Classified Document Case Against Trump

[Son of A Tiger 561]

This is an interesting article/opinion on the accusations against Trump for possessing classified documents. I am interested in the opinion of some our attorney members here,

Trump's classified docs team could file this 'game over' motion: Leo Terrell | Fox News

[TexasTiger 13,000]

58 minutes ago, Son of A Tiger said:

This is an interesting article/opinion on the accusations against Trump for possessing classified documents. I am interested in the opinion of some our attorney members here,

Trump's classified docs team could file this 'game over' motion: Leo Terrell | Fox News

Trump should hire that guy. He doesn't even seem familiar with the indictment. 

[Son of A Tiger 561]

2 hours ago, TexasTiger said:

Trump should hire that guy. He doesn't even seem familiar with the indictment. 

This one is a pretty smart guy whether you like him or not. You have opinion on the legal comments?

Levin: If relevant law applied to Trump, 'Bill Clinton would be doing 50 years with his wife' | Fox News

Edited July 16, 2023 by Son of A Tiger

[TexasTiger 13,000]

26 minutes ago, Son of A Tiger said:

This one is a pretty smart guy whether you like him or not. You have opinion on the legal comments?

Levin: If relevant law applied to Trump, 'Bill Clinton would be doing 50 years with his wife' | Fox News

He’s wrong.

[Son of A Tiger 561]

3 hours ago, TexasTiger said:

He’s wrong.

How so.? I hope one of our legal guys chimes in.

[TexasTiger 13,000]

16 minutes ago, Son of A Tiger said:

How so.? I hope one of our legal guys chimes in.

He’s not charged with merely possessing classified documents. Like I said, dude’s mouthing off on Fox for the base but doesn’t seem to have read the indictment.

[AURex 2,031]

 

hahahahaha! No court in the U.S. would accept this fabricated garbage as an actual legal defense of Trump in court. But it sounds like the sort of Trumpian frivolous filing to a court that Trump lawyers would throw out there to try to delay a case based on stupid mumbo-jumbo crap.

[Son of A Tiger 561]

16 hours ago, AURex said:

 

hahahahaha! No court in the U.S. would accept this fabricated garbage as an actual legal defense of Trump in court. But it sounds like the sort of Trumpian frivolous filing to a court that Trump lawyers would throw out there to try to delay a case based on stupid mumbo-jumbo crap.

You may be right. I'm not a lawyer so I threw it out to see what some of our leagle eagles here thought.

[CoffeeTiger 5,165]

 

https://apnews.com/article/trump-indictment-presidential-records-act-1df64502d1640076690fac52638daebf

 

CLAIM: The Presidential Records Act gives a president the right to take any record when leaving office and declare them personal.

 

THE FACTS: That’s a flagrant misreading of the law, legal experts say.

The law, which took effect in 1981, requires the preservation of White House documents as property of the U.S. government.

Jason R. Baron, a former director of litigation at the National Archives and Records Administration, said that the notion that a president could declare any record as personal goes against the “very reason” the law was created. NARA is the federal record-keeper and the agency that repeatedly sought the documents kept by Trump.

Congress passed the act in 1978 in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal, when a collection of secret tapes that President Richard Nixon had considered destroying played a defining role.

The law, he and other experts note, clearly distinguishes between “presidential records” and “personal records.”

“The definition of ‘personal records’ is narrow, clear, and functional: it includes only records of a ‘purely private or nonpublic character’,” Peter Margulies, a professor at Roger Williams University’s School of Law in Bristol, Rhode Island, wrote in an email. “Any record that touches on information relevant to presidential decisions on foreign policy or national security is a presidential record. Period, end of story.”

Josh Chafetz, a professor at Georgetown Law, agreed, saying there’s “simply no way” the records described in the indictment against Trump could be considered “personal” under the act’s definitions.

Among the documents found at Mar-a-Lago were ones marked “SECRET” or “TOP SECRET.” The documents included details about the country’s nuclear weapons and the nuclear capabilities and military activities of other countries. Prosecutors allege, for example, that Trump showed off a classified map of a foreign country while discussing a military operation.

“There is no way to read that statutory language as giving the president ‘discretion’ to categorize military plans, to take just one example, as ‘personal’,” Chafetz wrote in an email.

CLAIM: A case involving Bill Clinton keeping audio tapes in a sock drawer proves that Trump’s actions were legally sound.

THE FACTS: The case in question involved very different documents and experts say it isn’t the parallel Trump makes it out to be.

In Judicial Watch vs. NARA, a conservative activist group sued for access to audio recordings of wide ranging interviews Clinton did with historian Taylor Branch during his time in the White House. Clinton was reported to have stashed the cassettes in his sock drawer.

The Washington, D.C. based organization had argued the audiotapes were “presidential records” that the agency should provide under the federal public records law, but U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson ultimately dismissed the case, ruling NARA didn’t have the authority to seize the records from Clinton and hand them over.

David Super, another professor at Georgetown Law, argues the 2012 Clinton case has “absolutely nothing to do with” the charges Trump currently faces.

For one thing, the court didn’t dismiss the case because it found that Clinton was entitled to keep the tapes, Super said. Jackson simply ruled that NARA could not turn over the tapes as public records because they were owned by the historian and not government property.

Legal experts this week also dismissed those arguments. Margulies, of Roger Williams University, said the claim “mixes apples and oranges.”

“The Clinton materials were audiotapes of conversations with an historian that incidentally recorded some calls on official business,” he wrote. “In contrast, the documents that Trump kept were all presidential records from the moment they arrived at the Oval Office from other parts of the government.”

Eric Freedman, a professor at Hofstra University’s School of Law in Hempstead, New York, also noted that a federal appeals court has already rejected similar arguments raised by Trump’s legal team as it sought to block the criminal investigation into the records found at Mar-a-Lago.

In either case, Super said, any discussion about the Presidential Records Act is “largely a red herring” because Trump doesn’t face charges of violating that law.

The indictment instead charges Trump with Espionage Act violations, as prosecutors argue the documents he kept could harm the country if obtained by adversaries.

Edited July 17, 2023 by CoffeeTiger

[autigeremt 6,666]

Maybe he should have set up a server in one of his many extra bedrooms? 

[homersapien 11,428]

On 7/16/2023 at 1:20 PM, Son of A Tiger said:

This is an interesting article/opinion on the accusations against Trump for possessing classified documents. I am interested in the opinion of some our attorney members here,

Trump's classified docs team could file this 'game over' motion: Leo Terrell | Fox News

Again, the "accusations" (indictments) are not for possessing classified documents, they are for willfully retaining them.

Had he simply volunteered to return them - like Biden and Pence - no indictments.

[Son of A Tiger 561]

3 hours ago, homersapien said:

Again, the "accusations" (indictments) are not for possessing classified documents, they are for willfully retaining them.

Had he simply volunteered to return them - like Biden and Pence - no indictments.

1. I'm not an attorney and i don't think you are. The PRA is somewhat vague and will likely be decided by the SCOTUS.

2. Biden had then scattered in his garage by his car where anyone could see them.

[homersapien 11,428]

21 hours ago, Son of A Tiger said:

1. I'm not an attorney and i don't think you are. The PRA is somewhat vague and will likely be decided by the SCOTUS.

2. Biden had then scattered in his garage by his car where anyone could see them.

1. The indictments are not vague.  It says exactly what I said.  It also says "unlawful retention" a lot (see below).  Simple possession of the documents - like  Biden and Pence - doesn't come into play.

2. Untrue and irrelevant. 

 

https://abc7chicago.com/donald-trump-indictment-pdf-read-trumps-document/13376771/

Read full indictment against Trump in classified documents case, key takeaways

Trump faces 31 counts of willful retention of national defense information under the Espionage Act.

[DKW 86 7,440]

On 7/17/2023 at 3:45 PM, CoffeeTiger said:

 

https://apnews.com/article/trump-indictment-presidential-records-act-1df64502d1640076690fac52638daebf

 

CLAIM: The Presidential Records Act gives a president the right to take any record when leaving office and declare them personal.

 

THE FACTS: That’s a flagrant misreading of the law, legal experts say.

The law, which took effect in 1981, requires the preservation of White House documents as property of the U.S. government.

Jason R. Baron, a former director of litigation at the National Archives and Records Administration, said that the notion that a president could declare any record as personal goes against the “very reason” the law was created. NARA is the federal record-keeper and the agency that repeatedly sought the documents kept by Trump.

Congress passed the act in 1978 in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal, when a collection of secret tapes that President Richard Nixon had considered destroying played a defining role.

The law, he and other experts note, clearly distinguishes between “presidential records” and “personal records.”

“The definition of ‘personal records’ is narrow, clear, and functional: it includes only records of a ‘purely private or nonpublic character’,” Peter Margulies, a professor at Roger Williams University’s School of Law in Bristol, Rhode Island, wrote in an email. “Any record that touches on information relevant to presidential decisions on foreign policy or national security is a presidential record. Period, end of story.”

Josh Chafetz, a professor at Georgetown Law, agreed, saying there’s “simply no way” the records described in the indictment against Trump could be considered “personal” under the act’s definitions.

Among the documents found at Mar-a-Lago were ones marked “SECRET” or “TOP SECRET.” The documents included details about the country’s nuclear weapons and the nuclear capabilities and military activities of other countries. Prosecutors allege, for example, that Trump showed off a classified map of a foreign country while discussing a military operation.

“There is no way to read that statutory language as giving the president ‘discretion’ to categorize military plans, to take just one example, as ‘personal’,” Chafetz wrote in an email.

CLAIM: A case involving Bill Clinton keeping audio tapes in a sock drawer proves that Trump’s actions were legally sound.

THE FACTS: The case in question involved very different documents and experts say it isn’t the parallel Trump makes it out to be.

In Judicial Watch vs. NARA, a conservative activist group sued for access to audio recordings of wide ranging interviews Clinton did with historian Taylor Branch during his time in the White House. Clinton was reported to have stashed the cassettes in his sock drawer.

The Washington, D.C. based organization had argued the audiotapes were “presidential records” that the agency should provide under the federal public records law, but U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson ultimately dismissed the case, ruling NARA didn’t have the authority to seize the records from Clinton and hand them over.

David Super, another professor at Georgetown Law, argues the 2012 Clinton case has “absolutely nothing to do with” the charges Trump currently faces.

For one thing, the court didn’t dismiss the case because it found that Clinton was entitled to keep the tapes, Super said. Jackson simply ruled that NARA could not turn over the tapes as public records because they were owned by the historian and not government property.

Legal experts this week also dismissed those arguments. Margulies, of Roger Williams University, said the claim “mixes apples and oranges.”

“The Clinton materials were audiotapes of conversations with an historian that incidentally recorded some calls on official business,” he wrote. “In contrast, the documents that Trump kept were all presidential records from the moment they arrived at the Oval Office from other parts of the government.”

Eric Freedman, a professor at Hofstra University’s School of Law in Hempstead, New York, also noted that a federal appeals court has already rejected similar arguments raised by Trump’s legal team as it sought to block the criminal investigation into the records found at Mar-a-Lago.

In either case, Super said, any discussion about the Presidential Records Act is “largely a red herring” because Trump doesn’t face charges of violating that law.

The indictment instead charges Trump with Espionage Act violations, as prosecutors argue the documents he kept could harm the country if obtained by adversaries.

[AU9377 5,025]

On 7/16/2023 at 1:20 PM, Son of A Tiger said:

This is an interesting article/opinion on the accusations against Trump for possessing classified documents. I am interested in the opinion of some our attorney members here,

Trump's classified docs team could file this 'game over' motion: Leo Terrell | Fox News

Christopher Wray, FBI Director, is a lifelong Republican appointed by Donald Trump. 

The PRA applies to Presidential Records, the act is not limited to classified documents and includes all documents.  Trump's claims about the PRA allowing him to keep documents is simply not accurate.  The claim by Fox personalities, to the surprise of nobody, is also not accurate.

All Trump had to do was not be a self consumed jack ass and make certain that the documents were returned as requested for well over a year.  Had he done so, no charges would have ever been filed.  Only someone that believes that they are above  the law would act the way he has acted.  Fox loves to try to compare things to the Clintons.  The Clintons never purposefully retained classified documents relating to national security like the documents supposedly in question here.

Edited July 25, 2023 by AU9377