Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

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

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

Everything is totally normal and fine!!!

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

I also would like a pony to improve my balloon juice experience.

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Nikki Haley, who can’t acknowledge ‘slavery’, is a pathetic shill.

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Let’s show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

I wonder if trump will be tried as an adult.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

An unpunished coup is a training exercise.

Republicans can’t even be trusted with their own money.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Late Night Open Thread: DOJ Filing Is Out

Late Night Open Thread: DOJ Filing Is Out

by | 151 Comments

This post is in: , ,

Oh boy…

This thread:

Lots more at the link

And again, lots more at the link

With that news, I’m off to put everyone to bed and get some more work done.

Open thread

Reader Interactions

151Comments

  1. 1.

    HumboldtBlue

    This attorney Chuck Rosenberg on MSNBC is the steady, knowing, experienced deeply knowledgeable voice to explain what is happening, and he has all the charm of melted ice cream. And you still want it.​

  4. 4.

    TaMara

    Charlie Pierce is a national treasure:

  5. 5.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    When I was a toddler I would leave my toys, legos, lincoln logs scattered on the floor, just like this.

  6. 6.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @HumboldtBlue: his TV manner always reminds me of a somewhat dorky but very smart and dedicated high school teacher who leaves no student behind. But I doubt he got to the positions he used to hold without being a very smart and, when he needed to be, ruthless lawyer. As John Lithgow’s character said to a young CIA agent in The Old Man, “Son, do you think I got to where I am by being someone you want to fuck with?

    @dmsilev:

    — WhyIsHatSoMean? (@Popehat)

    There should be some kind of award for that

  7. 7.

    Mathguy

    That the DOJ has to deal with a 41 year old trumpIan moron as a judge must make them want to puke. She must be a piece of work.

  8. 8.

    TaMara

    I was waiting for this thread, now I can go about my evening.

  9. 9.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    Notice in the top photo the cover sheets are censored (whited out) because the cover sheets themselves contain top secret code words that can’t be revealed (eg Manhattan Project; Operation Overlord; Ultra)​

  10. 10.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Mathguy: from her Wiki page

    Cannon earned a Bachelor of Arts from Duke University, and a Juris Doctor, magna cum laude, from the University of Michigan Law School. She began her legal career as a law clerk to Judge Steven Colloton of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.

    Cannon worked as an associate at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida.[2] Cannon has been a member of the Federalist Society since 2005.[1]

    as Diane Chambers once said with a patronizing smirk, “Couldn’t make summa?”

  12. 12.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    Hopefully, this time Trump is finally fucked and won’t be able to weasel his way out of this scandal.

    At least he didn’t get any Cheetos stains on the classified documents shown in the photo at the top of this post.

  13. 13.

    Martin

    Once again, if you are asserting executive privilege of a document, you are asserting that the document is the property of the federal government and not yours to keep. Additionally, you are asserting that it belongs to the Office of the President, who has a current custodian.

  14. 14.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    Bradley P. Moss @BradMossEsq

    4) The FBI gathered new evidence that there were in fact more classified records at MAL, including in locations outside of the storage room. They got the search warrant and found approximately 100 additional classified records, some located in Trump’s own office.

    5) That is straight up obstruction and concealment of classified records, and willfully retaining them in an unauthorized location.

    ooops

  15. 15.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    Bradley P. Moss @BradMossEsq

    9) To sum it up, Trump took PLAINLY MARKED classified records to MAL, he delayed, obstructed and resisted Government efforts to recover them, he (or his staff) concealed the records from investigators, and they got caught doing so.

  17. 17.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: ​ 

    He’s almost the perfect voice and face for these issues. I always like listening to people who know their shit about their thing, particularly when it comes to national security, the law and Trump.

  18. 18.

    Poe Larity

    I’m guessing scanning systems on cellular providers networks picked these docs up in sms pics.

  21. 21.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    Wow, the lawyer lied to FBI agents. If a lawyer wants to work for trump they should automatically hire their own lawyer because for reasons that escape me, an abnormally large number of them end up committing crimes for mango mussolini.

    — Impeachment pie🍰 (@tweet_2_defeat) August 31, 2022

    I hope Bobb has retained a criminal defense attorney. She lied on a an affidavit to NARA AND she bald faced lied to the FBI

    — Theresa Kereakes (@TheresaKereakes) August 31, 2022

  22. 22.

    Amir Khalid

    Malaysia celebrates Merdeka Day* today, 31st August, with the most crooked leader in our history freshly incarcerated. Maybe you guys will get to celebrate the next Fourth of July with the most crooked leader in your history in a similar situation.

    *independence day

  25. 25.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    There is no way you put ALL these damning facts (and photo) in a public filing without eventual indictments​

  29. 29.

    West of the Rockies

    MSNBC special coverage is asking “who was the informant whovratted out Trump”?

    Any thoughts, jackals?

  31. 31.

    HumboldtBlue

    STATEMENT FROM MERRICK GARLAND: “My digital media person has asked me to inform you we’re in the ‘find out period.’ I have little to no idea what that means, but they were extremely insistent.”

  32. 32.

    prostratedragon

    @West of the Rockies:  Either Rosenberg or Weissman pointed out that Bobb or someone denied permission to search the storage room back in June. Maybe that’s the only tell that was needed.

  33. 33.

    Barbara

    @West of the Rockies: ​Possibly Secret Service agents, who are probably required to receive training on the handling of classified material.​ Although anyone who knew it was there could face legal jeopardy it seems like SS agents would be the most aware of that possibility. ​

  36. 36.

    Barbara

    @prostratedragon: ​Mariotti’s view is that refusing to allow entrance is evidence she knew her certification was false. Any “diligent” search would have included whatever was in that room.

  37. 37.

    JoyceH

    @David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch:

    When I was a toddler I would leave my toys, legos, lincoln logs scattered on the floor, just like this.

    I don’t think the FBI actually found the docs scattered on the floor like that. I think the docs were in the box which is also in the photo and they took out the docs and spread them on the floor to take the picture of their catch – ‘look at what all we found!’

  42. 42.

    RaflW

    Now that the photo is out, I wonder if someone tipped Fpotus that the DOJ filing was gonna be a doozy, and that’s why he was up, manic, at 2am ‘truth’-sharting like a cornered, disgraced egomaniac.

  43. 43.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Omnes Omnibus: When Garland releases the 911 tape that says, “My name is Eric Trump. I would like to make an anonymous report of an on-going crime…”, you can cash in.

  44. 44.

    scav

    It’s pretty much an own goal to preemptively move more and more of these charming details to the court of public opinion in teeny bursts of headline / hashtag friendly meme-nibbles.  Granted, that’s probably in critically endangered sane timeline terms, but still, ouch.

  46. 46.

    RaflW

    Maybe I’m just thinking of how it would play on a TV drama, but this tidbit, wow.
    I think a prosecutor could at least argue that Trump was considering traveling abroad with the specific documents found in the drawer with the active passport(s).

    @rgoodlaw Yep. 👇

    @ryanjreilly: “The passports themselves, and their location, are very good evidence that Trump unlawfully retained national defense information.”

    Active passports in same drawer as classified docs. Prosecutors could even note that at trial.

  47. 47.

    prostratedragon

    @Barbara: ​ Certainly makes sense; Make Attorneys Get Attorneys strikes again.
    As to who, also Secret Service or anyone else around there who might have found themselves gripped by a vise recently.

  48. 48.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I’ll never forget that before he was Mr Kellyanne he was one of Kenneth Starr’s top aides (that’s how they met), but this is a great line

    Bill Grueskin @BGrueskin 1h
    CNN’s Don Lemon: “Why would Team Trump … even ask for a special master, knowing what the evidence is?”
    @gtconway3d: “It’s insane. Basically, they asked for the Justice Department to punch them in the face. And that’s what the Justice Department did in this brief.”

  49. 49.

    Another Scott

    @Barbara: Mariotti’s thread is excellent.

    They should just block off the tunnel and build a big fence around MaL and keep TFG and all his hangers-on there for the next 30 years or so.  They all apparently really did try to do all the crimes and thought they would never be caught.

    Well, it sure looks like they are very wrong.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  50. 50.

    ian

    The last month has been sublime. Lets take a moment and remember all the *Merrick Garland is sooo worthless!!1!! Do something!11!* takes.  This has been worth the wait.

  51. 51.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    @JoyceH: ​

    There are two rulers on the floor (to provide scale) and a sign stating “2A” – that indicates they found it that way. No different that this crime scene (photo)

  52. 52.

    Edmund Dantes

    Not that it should help the lawyer too much but if you read the assertion from the lawyer that all the classified stuff was returned, it’s full of weasel words and language.

    https://twitter.com/emptywheel/status/1564826017356828673?s=21&t=m1MUnLKzcEcy558Mzzg7yw

    So maybe you can potentially sort of talk your way out, but then again you were also listed as custodian at times. So kind of screwed there.

     

    Bobb had to know she was being put on the hook. And instead of saying fuck this not worth it. She tried to thread the needle.

    I’ll never stop being amazed at people so willing to light themselves on fire for this guy.

  53. 53.

    piratedan

    @Another Scott: well, until they actually do it…

    but yeah, TFG’s MO’s is essentially to dare anyone to stop him and so far, very few folks actually do.

    I hope that this is enough of a slam dunk and it’s all a self-own.  If the MFer had simply returned the docs, the DOJ and the librarians would have sighed some relief and probably kept quiet.

    The hubris involving THESE documents when he made his bones (with a huge helping hand from the FTFNYT and Comey) sticking the server issue up HRC’s patootie is just even more ironic, but on brand for a guy like Trump who believes he’s untouchable.

    I hope he (and all of the fuckers that packed these docs for him because you know he didn’t do it himself) gets incarcerated and has to stew in his own head for eternity.

  57. 57.

    Barbara

    @Edmund Dantes: ​Have to disagree. While Bobb is not certifying that she personally conducted the search, she is certifying personal knowledge of the search that was conducted. She also denied entrance to the primary location of the search, where additional classified materials were located. Not saying she would be convicted but definitely enough for an indictment.​. They might also have surveillance video of individuals accessing the location, including Ms. Bobb.

  58. 58.

    Mallard Filmore

    @JoyceH: The docs are spread out all higgly piggly.  When police show all the guns and drugs that are seized they are usually laid out nicely on a table.

  60. 60.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    Releasing the photo is brilliant. People are too busy to read the 38 page brief, but that photo speaks 1,000,000 words.

    Plus the brain dead tee vee news doesn’t know what to do with words, but they love crime porn.

  62. 62.

    JoyceH

    What is that to the far left? Is that some sort of storage, or a window treatment? Is this maybe in a room with sliding glass doors? Would anyone be surprised if it was?

  64. 64.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @JoyceH:

    Gabriel Malor @gabrielmalor

    This photo should end up in the history books. The classified documents, obviously, but also the framed TIME covers, the accordion door, and that gross hotel carpet.
    This is Trump.

    the next trump filing will include a paragraph insisting that the carpets in the HISTORIC LANDMARK Mar-A-Lago were chosen by the finest and most expensive interior decorators in the very exclusive town of PALM BEACH

  71. 71.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    @cain: I think most of us are nerds to some extent and my favorite toy wasn’t GI Joe with kung-fu grip, but “Science Fair’s 150 in One Projects”, which was a do it yourself circuit board (photo)

  72. 72.

    JoyceH

    @JWR: And let’s remember that it’s not even as if Trump was staying at MAL and maybe got these docs out the day before for some reason. He had made his seasonal move to Bedminster, so these docs must have been lying there all summer. Either that or resort staff in Putin’s pay had been snapping photos right before the FBI showed up.

  73. 73.

    Edmund Dantes

    @Barbara: we don’t disagree at all. She tried to thread the needle, but she still put herself on the hook was my way of saying what you said.

    also the lit herself on fire bit.

  74. 74.

    JWR

    @JoyceH: Oh geez! F*cking crazy

    ETA, I hope any talking head who doesn’t immediately shut down any talk of HRC’s far graver threat to NatSec is fired on the spot.

  77. 77.

    JoyceH

    Okay, looking at the Post article about this, and it says the docs in the photo were “found in a container in Trump’s office”, so at least they weren’t left all strewn on the floor. No, they were securely contained… in that cardboard box.

  78. 78.

    Mike in DC

    That picture will be on the front page of the NYT, WaPo and maybe USA Today tomorrow.  It’s extremely effective in conveying to the public how serious this is, in a way that words are lacking.

  80. 80.

    Dan B

    Garland is showing the power of being an institutionalist.  If you play by the rules you bring the full force and fury of the institution to bear.

    And there are Trumpist and Federalists planted throughout the institution whose sympathies receive no grip in the institution.

  81. 81.

    opiejeanne

    @HumboldtBlue: I love that there are so many jackals who can talk intelligently about this stuff. It helps those of us who would miss a lot of what’s going on because our expertise lies in other fields.

  82. 82.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Dan B: I remember once upon a time when a certain institutionalist named Mueller was lauded in exactly these terms; he found an immense amount of incriminating evidence, and …. *pfft*.  I’ll wait until TFG and his cronies are in bracelets before I start applauding Garland.

  83. 83.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    One thing that impresses me that both Trump considered these documents his ace in the hole and yet had them squirreled away in random places along with news paper clippings and old quarter pounders.  The man is the clown car evil.

  86. 86.

    TS

    Looking in from outside, it seems incredible that any republican – let alone a trump supporter would get elected in November – but it appears democracy is not as important as “giving it to the liberals” with too many people in the US.

    No wonder the GOP needs voter suppression/gerrymanders to keep their right to rule in good order.

  88. 88.

    HumboldtBlue

    @opiejeanne:

    because our expertise lies in other fields.

    Mine being beer-clouded dumbfuckery, but yes, I guess I have an expertise.

    I bet I can out-sing any lawyers here, though. Just worked my way through a vocal scale while assuring the cat all was good.

    He was mildly alarmed.

  91. 91.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @JoyceH: I keep saying this, but if Omnes or I had treated classified documents as TFG has, we’d be cellmates in Leavenworth.

  94. 94.

    Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]

    Now they were not just scattered on the floor, just stored in a banker box with the framed TIME covers. He wouldn’t allow his terrible carpet to be covered with compartmentalized information. I’m sure he told his under-the-table-maids-of-questionable-citizenship to make sure that stuff was cleaned up. He doesn’t want people to think he is stupid or low class………

  97. 97.

    Dan B

    @Villago Delenda Est: Or at least the FA period is rapidly headed to a close.

    Now it’s our turn to determine a strategy of how to respond to the random violence against easy targets.  Planned Parenthood has been withstanding terrorism for years – decades – as have been the ACLU and the NAACP, among others.

  99. 99.

    Amir Khalid

    @Chetan Murthy:

    In fairness, to Mueller, US Attorney-General/Trump henchman Bilbar went out of his way, first to suppress the Mueller report’s findings, then to misrepresent it and minimise its impact. The report caught some of the small fry, but Bilbar ensured that Trump did not face reckoning he should have.

  101. 101.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    Republicans in key races scrap online references to Trump, abortion

    Attempts by Republicans in competitive contests to pivot away from these issues have emboldened Democrats to mount an aggressive offense.

    The political media loves to laud McConnell as some 12th dimensional genius. But they can never tell you what he has passed, because he’s never passed anything. If McConnell hadn’t blocked Garland then he could still keep using abortion to raise money and turn out votes. Now it’s the other way around. By being too clever by half he’s blown his chance to be Majority Leader for the rest of his life.

  102. 102.

    sukabi

    @Mallard Filmore: welp, that begs the question….. What exactly was trump or one of his aides (or some spy) looking for that they strung out the documents and left them scattered on the floor?

  105. 105.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

     @ryanjreilly
    Active passports in same drawer as classified docs. Prosecutors could even note that at trial.

     

    This is a good point. If the fingerprints weren’t enough, if the hand written notes weren’t enough, if the location of discovery weren’t enough, if the obstruction wasn’t enough, if the ketchup stains weren’t enough, that he had the classified documents stored with his passports demonstrates he had knowledge of possessing classified materials.

  108. 108.

    JPL

    During that time frame, trump entertained the Saudis.   The entire family needs to be locked up.

  109. 109.

    lowtechcyclist

    @TaMara: ​
     

    Yeah, Bradley Moss’ thread is a killer. Everyone who has any questions about the state of play here should read it.

  110. 110.

    JWR

    I’d read a few of the articles about TFG’s “TruthStorms”, but missed this bit. (NBC via Politico):

    In addition to the QAnon-adjacent posts, Trump shared several conspiracy theories Tuesday on his Truth Social site and he re-posted a picture of Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, with the words “Your enemy is not in Russia” written in black bars over their eyes.

  111. 111.

    lowtechcyclist

    @David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch: ​
     

    The political media loves to laud McConnell as some 12th dimensional genius. But they can never tell you what he has passed, because he’s never passed anything. If McConnell hadn’t blocked Garland then he could still keep using abortion to raise money and turn out votes. Now it’s the other way around. By being too clever by half he’s blown his chance to be Majority Leader for the rest of his life.

    Does Mitch strike you as some ego-driven person? Regardless of the winds of politics affecting the composition of Congress, he’s got a long-term Bogus Scotus majority that, now and well into the future, will be screwing up reasonable attempts to regulate businesses, protect workers, consumers, or the environment, and do anything to limit or even shed sunlight on the huge flows of money in politics.

    That’s his game, and barring an expansion of the Court or a couple of near-term deaths on the conservative side, he’s won it for the next decade or two.

  112. 112.

    Wanderer

    1.  Of course the carpet is ugly, it was chosen to fit in with the rest of the decor at mal-a-lardo.

    2. I can’t help but picture all of the failed former president’s people squirming like worms in a ball.

    3. This pleases me. //

  113. 113.

    WereBear

    Funnily enough, last night Mr WayofCats and I started watching Escape at Dannemora. Based on the 2015 escape of two men, the first successful attempt at this upstate NY prison, originally built in 1825.

    We live in the area and it was a big thing for days and days. Always wanted to see it, but it was always on a streaming service we didn’t want and we had busy lives back then. Finally, the stars aligned, and it is GREAT. Really caught the regional flavor… though not in a good way :( But then, the prison employees at the center of the story all had problems.

    And the woman at the center of it tried to solve it with fantasy. With first one, then another, convicted violent felon.

    Living in a fantasy goes disastrously wrong in the real world.

  115. 115.

    prostratedragon

    From Mariotti:

    14/ Specifically, the FBI determined that records were kept outside the storage room and that records were “likely concealed and removed from the Storage Room and that efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government’s investigation.”

    (They did not explain this further.)

    Maybe moved away from Mar-a-Lago?

  117. 117.

    opiejeanne

    @eclare: Filing cabinet. There’s a photo at the link that shows it in a room and it looks very smart. You’d never suspect that it’s a locking filing cabinet. It’s not my taste but I understand it in an appropriately decorated environment. However, this is not that. The carpet doesn’t belong with that cabinet, at all.

  122. 122.

    Geminid

    @prostratedragon: trump certainly  handled those materials, but I think there was another person or persons. That’s a part of the story I really want to know, and I hope it comes out soon. I think the FBI obtained security camera images, and the Secret Service members may know as well. And I think others who might know will be under a lot of pressure to tell investigators what they know.

  123. 123.

    RSA

    @JoyceH:  I don’t think the FBI actually found the docs scattered on the floor like that. I think the docs were in the box which is also in the photo and they took out the docs and spread them on the floor to take the picture of their catch – ‘look at what all we found!’

    I believe that’s correct.  There’s text associated with the photo in the DOJ filing:

    See, e.g., Attachment F (redacted FBI photograph of certain documents and classified cover sheets recovered from a container in the “45 office”).

  124. 124.

    prostratedragon

    @Geminid: ​ Definitely. In general I think we not in the DOJ are still just seeing the tip of the berg, standing on the whale and fishing for minnows, whatever, and the others involved in those maneuvers are part of that. And were no papers taken to Bedminster? He’s doing nothing until the fall?

  125. 125.

    Fester Addams

    @Martin: Haven’t the Trump team stopped saying either executive privilege or attorney-client privilege lately, now just claiming “privilege .” I assume they mean white.

  126. 126.

    Fester Addams

    @Poe Larity: Only the ones of documents he was showing off to MAL members.  The ones the cleaners were taking at night would have been exfiltrated more securely.

  127. 127.

    Princess

    Top Secret and Humint docs in a box with his passports and prized memorabilia (the TiME covers). This was his go-bag. One of them.

  128. 128.

    H.E.Wolf

    @sukabi: @Jim, Foolish Literalist: but do the carpets match the drapes?

     Not on the owner of the building, one presumes – unlikely anyone would take the trouble to match a carpet to those drapes – so probably not in the storage room either.

    The grossness of the above image is far less gross than the image of stolen classified documents.

  129. 129.

    Soprano2

    @HumboldtBlue: I had a cat who would get upset whenever I sang. She would actually get in my lap and pat on my mouth with her paw, as if she was trying to get me to stop!

    As for the subject of this thread, HE HAD CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS IN HIS DESK IN HIS OFFICE! HOLY SHIT!

  131. 131.

    jonas

    @dmsilev: ​
      Weren’t those fake Time “Person of the Year” issues with Trump on the cover a popular decorative motif at his clubs? He put them up in the WH, too? Good god.

  132. 132.

    jonas

    So, on one hand, one could say this was a real bonehead move by Trump’s legal team because it basically allowed the government to show all the evidence it had to back up the affadavit’s allegations that he was hoarding top-secret government documents and posed a major national security risk. On the other hand, they may have had no choice because when talking with their client, he would continually lie and bamboozle them and this is the only way to find out what they’re really up against when, inevitably, it starts raining indictments.

  133. 133.

    prostratedragon

    @Soprano2:  Emptywheel has a post about Bobb’s affirmation (in the certificate we know contained many lies) that no copies of any document were made.

    Thing is, DOJ didn’t seek that affirmation.

  134. 134.

    jonas

    I haven’t heard anyone talk about unindicted co-conspirators or anything in this saga, but the DOJ/FBI have to also be looking who the everloving fuck let the president — and fucking “leak is my middle name” Trump in particular — leave the Oval Office or Situation Room with this shit, much less take it to Mar-a-Lago? This is the kind of stuff you’d think, after it’s shown to the president, goes straight back into the Zero Halliburton briefcase attached to the briefer’s wrist with a handcuff and taken back to hq. Did anyone try to stop him? Were they thwarted by someone like Meadows or Kushner?

  135. 135.

    SFAW

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I am taking Eric. With the odds, if I win, I can retire.

    A) It’s a little scary that I was also going to pick him. [My “thought” process was that some of the other kids (as in 6-year-olds, not Junior/Jarvanka/Tiff/Bar-RON) were taunting him, and he said something like “Oh, yeah! Well MY Daddy has all sorts of Sooper Sekrit things he keeps showing to those Ay-rabs and that nice Mr. Putin. So nyah-nyah-nyah!”]

    B) You’re not already retired?

  137. 137.

    Ken

    @Mathguy: I know it’s not the sort of thing that goes into a legal brief, even an amicus brief, but I hope some friend has mentioned to the judge, “He shopped this to you because he thinks you’re a partisan hack loyal to him. You really don’t want to prove he’s right.”

  138. 138.

    Quiltingfool

    The ugly carpet.  I think I can explain it (aside from Trump’s poor taste in decor).  Mr. Quiltingfool was a floor installer.  He said that the carpet put in hotels and movie theaters are usually very high grade carpet, made of wool.  Wool can handle high traffic.  The garish designs can hide stains, etc. better than a single color.

    More to the point – that carpet is a prime indicator that the facility is a hotel, not a personal residence.

  139. 139.

    Ken

    @Geminid:  I think the FBI obtained security camera images

    Given the history of self-owns in this case, I expect TFG’s next demand will be that the DOJ release the footage to exonerate him. Then they — oh so reluctantly — will, and we’ll see TFG feeding classified documents into the photocopy machine.

  143. 143.

    Paul in KY

    @Geminid: I’m sure various spies and spies posing as cleaning personnel & rando dumbasses TFG invited down to gaze upon them also looked/photographed them.

  144. 144.

    Paul in KY

    @jonas: You’d think Meadows or Kushner (if they’d had any sense) would have at least taken the classified out from under the cover sheets & substituted in Men’s Health articles. It’s not like TFG would have noticed.

  145. 145.

    Chris Johnson

    @David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch: Wait WHAT?

    So basically you are saying the FBI, who took these photos, is preparing to make the legal statement, ‘We came in and found this stuff arranged on the floor, LIKE THIS, for somebody who is not us to photograph’?!?

    Okay, so that freaks me out a little bit. I have been saying this entire time that Trump is run by Russia and Putin and is specifically stealing all this crap JUST to have Russian spies first do exactly this, take a photo to send back and get the word from Putin, ‘which documents to steal or make copies of’. That makes sense.

    I don’t get why they’d leave them lying there just like that. Mid-espionage. I heard the phrase ‘dead drop’, so does this mean Trump arranged the spoils like this as a little present for the Russian spies who were to come at some point, photograph what was here, maybe arrange to take stuff later?

    Does it mean they DID come and photograph what was left out for them, and not put anything back, or does it mean they did not? Or does that mean this is the stuff that the Russian spies did NOT even take away with them, the stuff they didn’t think was as valuable? Holy fuck.

    I can’t believe nobody cleaned up their mess.

    Seriously? These things like the ruler for scale indicate this-all was discovered lying out like this? Fuuuuuck.

  146. 146.

    Chris Johnson

    Hang on, other folks say the things were NOT found like that. I think it matters. Wonder which it is, ‘2A’ meaning as found, or ‘found within a container’ which is in some news report or other. They can’t both be true, but ‘2A’ meaning as found is WAY more ominous.

  147. 147.

    Another Scott

    @Chetan Murthy: As we know, Mueller was under constraints from above that Garland is not under.

    Barr was specifically hired – he wrote a 20-some-odd-page audition memo for the job, remember – to trash Mueller’s investigation and protect TFG.

    Yeah, we can wait for the indictment.  But it’s pretty easy to see that TFG is in great legal jeopardy now.  Bigly.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  148. 148.

    Geminid

    @Paul in KY: Sure, there may well have been outsiders who accessed those materials, and that is a very serious matter. I was just wondering who of trump’s henchmen and minions were involved with these documents. Of course, they might have worked for third parties as well as for trump, with or without his knowledge.

  149. 149.

    dnfree

    @David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch: My youngest brother, who was in sixth grade in the early 1960s, had a kit like that, but I think his was only 21 in 1 projects.  Home from college, I asked him how it was going, and he replied, “I think I’ve derived all the benefit from it that I can.”  And yes, he grew up to hack early PCs to figure out how they worked, and worked on developing election systems.

  151. 151.

    dnfree

    @Quiltingfool: We once used carpet similar to this (slightly more tasteful) in a Victorian house built in the 1870s.  It fitted the furnishings and the house.  Later we did see that same carpet in a hotel hallway.

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