Can we be real about documents and classification?

[AU9377 5,051]

Does anyone actually believe that when a President (or vice president) leaves office, that no document that could be considered classified, marked or otherwise, could be found among the thousands of pieces of paper and correspondence that is part of their personal files?  I believe that to claim that would be foolish. 

Every classified document is not the same.  There are levels of classification.  The vast majority of documents that are marked classified actually contain information that is known to the public.  This discussion would not be happening but for the egregious disregard for the National Archive that the former President Trump has shown.    After leaving office, the Archive knew that a large batch of documents that were marked classified were missing.  They knew the nature of the classifications and that they were in the possession of the former President.  They requested that the documents be returned for over a year.  Finally, after around 16 months, some documents were returned along with a signed affidavit stating that there were no more classified documents in the possession of the former President.

The Archive discovered that the affidavit was fraudulent and that there were documents that had not been turned over.  They once again asked for those documents and their request was ignored.  That is when they requested that the Justice Dept conduct a raid and seize the documents.  They did that and they recovered the documents requested, in addition to other documents they had no prior knowledge of.

Biden's possession of classified documents from his two terms as VP is a completely different animal.  But for the Trump investigation, we would likely know nothing of the documents turned over to the Archive.  The Archive was notified of their existence by Biden's attorney and they subsequently allowed the Archive to go thru boxes of documents to ensure nothing had been missed.  The only reason to claim that the two instances are related or similar is to confuse people and attempt to shield the former President's refusal to comply from any sort of prosecution. 

Make no mistake, if Donald Trump  was President, he would simply declassify any and all documents that were in question and call it a day.  I actually have no problem with that. I also have no problem with Trump not being prosecuted for his refusal to comply after he left office, provided that there is no evidence that he kept any documents with the intent of getting some sort of personal gain from having them in his possession.  I haven't seen evidence of that yet.

What I do have a problem with is wasting millions more in taxpayer money to chase our tails around a tree for the purpose of politics.  To be precise, for the purpose of dishonest political theater.

[homersapien 11,461]

Well I - for one - would a major problem if Trump - or any other POTUS - arbitrarily declassified documents and a foreign agent lost their life as a result.  This would cripple our efforts in obtaining human intelligence.

And I also disagree about the necessity of investigations.  They should happen.  This is not a trivial issue.

If removing and keeping classified documents is a serious problem - and apparently it is - these investigations can only help address the problem by prompting new procedures and or legislation.  

Edited January 18, 2023 by homersapien

[creed 1,658]

I have an issue with your first sentence concerning personal files. In my opinion every document created while a federal employee is on the job is owned by the citizens of the USA and should never be classified as personal. Classified documents should NEVER be removed from a federally secure area and moved off sight. Further, if it was up to me a federal employee upon starting their job could only bring family pictures. Everything else (office, paper, pens, Kuerig, briefcase, etc., etc.) is provided and ownded by the citizens of the USA. Once the employee leaves the job for good they can collect their family pictures and that's it.

What I'm seeing here is a lack of control and lack of understanding of rules. Obama put into place an updated plan (executive order 13526 - Part 4 is Safeguarding) for controlling classified documents.

 

Edited January 18, 2023 by creed

[GoAU 1,603]

5 hours ago, AU9377 said:

Does anyone actually believe that when a President (or vice president) leaves office, that no document that could be considered classified, marked or otherwise, could be found among the thousands of pieces of paper and correspondence that is part of their personal files?  I believe that to claim that would be foolish. 

Every classified document is not the same.  There are levels of classification.  The vast majority of documents that are marked classified actually contain information that is known to the public.  This discussion would not be happening but for the egregious disregard for the National Archive that the former President Trump has shown.    After leaving office, the Archive knew that a large batch of documents that were marked classified were missing.  They knew the nature of the classifications and that they were in the possession of the former President.  They requested that the documents be returned for over a year.  Finally, after around 16 months, some documents were returned along with a signed affidavit stating that there were no more classified documents in the possession of the former President.

The Archive discovered that the affidavit was fraudulent and that there were documents that had not been turned over.  They once again asked for those documents and their request was ignored.  That is when they requested that the Justice Dept conduct a raid and seize the documents.  They did that and they recovered the documents requested, in addition to other documents they had no prior knowledge of.

Biden's possession of classified documents from his two terms as VP is a completely different animal.  But for the Trump investigation, we would likely know nothing of the documents turned over to the Archive.  The Archive was notified of their existence by Biden's attorney and they subsequently allowed the Archive to go thru boxes of documents to ensure nothing had been missed.  The only reason to claim that the two instances are related or similar is to confuse people and attempt to shield the former President's refusal to comply from any sort of prosecution. 

Make no mistake, if Donald Trump  was President, he would simply declassify any and all documents that were in question and call it a day.  I actually have no problem with that. I also have no problem with Trump not being prosecuted for his refusal to comply after he left office, provided that there is no evidence that he kept any documents with the intent of getting some sort of personal gain from having them in his possession.  I haven't seen evidence of that yet.

What I do have a problem with is wasting millions more in taxpayer money to chase our tails around a tree for the purpose of politics.  To be precise, for the purpose of dishonest political theater.

I think it is very hard to assess either case w/o knowing what the documents are.  And the .gov is not being very forthcoming about that for either person.

Edited January 18, 2023 by GoAU

[AU9377 5,051]

1 hour ago, creed said:

I have an issue with your first sentence concerning personal files. In my opinion every document created while a federal employee is on the job is owned by the citizens of the USA and should never be classified as personal. Classified documents should NEVER be removed from a fedreally secure area and moved off sight. Further, if it was up to me a federal employee upon starting their job could only bring family pictures. Everything else (office, paper, pens, Kuerig, briefcase, etc., etc.) is provided and ownded by the citizens of the USA. Once the employee leaves the job for good they can collect their family pictures and that's it.

What I'm seeing here is a lack of control and lack of understanding of rules. Obama put into place an updated plan (execute order 13526 - Part 4 is Safeguarding) for controlling classified documents.

 

The problem with that is that all documents marked classified are not the same.  A document can be marked classified and yet contain no more information than what is available in the day's front page news.  On the other hand, a document can be marked classified and contain  sources and methods, which I would agree, should never leave a secured area.  The President, VP, Sec of State, Sec of Defense are not the equivalent of just another Federal employee with a security clearance.  No matter what the rules say, the President will not be subject to them while he or she is President.  The President could be someone that would never be granted a security clearance, but upon election they not only have that clearance, but they have the power to declassify materials and appoint advisors that are granted clearances by default.

[AU9377 5,051]

21 minutes ago, GoAU said:

I think it is very hard to assess either case w/o knowing what the documents are.  And the .gov is not being very forthcoming about that for either person.

I agree.  I also think that the circumstances as they are likely prevent them from disclosing very much.  However, it wouldn't take long for the Archives and Justice to, at the very least, give context to the nature of the documents.

[AU9377 5,051]

2 hours ago, homersapien said:

Well I - for one - would a major problem if Trump - or any other POTUS - arbitrarily declassified documents and a foreign agent lost their life as a result.  This would cripple our efforts in obtaining human intelligence.

And I also disagree about the necessity of investigations.  This is not a trivial issue.

If removing and keeping classified documents is a serious problem - and apparently it is - these investigations can only help address the problem by prompting new procedures and or legislation.  

Isn't that exactly what happened when Dick Cheney discussed classified information in retaliation against an FBI agent years ago?

[GoAU 1,603]

1 hour ago, AU9377 said:

I agree.  I also think that the circumstances as they are likely prevent them from disclosing very much.  However, it wouldn't take long for the Archives and Justice to, at the very least, give context to the nature of the documents.

They sure haven't appeared to be willing to do so.  Its been months since Mar a Lago was raided and there hasn't been anything to put that into context that I've seen.   I somehow get the feeling if Trump had very damning info, we'd have sure heard about it by now.   I also would imagine it will be the same or worse for Biden, as he is in firm control of the DOJ at this time.   If his info is damaging to our country, or he and Hunter profited from it, we may never know.  Heck, they still haven't given any real info on the laptop and that's been YEARS ago.  

Edited January 18, 2023 by GoAU

[arein0 977]

7 minutes ago, GoAU said:

They sure haven't appeared to be willing to do so.  Its been months since Mar a Lago was raided and there hasn't been anything to put that into context that I've seen.   I somehow get the feeling if Trump had very damning info, we'd have sure heard about it by now.   I also would imagine it will be the same or worse for Biden, as he is in firm control of the DOJ at this time.   If his info is damaging to our country, or he and Hunter profited from it, we may never know.  Heck, they still haven't given any real info on the laptop and that's been YEARS ago.  

So just to be clear, you want the classified documents released to the public so you can determine which was worse? 

Imo they are both scenarios that shouldn't have happened, but the worse of the 2,  by far, is the one that refused to return said documents.

[homersapien 11,461]

1 hour ago, AU9377 said:

Isn't that exactly what happened when Dick Cheney discussed classified information in retaliation against an FBI agent years ago?

Yep.  Pretty much.

Although no lives were lost (that we know of).

[homersapien 11,461]

53 minutes ago, GoAU said:

They sure haven't appeared to be willing to do so.  Its been months since Mar a Lago was raided and there hasn't been anything to put that into context that I've seen.   I somehow get the feeling if Trump had very damning info, we'd have sure heard about it by now.   I also would imagine it will be the same or worse for Biden, as he is in firm control of the DOJ at this time.   If his info is damaging to our country, or he and Hunter profited from it, we may never know.  Heck, they still haven't given any real info on the laptop and that's been YEARS ago.  

I wouldn't expect them to be revealing details in either case as the investigations are ongoing.

Biden is not in "firm control" of the DOJ. 

Hunter is apparently still under investigation.  But if the Repubs want to pile on and get to the "truth", please have at it!  (This is Benghazi redux IMO, at least until I hear something specific.)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/why-hunter-biden-is-back-in-the-news/2023/01/17/af44ba44-96aa-11ed-a173-61e055ec24ef_story.html

Why Hunter Biden Is Back in the News

Analysis by Justin Sink | Bloomberg

[AUFAN78 3,926]

On 1/17/2023 at 1:37 PM, AU9377 said:

Does anyone actually believe that when a President (or vice president) leaves office, that no document that could be considered classified, marked or otherwise, could be found among the thousands of pieces of paper and correspondence that is part of their personal files?  I believe that to claim that would be foolish. 

Every classified document is not the same.  There are levels of classification.  The vast majority of documents that are marked classified actually contain information that is known to the public.  This discussion would not be happening but for the egregious disregard for the National Archive that the former President Trump has shown.    After leaving office, the Archive knew that a large batch of documents that were marked classified were missing.  They knew the nature of the classifications and that they were in the possession of the former President.  They requested that the documents be returned for over a year.  Finally, after around 16 months, some documents were returned along with a signed affidavit stating that there were no more classified documents in the possession of the former President.

The Archive discovered that the affidavit was fraudulent and that there were documents that had not been turned over.  They once again asked for those documents and their request was ignored.  That is when they requested that the Justice Dept conduct a raid and seize the documents.  They did that and they recovered the documents requested, in addition to other documents they had no prior knowledge of.

Biden's possession of classified documents from his two terms as VP is a completely different animal.  But for the Trump investigation, we would likely know nothing of the documents turned over to the Archive.  The Archive was notified of their existence by Biden's attorney and they subsequently allowed the Archive to go thru boxes of documents to ensure nothing had been missed.  The only reason to claim that the two instances are related or similar is to confuse people and attempt to shield the former President's refusal to comply from any sort of prosecution. 

Make no mistake, if Donald Trump  was President, he would simply declassify any and all documents that were in question and call it a day.  I actually have no problem with that. I also have no problem with Trump not being prosecuted for his refusal to comply after he left office, provided that there is no evidence that he kept any documents with the intent of getting some sort of personal gain from having them in his possession.  I haven't seen evidence of that yet.

What I do have a problem with is wasting millions more in taxpayer money to chase our tails around a tree for the purpose of politics.  To be precise, for the purpose of dishonest political theater.

I hated the political raid. I can see this happening in China or Russia, but certainly not in this country. We should all be ashamed of our government in this instance.

[GoAU 1,603]

23 hours ago, arein0 said:

So just to be clear, you want the classified documents released to the public so you can determine which was worse? 

Imo they are both scenarios that shouldn't have happened, but the worse of the 2,  by far, is the one that refused to return said documents.

No, that is not what I’m saying.  I am saying the general context of the documents can be shared.  For example, defense docs, a presidential itinerary, foreign trade, etc.  

I don’t want to come across as defending Trump without understanding what the docs were, but multiple incidents of either leaving or losing docs in multiple places is pretty damning.  

[GoAU 1,603]

22 hours ago, homersapien said:

I wouldn't expect them to be revealing details in either case as the investigations are ongoing.

Biden is not in "firm control" of the DOJ. 

Hunter is apparently still under investigation.  But if the Repubs want to pile on and get to the "truth", please have at it!  (This is Benghazi redux IMO, at least until I hear something specific.)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/why-hunter-biden-is-back-in-the-news/2023/01/17/af44ba44-96aa-11ed-a173-61e055ec24ef_story.html

Why Hunter Biden Is Back in the News

Analysis by Justin Sink | Bloomberg

Much the way people said Trump was in control of the DOJ when he was in office, Garland was appointed by Biden - clearly the potential for a conflict of interest is present.  For example, the DOJ agreeing that the search for the docs by Biden’s attorneys instead of law enforcement agents is clearly suspect.  
 

The revelation today that Hunter was allegedly paying his father $50k / month rent for the house where the latest stash of docs was found sure does raise some additional concerns.   Sounds like money laundering to me.  What bad of parent charges their son $50k a month rent?

[creed 1,658]

9 hours ago, GoAU said:

No, that is not what I’m saying.  I am saying the general context of the documents can be shared.  For example, defense docs, a presidential itinerary, foreign trade, etc.  

I don’t want to come across as defending Trump without understanding what the docs were, but multiple incidents of either leaving or losing docs in multiple places is pretty damning.  

To me it’s real simple. There is no defense for these federal employees. They took documents that were not theirs to take, which is stealing (knowingly or unknowingly) in my book and each federal employee should be punished. Starting with not being able to work in the federal sector or where security clearance is required. 

[creed 1,658]

14 hours ago, AUFAN78 said:

I hated the political raid. I can see this happening in China or Russia, but certainly not in this country. We should all be ashamed of our government in this instance.

BS. He was asked to return OUR documents many times and refused. The only recourse was to go and get OUR property the hard way. He was given many outs. How it all went down is on him. 

[CoffeeTiger 5,185]

12 hours ago, GoAU said:

Much the way people said Trump was in control of the DOJ when he was in office, Garland was appointed by Biden - clearly the potential for a conflict of interest is present.  For example, the DOJ agreeing that the search for the docs by Biden’s attorneys instead of law enforcement agents is clearly suspect.  
 

 

Eh, Remember that Trump was given multiple opportunities and requests by the government to return the documents they knew he had and his attorney's refused and then later lied about returning all them. Only then did the government get involved and do the raid. I think it's completely fair for the government to give Biden and his attorney's the same opportunities for cooperation. 

 

Also the conflict of interest is why Garland has appointed a  special council, who is a Trump appointee, to investigate the Biden situation. 

 

It seems like so far everything is being handled as best it can be.  

 

12 hours ago, GoAU said:

The revelation today that Hunter was allegedly paying his father $50k / month rent for the house where the latest stash of docs was found sure does raise some additional concerns.   Sounds like money laundering to me.  What bad of parent charges their son $50k a month rent?

 

That's just wild, unsupported speculation. I'm fully behind an investigation behind all this. 

personally I think it's likely Hunter was lying about the rent payments on that form just like he lied about owning the house himself. 

 

but like I said, lets see what comes out. 

Edited January 19, 2023 by CoffeeTiger

[I_M4_AU 8,012]

3 hours ago, creed said:

BS. He was asked to return OUR documents many times and refused. The only recourse was to go and get OUR property the hard way. He was given many outs. How it all went down is on him. 

It’s interesting timing that the Archives got fed up with the stalling of Trump until right before the midterms.  Also, interesting that Biden’s own stash of top secret documents were discovered on Nov. 2nd (before the midterms) and wasn’t made public until 3 months later.

Did the Archives not know they were missing or did they just not care?

[creed 1,658]

1 hour ago, I_M4_AU said:

It’s interesting timing that the Archives got fed up with the stalling of Trump until right before the midterms.  Also, interesting that Biden’s own stash of top secret documents were discovered on Nov. 2nd (before the midterms) and wasn’t made public until 3 m'onths later.

Did the Archives not know they were missing or did they just not care?

Trump's stalling and subsequent timing could have all been avoided you know that right? It's like Trump was working for the democrats in a sense for this issue to be so dramtic. But he's not the sharpest knife in the drawer and probably didn't have a clue. Anyone who endorsed Hershel Walker is not too bright in my book.

Also, there was zero reason for Trump or any federal employee to have OUR documents after leaving the job. 

 

Edited January 19, 2023 by creed

[I_M4_AU 8,012]

2 minutes ago, creed said:

Trump's stalling and subsequent timing could have all been avoided you know that right? It's like Trump was working for the democrats in a sense for this issue to be so dramtic. But he's not the sharpest knife in the drawer and probably didn't have a clue. Anyone who endorsed Hershel Walker is not too bright in my book.

Well, you bought into it.  Trump was under the false impression that he was *negotiating* with the National Archives and he had time to find a solution.  Big mistake on his part, but that is his MO.  He, at the request of the FBI put a padlock on the closet and had video surveillance to show any activity. They were secure.  The raid was pure political theater….until Biden got caught doing the same think.

Trump doesn’t need to run again, but that won’t stop him and, evidently, neither will the Democrat party including the DOJ.  It looks bad for the Dems as they come off upholding a double standard by letting Biden’s lawyers conduct any further search for classified documents.  They have proven they are not competent to do so as the press Secretary said they were complete last Thursday and they found some more.

Its like have the wolf guard the hen house.

[creed 1,658]

15 minutes ago, I_M4_AU said:

Well, you bought into it.  Trump was under the false impression that he was *negotiating* with the National Archives and he had time to find a solution.  Big mistake on his part, but that is his MO.  He, at the request of the FBI put a padlock on the closet and had video surveillance to show any activity. They were secure.  The raid was pure political theater….until Biden got caught doing the same think.

Trump doesn’t need to run again, but that won’t stop him and, evidently, neither will the Democrat party including the DOJ.  It looks bad for the Dems as they come off upholding a double standard by letting Biden’s lawyers conduct any further search for classified documents.  They have proven they are not competent to do so as the press Secretary said they were complete last Thursday and they found some more.

Its like have the wolf guard the hen house.

Well first off, why does a former employee for OUR government need time to negotiate returning OUR documents? Also, I'm not giving Biden a pass. If it was up to me I would remove  him of his duties today based on what I believe has happened.

Edited January 19, 2023 by creed

[homersapien 11,461]

15 hours ago, GoAU said:

Much the way people said Trump was in control of the DOJ when he was in office, Garland was appointed by Biden - clearly the potential for a conflict of interest is present.  For example, the DOJ agreeing that the search for the docs by Biden’s attorneys instead of law enforcement agents is clearly suspect.  
 

The revelation today that Hunter was allegedly paying his father $50k / month rent for the house where the latest stash of docs was found sure does raise some additional concerns.   Sounds like money laundering to me.  What bad of parent charges their son $50k a month rent?

Big difference between pointing out potential conflicts of interests and saying Biden has "firm control" of the DOJ.    All presidents nominate their preferred candidates for AG, who must then be confirmed by the Senate.

Merrick Garland has exhibited nothing but independence and integrity in the office.  There is no reason to believe he would employ bias in his decisions, and every reason to believe he would not.  The first thing he did when Biden's document scandal came to light was to appoint a special prosecutor.

Perhaps the decision to allow attorneys to "search" for documents instead of LEOs, has something to do with Biden's willingness to notify and then return any documents he had.  If Trump was concerned about the optics of his search warrant, he should have complied with the initial requests to turn them over.

I am confident any involvement by Hunter Biden in this will come out in the (multiple) investigations of him.  If you are really that concerned about money laundering, then let's go back and revisit the Russian purchases of apartments from Trump.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/trumps-businesses-are-full-of-dirty-russian-money-the-scandal-is-thats-legal/2019/03/29/11b812da-5171-11e9-88a1-ed346f0ec94f_story.html 

 

P.S.  If you are skeptical that Trump tried to directly politicize the DOJ - and the DOD for that matter - we can go back and review the history of what Trump attempted during his time in office, particularly in the latter period of the "big lie" insurrection.

https://www.npr.org/2022/06/23/1107151077/trump-tried-to-use-the-doj-in-his-effort-to-overturn-election-ex-doj-officials-s

https://www.americanoversight.org/investigation/trump-administrations-politicization-justice-department

https://www.americanprogress.org/article/trumps-politicization-justice-system/

 

Edited January 19, 2023 by homersapien

[homersapien 11,461]

5 hours ago, creed said:

BS. He was asked to return OUR documents many times and refused. The only recourse was to go and get OUR property the hard way. He was given many outs. How it all went down is on him. 

The fact that so many people simply choose to overlook this basic and commonly publicized  fact is just mind blowing. 

It's a perfect example of cultish denial.

 

[homersapien 11,461]

2 hours ago, I_M4_AU said:

It’s interesting timing that the Archives got fed up with the stalling of Trump until right before the midterms.  Also, interesting that Biden’s own stash of top secret documents were discovered on Nov. 2nd (before the midterms) and wasn’t made public until 3 months later.

Did the Archives not know they were missing or did they just not care?

Archives had been asking Trump to return these documents for well over a year.  It's not their responsibility to worry about how this might appear politically.  Trump obviously had more than enough time to respond.

 

[AUFAN78 3,926]

13 hours ago, creed said:

BS. He was asked to return OUR documents many times and refused. The only recourse was to go and get OUR property the hard way. He was given many outs. How it all went down is on him. 

It was political. Lights, camera's, press. etc. There were obviously other options.