’t that knowledge be made available to voters?

  49. 49.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    Hard to believe they killed a right wing nut. Usually they take them to Burger King.

  50. 50.

    Mike in NC

    @dlwchico:  Why do I feel that Madison Cawthorn bonded quite a bit with Don Jr. and Eric at those cocaine orgies? Only the very best nose candy for the sons of POTUS.

  51. 51.

    bbleh

    @Geminid: I agree they certainly knew what they were after.  Classified documents are logged — in and out of storage, who has them, when they took them, whether they’re outstanding, etc — and even if an aide took them, once everything was buttoned up after they left, there likely would be a very detailed list of what was still out there.  The Archives knew that, and they had been after him for several file cabinets’ worth of stuff for a year and a half.  And they got some of it — 17 boxes in January, more in June — but evidently some stuff was missing, and something — maybe a tip, maybe some other intel (FBI counterintelligence has been a big player here), maybe just exhausting all the more polite means — made them decide to move in and just take what they knew was there.

    But as to why he took it, I think it’s a mistake to assume he decided all at once, or that it was for just one reason, or that it was some long-term plan, or anything requiring sustained thought or action.  He’s FAR too impulsive for that.  I would guess that it accreted over a long term for a variety of reasons — greed, power, ego, counselors’ advice, mere whim — and that taking it with him was also impulsive — “oh sh!t, I forgot about the stuff in that closet!”

    As to whether he’ll contest the unsealing, yeah I’d bet he will, just to be contrary and play the victim and keep his mug in the papers.  (“Have you seen how many times they’ve put my picture on the front page since this broke?  I look good in that one!”)  But I wouldn’t be surprised if a judge buys the DOJ’s argument re the balance of interests, especially given Trump’s actions in the meantime.

  52. 52.

    narya

    It’s fascinating to watch the “find out” portion of the program implemented. TFG’s not used to dealing with competence, because he assiduously avoids it in favor of people who will stroke his ego, and he’s never faced a consequence in his life, so he thinks he can do what he wants. AG Garland has some opinions about that. I also lean toward the notion that he kept what his handler(s) wanted him to keep.

  53. 53.

    hilts

    @Baud:

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Among the many contradictions of the Trump era, I’ve always had trouble understanding how a political party that prided itself on self-reliance, pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps, and machismo could fall in love with a man who is such a pathetic, motherfucking crybaby.

  54. 54.

    Van Buren

    I can’t see Trump putting himself at risk to protect anyone else. He wasn’t holding on to the docs because they incriminated staff or GOP pols.

  56. 56.

    Ohio Mom

    @dmsilev: That FBI office is in my neighborhood. It’s a fortress — big fence around the campus, only one entrance, with a gatehouse; the building itself is set back from the fence, surrounded by parking lots as of it were a castle surrounded by a moat.

    For all that, it’s designed to be low-profile, tucked as it is behind an office building and a hotel. I lived here for years before I became aware of its existence.

    You’d have to be pretty loopy to think you were going to breach that perimeter. Which of course this Shiffer fellow was.

  58. 58.

    boatboy_srq

    @hilts: Bootstraps are for everyone else donchano. All those people who don’t deserve the wealth and fame (or is it notoriety?) that The Elect – the Gut Right-Thinking Xtianist Patriotische Muricans who are benefiting from all the tax breaks and lax enforcement – enjoy under a Conservatist regime. But they’ll be so busy looking down on Immygrunts and Blahs and all Those Other People they won’t notice that no amount of bootstrapping will get them admitted to the 0.1%er Club.

  62. 62.

    Feathers

    @bbleh: Got a real giggle out of some Trumper whining on the Twitters about how the government undoubtedly made copies of these documents before letting Trump take them, so why were they bothering him about hanging onto them?

    Its just the fanfic aspect of so much political thought on both the far right and far left. Maybe that’s what places it beyond normal, real world politics.

  64. 64.

    Geminid

    @Ohio Mom: There are truthsocial posts out that are attributed to Schiffer. One was a call to arms put up last night. He sounded like the Leroy Jenkins character that gamers talk about, ready to rush in come what may. A fanatic.

  68. 68.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Dan B:

    If true, that’s big. The fact that it’s nuclear secrets would naturally have national security implications

  69. 69.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @hilts: The self-reliance thing has always been a myth.  They live on stolen land, benefited from countless forms of economic and social privilege from their Whiteness, and also many of them inherited their $ and got power through Nepotism.  The whole bootstrap myth is just something they tell themselves to justify austerity and denial of any/all avenues to power/wealth for oppressed groups.  Many have never worked an honest day’s work in their lives.

  70. 70.

    Roger Moore

    The freakout fits a pattern: Republicans freak out about Trump stuff precisely because they don’t know what’s going on and fear the worst.  They all know he’s a crook who likes to blackmail people, so fearing for the worst is severe.

  71. 71.

    Fester Addams

    Huh.  WaPo top of page:

    Classified documents relating to nuclear weapons were among the items FBI agents sought in a search of former president Donald Trump’s Florida residence on Monday, according to people familiar with the investigation.

    You know what the Dept. of Energy’s designator for classified nuclear is, right?

    ‘Q’

  74. 74.

    RSA

    @WaterGirl: Apparently the expression dates back to Plutarch (first century CE):

    “Thus, I do not see what use there is in those mills of the gods said to grind so late as to render punishment hard to be recognized, and to make wickedness fearless.”

    … and a more concise formulation by Sextus Empiricus (second century CE):

    “The mills of the gods grind slowly, but they grind small.”

  76. 76.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Anything Top Secret has national security implications. Anything classified in fact, but Top Secret has a legal definition of causing “exceptionally grave damage to the US” if revealed to unauthorized sources.

    I take any reporting on specific details with a grain of salt this early. We’ll see.

  78. 78.

    Roger Moore

    @hilts:

    Among the many contradictions of the Trump era, I’ve always had trouble understanding how a political party that prided itself on self-reliance, pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps, and machismo could fall in love with a man who is such a pathetic, motherfucking crybaby.

    Because the self-reliance crap was always that: crap.  The core Republican demographic are people who were born with an advantage.  They talk about self-reliance and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps as an excuse for refusing to help those who weren’t born so lucky.  Trump’s shtick was always about how he got ahead by being clever and mastering The Art Of The Deal, but people who were also members of the lucky uterus club recognized him as a kindred soul.

  79. 79.

    bbleh

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: And FWIW, “Top Secret” by itself (eg not also SI) is only the third level of classification (and the first is basically administrative stuff).  There are secrets far more secret than TS.

  81. 81.

    David 🌈☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    @Leto: ​
     What show is that from?

    Maybe because I like classic coke, but I would think “Michael Corelone Merrick Garland says hello!” would be more appropriate.

  83. 83.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I, for one, remain concerned that Merrick Garland is not the wartime consigliere to meet the moment.

  88. 88.

    bbleh

    @Baud: there are levels of classification such that clearance for them is itself classified, and I guess reasonably so.

  89. 89.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @MazeDancer:

    Article III, Section 3, Clause 1: Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

  91. 91.

    Geminid

    @Dan B: It sounds like someone in the FBI is leaking. Good.

    trump’s “friends” were fools to push the story that the FBI was planting evidence. But I guess we knew they were fools already.

  95. 95.

    Scout211

    Randi Rhodes guessed correctly two days ago. Twitter.com

    Trump stole nuclear secrets. That’s why the Export Control Section and a Counterintelligence Agent were sent to Mar-a-Lago to seize the documents. It also explains why Wray and Garland agreed to get a warrant. Nothing less. Trump has a copy of the warrant #ReleaseTheWarrant

  97. 97.

    LeftCoastYankee

    “…And that’s all I need. The ashtray, the remote control, the paddle game, this magazine and the chair.”

  98. 98.

    Roger Moore

    @Baud:

    Above Top Secret, you have all kinds of compartmentalized, need-to-know stuff.  Each subject will be put in a special category, and only people who have a specific reason to learn about it are given access.  Each of those categories might be given a code phrase, and only people designated by that code phrase are allowed to know about it.

  99. 99.

    Leto

    @bbleh: no. The top level of classification is Top Secret, and with that goes Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI). We compartmentalize everything, silo it off. That also gets back to “need to know”. Yes, you have a TS. You work in that area. But do you have a “need to know”? That’s a bit where the rabbit hole leads.

  100. 100.

    Splitting Image

    @Dan B:

    Washington Post reports it was nuclear secrets at Mar A Lago.

    Probably a bad time to mention that Saudi Arabia gave Trump’s son-in-law two billion dollars.

  101. 101.

    Another Scott

    @Roger Moore: I’m reminded that “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” is impossible and was intentionally mocked originally:

    Early 19th century US; attested 1834. In original use, often used to refer to pulling oneself over a fence, and implying that someone is attempting or has claimed some ludicrously far-fetched or impossible task. Presumably a variant on a traditional tall tale, as elaborated below. The shift in sense to a possible task appears to have developed in the early 20th century, and the use of the phrase to mean “a ludicrous task” continued into the 1920s.

    Widely attributed since at least 1901 to The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen, (1781) by Rudolf Erich Raspe, where the eponymous Baron pulls himself out of a swamp by his own pigtail, though not by his bootstraps. The Adventures is primarily a collection of centuries-old tall tales, however, and using bootstraps may have arisen as a variant on the same theme.

    (Emphasis added.)

    How it came to mean being self-reliant and self-made and so forth is probably an interesting topic of someone’s dissertation.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  102. 102.

    MagdaInBlack

    @Scout211: I was just catching up on Randi on her youtube channel. I’m just getting to her clip about this.

    I love Randi ❤️

  103. 103.

    Repatriated

    @Splitting Image:

    Probably a bad time to mention that Saudi Arabia gave Trump’s son-in-law two billion dollars.

    Spitballing: What “nuclear information” would a POTUS encounter in the normal course of business, that would be of value to the Saudis?

    The US assessment of the Iranian weapons development project, possibly including technical information useful to the Saudis in developing their own weapons, would fit.

    This is entirely unfounded speculation, however.

  108. 108.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Leto: One of the most amazing twists of an amazing show.  We were talking about the most memorable scenes the other night, and that show has more, by far, that I can still remember to this day.  Much as I love Breaking Bad and The Wire, I can only think of a couple truly major plot twists for each.  I know there were tons but only a few stick in my head.  Whereas for GOT, there’s like a dozen that I still remember vividly.

  111. 111.

    Repatriated

    @bbleh:

    Um … Israel?

    Oh dear. Yeah, we’d have that, the POTUS could reasonably have access, and a lot of folks would like hard proof of what they have on hand

     

    ETA: and actual US policy regarding circumstances under which it might be used.

  112. 112.

    different-church-lady

    If the government can go after Trump for taking nuclear secrets home from the White House THEY CAN DO IT TO YOU!!!

  113. 113.

    Ken

    @bbleh: “You have to remember, even David, God’s chosen one, once allied with Israel’s greatest enemies the Philistines. So Trump is just following in David’s footsteps in that regard too, just as with the multiple wives and concubines.”

    (1 Samuel 27, if you’re wondering.)

  118. 118.

    bbleh

    @Ken: Hey you can prove anything with statistics the Bible.

    I’m sure the conversations would be … spirited!

  119. 119.

    Geminid

    @Repatriated: I’ve read that the Saudis will purchase nuclear weapons from Pakistan if they need to counter a nuclear armed Iran. It would take them years to build a just a few on their own.

  120. 120.

    bbleh

    @different-church-lady: @Eljai: well, he says he was relying on the advice of counsel and believed he was entirely within the law.  Besides, the Constitution is entirely silent on the matter of nuclear secrets, so it is unclear whether, absent specific Congressional authorization of any classification scheme, any of the claimed regulations even survive Constitutional scrutiny.  (Alito; Thomas, Roberts, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett concurring.)

  121. 121.

    phdesmond

    ali velshi made a terrible blooper in the first minute of his msnbc broadcast just now:  he announced that the FBI raid on M-a-L found information on nuclear weapons, even as the WaPo headline behind him clearly read “FBI sought” such material.  several interminable minutes later, he rephrased his statement.

  124. 124.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    Just had a thought that one reason this took so long — they’re saying the first subpoena, the one he didn’t comply with, was in June, right? — was that perhaps much of the time was involved in building the inventory of what documents they thought he had. Remember, the Trump White House didn’t follow any procedures so all of the normal tracking of document access, copying, destruction etc wouldn’t have been happening. They’d have to look at things like, “this document left this person’s inventory to go to the White House and never returned. This page reconstructed from bits at the bottom of the fish tank appears to be part of Top Secret document XYZ-123, and we can’t account for the rest of it”, etc.

  125. 125.

    Scout211

    But, but, but, Trump’s allies told  NBC news that Trump just waved his magic declassification wand all over that shit and *poof,* there was no criming at all!

    (But that was a few hours ago. I wonder what they will say about it now).

  128. 128.

    Another Scott

    @Repatriated: More unfounded speculation:

    My recollection is that many in the Intelligence Community were worried about TFG as soon as he was elected.   I wouldn’t be at all surprised if information was intentionally gone-over multiple times before being shown to him (“Do we really need to tell him this??”).  As such, it’s certainly possible that these aren’t US nuclear secrets, but instead stuff picked up about other countries programs.

    “Hey, VVP!  TFG here.  Do you want to know a secret?  We know all about how badly your hypersonic nuclear stuff is going!  Sorry about that.  Wanna know how we know??…”

    If these reports are true, I assume we’ll never know many of the details because it’s, you know, classified.

    Grr…,
    Scott.

  129. 129.

    Scout211

    CNN  has a good timeline up about this investigation. It started in May 2021. (He took the sharpie pen map!) 😂

    May 2021

    An official from NARA contacts Trump’s team after realizing that several important documents weren’t handed over before Trump left the White House. In hopes of locating the missing items, NARA lawyer Gary Stern reaches out to someone who served in the White House counsel’s office under Trump, who was the point of contact for recordkeeping matters. The missing documents include some of Trump’s correspondence with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, as well as the map of Hurricane Dorian that Trump infamously altered with a sharpie pen.

  131. 131.

    Another Scott

    @HumboldtBlue: Thanks for the pointer.

    I think, but I’m no expert, that “need to know” applies to everyone – including the President.  IOW, he has no “need to know” to see design drawings for weapons and similar things.  He’s in charge of policy and similar things, not the guts of weapons systems.  Just because TFG was President doesn’t mean he could access anything regarding classified information that he wanted.  So there’s that bit of systemic protection as well.

    Corrections welcome.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  132. 132.

    phdesmond

    used to be you’d get the chair for stealing nuclear secrets

    ETA:  Scott’s post #130 is reassuring, though.

  135. 135.

    Chris Johnson

    @SpaceUnit: My speculation continues to be: he has the list of what to get, his instructions, FROM his Russian handlers. He can’t be trusted to remember things and is under orders to eat his own chicken scratchings, and nothing he says is really of any worth so that shit doesn’t matter except that it might incriminate him.

    The SERIOUS paperwork is whatever he’s got either by way of instructions, or the results he’s produced for his masters.

  138. 138.

    Leto

    @Another Scott:

    I think, but I’m no expert, that “need to know” applies to everyone – including the President.

    Again, incorrect. Lets look at the classification authority:

    Sec. 1.3. Classification Authority.

    (a) The authority to classify information originally may be exercised only by:

    (1) the President and, in the performance of executive duties, the Vice President;

    (2) agency heads and officials designated by the President in the Federal Register; and

    (3) United States Government officials delegated this authority pursuant to paragraph (c) of this section.

    No information is off limits the President. Nothing. Why? Because 1) it’s the original classifier and 2) they need that information for the execution of the office.

    Next part to look at:

    Sec. 1.4. Classification Categories. Information shall not be considered for classification unless it concerns:

    (a) military plans, weapons systems, or operations;

    (b) foreign government information;

    (c) intelligence activities (including special activities), intelligence sources or methods, or cryptology;

    (d) foreign relations or foreign activities of the United States, including confidential sources;

    (e) scientific, technological, or economic matters relating to the national security, which includes defense against transnational terrorism;

    (f) United States Government programs for safeguarding nuclear materials or facilities;

    (g) vulnerabilities or capabilities of systems, installations, infrastructures, projects, plans, or protection services relating to the national security, which includes defense against transnational terrorism; or

    (h) weapons of mass destruction.

    All of these categories contain information the President needs in order to execute the duties of the office. And again, they’re the original classifier of all information. If the President wants to look at the guts of a system, they’re gonna get that information.

    Basic Laws and Authorities

    Edit: I had to know all this shit for the latter half of my career because of the information/job role I was assigned. This is also part of the infinite reasons people were horrified about Trumpov being elected, because he now had unlimited access to everything. EVERY. THING. Ofc Trumpov being Trumpov, he’s now in the situation he’s in because of who/what he is. Also WE as a nation are in this because of who/what he is.

  139. 139.

    Another Scott

    @Leto: Ok, thanks.

    But surely him asking to have, say, a CAD file of a nuclear “gadget” would raise eyebrows, no??

    Apparently Project Verona was kept from FDR and Truman early on.

    Thanks.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  141. 141.

    Orchid Moon

    @Scout211: I haven’t thought about Randi Rhodes in years.  I used to listen to her, Rachel Maddow, Al Franken, and others on Air America.  Randi used to play “Bounce Your Boobies” on her Friday program (I think it was Friday afternoon on my way home from work).  I used to turn the radio up, and sing along (loudly).

  142. 142.

    Leto

    @Another Scott: for him? Absolutely. But think of a President like Jimmy Carter, a former nuclear engineer, and it wouldn’t raise an eyebrow. Or even Obama, someone who’s generally regarded as very smart. They would be using this information for, example, the Nuclear Posture Review as well as other collaborative works with regard to foreign policy/science/military postures, etc. Also a lot of our laws around classification were reworked after FDR/Truman specifically because of that. It’s not good to have the top person in our government absolutely pig ignorant about something like that.

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