I do NOT Like this "did you classify them, show me proof" stuff, it is opening the door

[Eliot Rosewater]

for the traitor getting off completely.

I dont know enough about the documents and the law, but even if he declassified them, if this was anybody else on earth it would not matter, right lawyers?

What is the CRIME (s) the DOJ is seeking to charge him with that could be altered by whether or not he declassified?

I am talking about special master, stolen docs, etc not AG James news.

[RainCaster]

1. My understanding is that this is a civil case

Evidence is held to a different standard in the context of civil cases.

[Eliot Rosewater]

2. I am not talking about AG JAmes and NY, I am talking about special master etc

[rsdsharp]

5. The special master case is captioned Donald J. Trump v. United States of America.

It’s a civil case. Trump is the plaintiff, and has the burden of proof. A private citizen cannot initiate a criminal case.

[Thomas Hurt]

6. The documents case is civil matter. No indictments have been handed down and no charges

have been filed against the Pig.

This SM scam is a civil matter initiated by the Pig. He is the one who is asking the court for decisions and relief but providing no allegations to rebut those of the DOJ.

[H2O Man]

3. The document case,

which the OP refers to, involves a criminal investigation. That on the news current, from NYS, involves civil law.

[inthewind21]

19. No

it doesn't. The warrant and the DOJ involves a criminal investigation. The case Trump filed whining is a civil case. There is NO criminal case filed. Yet.

[kentuck]

24. But the DoJ wants the documents so they can continue their criminal investigation.

This Special Master and Judge Cannon, etc is nothing more than a delay tactic.

[H2O Man]

26. No kidding.

By coincidence, that is exactly what I said.

[Walleye]

4. Because the DOJ does not want trumps attorneys rummaging through classified material

[bullimiami]

15. my understanding is that even looking at material identified as classified when you are not entitled

is a crime in itself.

so these lawyers maybe should lawyer up again.

[H2O Man]

7. Recommended.

Though I respectfully disagree, I am interested in others' opinions. No matter what happens now -- with the special master, Connor, or the 11th Circuit -- either the DOJ or Trump will end up going to the USSC. I would much rather that it be on this issue, for even the corrupted USSC will rule against Trump on this. Thus, they would be very unlikely to hear any future Trump appeal in the future.

[Eliot Rosewater]

9. Fingers crossed.

[H2O Man]

20. One of the things

that has really caught my attention lately is the number of people who say it would "be better if he just died." Now, there have been people saying that since 2017 -- likely way before that, too. But people I wouldn't expect to say it out loud, even if they thought it, are saying it now.

[Eliot Rosewater]

23. It sure reveals what this country is about. 75 million wanted to REELECT

a racist, traitor, liar and criminal.

I bet most of them would do it again.

We are broken.

[montanacowboy]

8. In the end they

did NOT belong to him, they are the property of the American people

[happy feet]

25. Not only didn't they belong to him ---

he stole them and kept the latest batch, even after 1-1/2 years of pleading from NARA and the DOJ. He was to turn ALL presidential records over to NARA January 21st - period, whether classified, not classified, for his presidential library (oxymoron), gifts, etc. He then can request records, etc. from NARA for his presidential library, etc.

[emulatorloo]

10. Dearie told them to put up or shut up. Either prove he declassified or STFU.

The judge is calling them on their bullshit, as he probably knows they have zero proof.

Dearie’s endgame is to say I won’t/don’t need to ‘review’ the classified documents and also no the Trump lawyers are not going to get copies of them.

[Eliot Rosewater]

13. OK, hope so. Because what if he has some bullshit proof that he did, WHY does it matter?

I am asking, I dont understand.

[H2O Man]

49. Two things

that I think help put it in context. First, Kash Petal has said he heard Trump declassify them. This was two weeks before the FBI executed the warrant. Patel was on a right-wing internet show, and said he planned to publish them on-line, to "prove" the Deep State conspired against Trump in the 2016 election. As one or more documents taken dates to before Trump was president, it is most likely about CIA/FBI looking into the connections between the campaign and Russia, including sources and methods.

Second, it is a chess game ...... Trump wants the DOJ to go first on if the documents are classified or not. The DOJ knows that it is the Trump team's obligation to show that they are not classified. The special master recognizes that the DOJ's position is correct.

[inthewind21]

27. Dearie

Is wondering why there is a case at all. When you file a case, you typically have to say what it is you are complaining about and why you think you should prevail and what the remedy you are seeking is. Trump did NONE of that. The DOJ says no, you can't have the docs their not yours. They provide evidence. Trump said No they're not they're mine, but provided no evidence. If I filed a suit against you in court claiming your dog dug up my prize flowers and you responded with, I don't even have a dog, it's up to me to provide proof. you do and it did indeed dig up my flowers. Not just say, I know he says he doesn't have a dog but i'm telling you he does and it dug up my shit. Doesn't work that way.

[Eliot Rosewater]

32. Because an illegitimate traitor is the judge..

And as to why it matters or not if declassified, it should not matter given they are NOT his, they belong to the govt.

[inthewind21]

40. If you are

referring to Cannon, then I agree. But the discussion was the hearing yesterday of a civil matter with appointed and Trump approved Special Master Judge Dearie. A civil suit Trump filed claiming everything taken out of Mar-A-Lago was his property and he wanted the the special master to go through it all and make determinations on "executive privilege", ATTY client Privilege and such. The DOJ said fine, but not the classified docs, they belong to the govt and no one should look at them. And the DOJ provided evidence of that. Dearie ask the Trump team about de-classification , the trump team declined to say or provide ANY proof the docs had ever been de-classified. The had nadda. If the DOJ presents evidence they are classified, which they did, trump declines on all fronts regarding classification, well that makes Dearies job real easy. He hands it all back over to the DOJ and moves on to what is left. THAT is why classification mattered yesterday. There is no criminal case. Yet. Only a criminal investigation. Welcome to the convoluted US legal system.

[Sogo]

48. Thanks for the clarification,

....convoluted or not....

[JT45242]

11. Two separate degrees of crime

Think like misdemeanor assault versus felony assault.

For nonclassified document, it would be a lower crime. Smaller fines and less jail time per document.

For anything classified, the penalty are much more severe.

I had a buddy who as career air force who often said that he signed form after form that said each classified document he ever divulged would be ten years and ten grand., Which I think is the max per document.

Not going to weasel out of charges. Plus the judge is letting the attorneys risk perjury charges if they claim evidence that doesn't exist.

Having those documents at all is a huge amount of prison time.

[Eliot Rosewater]

16. Thanks

[C_U_L8R]

12. Classified or not, they are still stolen.

[Happy Hoosier]

14. It's fairly simple....

If the documents are classified, there can be NO claim of ownership or privilege, regardless of content (that's why Dearie told Trump's lawyers that Need-to-know mattered).

If the documents were declassified, then the contents could be subject to claims of pirvilege, but it's really unlikely.

I think Dearies' point was that of the documents are classified, there is no reall need to review them. They are unquestionably government property, and can be released to the government without delay.

[Eliot Rosewater]

17. OK, so lets say he has some bullshit proof he declassified this file over here that shows

where ALL of our nuclear silos are and another doc over here that shows where ALL of Israel's are,etc.

IN OTHER WORDS shit that he could not possibly have a right to even with exec privilege.

Didnt the SC already rule that he did not have privilege on something, but what will they do this time, I think 4 of them will do anything to protect him.

When will patriots run out of patience, I know I have?

[Happy Hoosier]

28. ...

1) Dearie can make the call as to the state of the classification of teh documents. Given his "take no bullshit" approach, I would expect him to not accept mere claims.
2) Right... the only person who can assert executive privilege is the sitting President. That doesn;t mean a partisan judge might not try some fuickery, but that is the state of the law atm and it is the logical reasoning.
3) Dearie technically only makes reco0mmendation to the judge, though he apparently has raised the issue of whether or not Judge Cannon is the correct court to even hear the matter. DOJ is is being careful here to not ask the courts for anything more than they need... they don't want to give the courts any more room to make a bad decision than they have to.

We can certainly see som fuckery on Cannon's part, but the DOJ is amking it very, VERY hard to do it without it being obvious to everyone. It'll be really tough for the 11th to rule against them without looking as ridiculous as Cannon.

One thing I found interesting is that Dearie as teh DOJ what they intended to do with the 11th ruled against them. Given his posture so far, that seemed to me to be a question about if they would just want him to go ahead and rule in their favor (which he seems VERY inclined to so), or if they wanted to pursue teh appeals to avoid a shitty precedent remaining on the books. DOJ seems to see the need to pursue all the appealate options. They are right, but it could mean delay.

[Eliot Rosewater]

29. Thanks

My concern is moscow mitch/traitor trump justices on the 11th and SC...we KNOW some of them are willing to completely ignore the law to protect him, the ONLY question is how many?

And if they do, what is the appropriate response from actual patriots?

Not good scenario. Thanks for your info.

[inthewind21]

43. Keep in mind

Trump was denied or outright dismissed in 60 "there was election fraud" cases. And several of those judges he appointed. His own hand picked supreme court ruled against him on the Executive Privilege claim. Sure, there are the morons like Cannon. However, not every judge is willing to make a public fool of them self no matter who appointed them. There is some hope.

[happy feet]

30. According to attorneys --- there is no way to wave a fairy wand

to declassify documents while President. There is a process and even if he claims he did, they wouldn't still be marked classified, relevant owners/stakeholders of the documents would have been advised they were declassified, and the docs would no longer bear the classified label as the ones DOJ picked up at Trump's property clearly are. That's why his lawyers aren't claiming they were declassified. Trump has made this up with NO supporting documentation. Lawyers don't want to be caught lying to the court.

Bullshit fairy wand declassification won't hold in a court of law --- well assuming it's not a corrupt trump judge like Cannon.

[allegorical oracle]

51. Judge Cannon opened the "classified" door by responding that the matter was still unsettled...

But under the three federal statutes put forward by the DOJ, whether the documents are classified or not is moot. It's about his wrongful possession of them.

[Eliot Rosewater]

53. And yet, here we sit.

[Hortensis]

18. Publicly examining his claims and showing them to be outrageous lies

is a valuable tactic that's working. Eliminating his excuses for claiming the Democrats are "rigging" the system against him is also good, one by one.

(I swear, 7 years of that malignant, nation-destroying lie incoming from both directions is causing nasty flashbacks. Could this be PTSD?)

In any case, while I once again fight to accept that leaders and their agents can't be prosecuted for radicalizing the vulnerable and destabilizing an entire nation with their lies, it helps to remember that none of this will prove tRump innocent of other -- document-related -- crimes he is guilty of. And at least that one of the leaders IS a target of all this.

[Eliot Rosewater]

35. I am learning a lot here, but the bottom line is other than passports and actual personal docs

this special master situation is a concocted way for a traitor judge to try and interfere with the law.

If she gets away with it like Barr did for 4 yrs, I wont be happy.

[inthewind21]

44. You are correct

And Trump and his 5th tier attorneys made a mistake when they recommended Judge Dearie as a special master. There's a reason the DOJ didn't squawk and agreed. And that reason was on full display yesterday.

[Hortensis]

47. :) Fine as long as you're learning something.

I'm bolstered by knowing that we're upholding the rule of law, even though it drags and may not facilitate what I want. That's enormously important to me.

Those "lock her up" types are not just more easily inflamed by authoritarian leaders into acting out than I once believed, but those who will support the same leaders and make it possible are dangerously numerous, enough to get one of them elected. Our first, compelling need is to protect the law -- and with it our democracy.

I can't overstate how shocking it is to me that Americans from both right and left were united in demanding the violent, illegal suppression of a political opponent. Because that is what it would have been. Talk about a traumatizing event...

[Eliot Rosewater]

54. Talking about those on the right and the LEFT who said "lock her up" to Hillary?

If so, then yes.

I however do believe Barr needs to be indicted for obstruction and this bullshit judge as well.

[Hortensis]

56. Yes! And me too. No one should be above the law, and

standards and penalties should be especially high for people who assume responsibilities of public service.

[we can do it]

21. Why? It puts the burden of proof on drump.

[Nevilledog]

22. None of the charges listed in the search warrant require the documents to be classified.

Whether they were declassified (they weren't) is irrelevant.

This classification topic is a deflection solely intended to be forced fed to the extremists thru endless repetition on RW media.

It's comparable to the election lawsuits. Everything running on RW media was that there was fraud, but not a single election suit alleged fraud. Remember, these extremist live in an alternate reality created thru these lies.

DOJ knows this and they're confronting the lie by pointing out repeatedly that Trump has made no claim of actually declassifying anything in the court cases.

Remember, Trump has said he had a standing order that stated everything he took from the WH was automatically declassified. Therefore, when the judge asks if anything was declassified, the only consistent answer to the standing order lie would be *everything was declassified *. If that were *true* that would mean that Trump took our most sensitive documents and put them in a position that *anybody* could see them.

If they try and say some were declassified and others weren't then there was no standing order, and they've got nothing to prove any specific document was declassified.

P.S. Trump couldn't declassify the documents regarding nuclear info and human intel by himself.

[Ohio Joe]

59. This is the correct answer - nt

[The_Casual_Observer]

33. It's classic shitlaw misdirection. So far the "special master" seems to understand this.

How it plays out is a different story. That Florida judge seems to want to do anything to get Trump out of this mess.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

34. It's a mischaracterization.

Dearie didn't say, "did you classify them, show me proof". He said they're marked classified and gave trump's lawyers a chance to contradict that with proof. They declined. He then told them that he's left with what's in front of him -- they're classified. He also told the lawyers they don't have a need to know, indicating that those classified docs are not even going to be shown to the lawyers by him. (It also implies, correctly, that even Dearie is not going to attempt to look at the classified docs).

Dearie knows what the Loose Qannon obviously does not: The Judicial branch does not have the power to override the Executive branch regarding national security and classified documents. This is what the DoJ tried to educate Cannon about in their filings.

[Eliot Rosewater]

36. Thanks

And yet if you have a SC willing to dispense with the law entirely, willing to obstruct justice, he could still skate on any and all indictments. Right?

Is there anything they CAN'T overturn? Overrule?

[Hermit-The-Prog]

37. It's -possible- that we could see an Executive and Judicial standoff.

I expect the SC will not open that can of worms, but the Subversive 6 have shown a willingness to ignore law, logic, and consequences. I don't expect President Biden to allow information critical to national security to be handed over to known foreign agents and Qnuts.

[Eliot Rosewater]

38. Yeah, that! I am predicting that, and ONLY because cons are that bad.

[inthewind21]

45. I've wondered

If a court(rogue judge) orders DOJ to hand over classified docs and the DOJ says, yeah, no. What then? Does a judge issue a bench warrant for the USAG? Wouldn't that be interesting.

[Bev54]

39. It does not matter if he declassified them or not and the DOJ

states that in their submission, they are still owned by the United States government.

[Eliot Rosewater]

55. That is what I thought...so if our courts had honest patriots as judges, there would be

nothing to worry about.

But we dont.

[Bev54]

57. After the fact, it seems there are some and they ruled against Trump.

[themaguffin]

41. He saying, you made the charge, now support it. Make your case. And they can't without

saying in court that trump never declassified anything.

[Hamlette]

42. "fact" that he declassified them will have nothing to do with charges that he illegally took US prop

Trump sued the US to get documents back that he says are his and are protected and the government is not allowed to see.

Let's say the government is investigating you for a possible crime of not paying your taxes. They execute a search warrant and take the contents of your file cabinet/drawer. The cabinet includes letters between you and your lawyer. The government cannot look at those letters. (Attorney/client privilege)

You file an action in court, like this one of Trump's, to appoint a neutral party (special master) to review the documents and return the letters between you and your lawyer.

In Trump's case, the government already returned the attorney/client protected documents to Trump. He is now saying something about executive privilege protecting some of the documents because he declassified them. Here is where Judge Cannon got it wrong. Even if he did declassify the documents, he did not have the right to take them home because they belong to the US.

Judge Dearie is saying, swear to me which documents you declassified. I will only look at those docs. Trump is saying I don't have to tell you, you need to look at them all.

Some of the stuff the government took does belong to him like the Time magazines and his personal passport that were mixed in with the classified stuff. It is now evidence and will be returned when no long needed to investigate or as evidence at trial.

[inthewind21]

46. Actually

The FEDS have already returned his passports and other personal stuff. An inventory of that was submitted yesterday.

[Hamlette]

50. missed that, thanks

it's hard to keep up with the news now that I'm retired and spend lots of time playing games. (bridge and puzzles and competitive solitaire)

[Deep State Witch]

52. If He did Declassify Them

There has to be a paper trail showing that he signed off on the declassification. He can't just wave a magic wand and declassify things.

[WarGamer]

58. Here's the possible strategy

If a Grand Jury drops an indictment the first thing Trump does is challenge the indictment as misstating the crime.

That will be heard by the Judge... then at the Appellate level and eventually at SCOTUS.

His argument will be "I couldn't have possibly committed ANY crimes because everything I did as POTUS was legal.

Basically "prove me wrong"

Then as the lower Courts tell him to pound sand it goes up the ladder.

There is ZERO precedent for this so it WILL end up at SCOTUS.