Skip to comments.
The ‘Get Trump’ Games Continue
American Greatness ^
| 20 Jun, 2023
| Julie Kelly
Posted on 06/21/2023 4:53:52 AM PDT by MtnClimber
It all started with a self-important official at the National Archives and Records Administration. Or at least that’s the official story.
In May 2021, William Bosanko, NARA’s chief executive officer, noticed two presidential documents were missing from the Trump Administration: the letter Barack Obama wrote to Donald Trump and correspondence between Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.
In addition, Bosanko told members of the House Intelligence Committee earlier this year, “there were multiple high-visible items” that Trump’s team did not turn over to the archives. “There was a whole list of items that we were telling them, the administration, that we don’t have this. It must exist somewhere.”
When pressed by U.S. Representative Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) to disclose the list that allegedly violated the Presidential Records Act, a civil statute, Bosanko’s mind went blank.
“There were a couple other items that I am not recalling,” he said. “But these were very obvious things that, given our role as the nation’s record keeper, we went back very informally to representatives of the former president and said: Might you have these?”
Seems innocuous enough. Unfortunately, Trump’s advisors yielded to Bosanko’s inquiry, which now appears to have been just another in a series of bureaucratic traps set to sting Trump. Instead of simply producing the letters—or better yet, telling the archives to pound sand—Team Trump gave Bosanko 15 boxes of materials.
And that’s when the games began.
The eagle-eyed Bosanko said he “knew that there was a problem within the first 24 hours” after receiving the boxes. Some of the files, Bosanko claimed, contained classified documents.
Bosanko insisted it was “readily apparent” the boxes included verboten papers. He also told committee members he did not know who packed the boxes at the White House prior to Trump’s departure and admitted that assembling presidential materials after one term in office is “usually a hurry-up” job.
But rather than carefully check his work before tattling to authorities on the former president of the United States, Bosanko facilitated a criminal referral to the Department of Justice just a few days later—a request Attorney General Merrick Garland was only too happy to consider.
Garland, of course, wasted no time. The FBI opened an investigation into the unlawful possession of classified documents on March 30, 2022. In response to a subpoena, Trump’s team continued to search for files with “classified markings” per the order. Contrary to reports that Trump and his lawyers did not cooperate with federal authorities, Trump welcomed Jay Bratt, counterintelligence chief of the department’s National Security Division, and three FBI agents when they visited Mar-a-Lago on June 3, 2022.
According to court filings, Trump delayed his plans to settle in New Jersey for the summer to greet Bratt and his group. “Whatever you need, just let us know,” Trump told them. His legal team then turned over an additional 38 records with classified markings to Bratt.
That level of cooperation—unimaginable from any other former president who undoubtedly would have filed one legal challenge after another rather than invite the sworn enemy into his own home—wasn’t enough for the Justice Department. An agent with the compromised Washington FBI Field Office sought and received a search warrant to raid Mar-a-Lago last August. The overly broad warrant, similar to the overly broad subpoena, authorized agents to abscond with anything in the vicinity of a file with classified markings, which resulted in a haul of 13,000 pieces of “evidence” from the raid.
Of that, only 102 documents contained “classified markings”—that is, if one is inclined to believe anything out of the Justice Department.
For months, Bratt fought the appointment of a special master while refusing to allow Trump and his lawyers to view the alleged documents in question. Judge Aileen Cannon, the Florida district court judge now handling the case, appointed a special master in September citing misconduct in the investigation’s early stage.
Her order, unfortunately, was reversed on appeal in December—a big win for the regime.
Trump now will be subjected to a new level of gamesmanship from Special Counsel Jack Smith, the longtime federal prosecutor with a dubious record handpicked by Garland last November to give his department’s dual criminal investigations into Trump a false patina of independence. On June 8, Smith indicted Trump on 37 counts, including the “willful retention” of 31 national defense records in violation of the Espionage Act. (Trump’s valet, Waltine Nauta, who handled many of the 80 boxes stored at Mar-a-Lago, faces five counts, including conspiring with Trump to obstruct justice.)
But the journey to indictment also involved much legal gamesmanship by both Garland and Smith. Nearly the entire investigation was conducted in the Trump-hating cauldron of Washington, D.C., not in southern Florida, the scene of the alleged crimes. Why? So a grand jury comprised of voters living in the most Democratic city in the country working with an Obama-appointed chief judge who routinely expresses open contempt for Trump and his supporters could grant the Justice Department’s every wish.
In one of her final acts before stepping down as chief judge of the D.C. District Court in March, Beryl Howell, who also oversaw the Robert Mueller investigation into imaginary Trump-Russia election collusion, took the unusual step of piercing attorney-client privilege between Trump and his lawyer, Evan Corcoran, at Smith’s request.
Concluding that evidence existed to justify the rare “crime fraud” exception, Howell forced Corcoran to produce his records and testify before the D.C. grand jury. That move, according to the New York Times, “gave prosecutors a road map to building their case.”
Would Judge Cannon, or any judge on the district court in southern Florida, or any judge outside a deep blue cesspool like Washington, had done the same? Highly doubtful.
Right before Smith closed up his grand jury investigation in D.C.—hauling in everyone from Mar-a-Lago servers to Secret Service agents—to seek a criminal indictment, he moved the entire operation to Miami so as not to create a legitimate venue argument from Trump. Smith’s trick was revealed by the Times the day before Trump announced his pending indictment on Truth Social.
And how did Smith’s bait-and-switch game go down? “Prosecutors would simply have to read the early grand jury transcripts to the new grand jurors or have federal agents offer them a summary of the most important points,” Alan Feuer, Maggie Haberman, and Ben Protess reported on June 6.
Sounds legit.
Smith asked—and was granted—a protective order that will require Trump to have a legal chaperone to view “sensitive” non-classified discovery materials. If Trump takes notes on the evidence, “such notes shall be stored securely by Defense Counsel or a member of Defense Counsel’s staff in the same manner as the Discovery Materials,” the motion reads.
And that motion doesn’t address the handling of alleged national defense information; one can only imagine what Smith’s next decree will involve.
Of course, Smith and his vultures won’t abide by their own rules. A steady stream of leaks has fueled the Justice Department’s public framing of the charges. Judge Cannon, to her immense credit, scolded Bratt during a court hearing last year for government disclosures to the news media. “I see the same things in the press that other people do. It’s bad. People are talking,” Bratt told Cannon while insisting the leaks were not from his end.
But no one should believe Bratt. Or Merrick Garland, Or Jack Smith. Unfortunately, the country has no choice but to sit as idle spectators in the Justice Department’s reckless game to put Donald Trump in prison.
TOPICS: Society
KEYWORDS: corruption; hoax; russiahoaxpart23
To: MtnClimber
The sure seem desperate to get their Crossfire Hurricane documents back.
2
posted on
06/21/2023 4:54:03 AM PDT
by
MtnClimber
(For photos of Colorado scenery and wildlife, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
To: MtnClimber
3
posted on
06/21/2023 4:58:18 AM PDT
by
MtnClimber
(For photos of Colorado scenery and wildlife, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
To: MtnClimber
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, real criminals like the Bidenskyyyy gang are getting a little tap on their wrist by their worshippers in the so-called DOJ.
4
posted on
06/21/2023 5:00:05 AM PDT
by
FlingWingFlyer
(FJB is out there signing hundreds of new gun laws and won't even enforce one against his own son.)
To: MtnClimber
It’s not a government. It’s a criminal enterprise. Fear it, but do not respect it.
5
posted on
06/21/2023 5:04:38 AM PDT
by
ClearCase_guy
(It's not a government. It's a criminal enterprise. Fear it, but do not respect it.)
To: MtnClimber
6
posted on
06/21/2023 5:06:27 AM PDT
by
lizma2
To: MtnClimber
Merrick Garland and Jack Smith are Biden’s Roland Freisler.
In case someone does know about Freisler:
Roland Freisler (30 October 1893 – 3 February 1945), a German Nazi jurist, judge, and politician, served as the State Secretary of the Reich Ministry of Justice from 1934 to 1942 and as President of the People’s Court from 1942 to 1945.
https://allthatsinteresting.com/roland-freisler
7
posted on
06/21/2023 5:12:59 AM PDT
by
euram
(allALL)
To: MtnClimber; Chode; SkyDancer; Salamander; Carriage Hill; Lockbox; nascarnation; Squantos; ...
Bosanko insisted it was “readily apparent” the boxes included verboten papers.Showing our nazi roots there, aren't we ?
Probably has swastikas in the corners of his letterhead too.
8
posted on
06/21/2023 5:14:57 AM PDT
by
mabarker1
( (Congress- the opposite of PROGRESS!!! A fraud, a hypocrite, a liar. I'm a member of Congress!!!)
To: FlingWingFlyer
in the so-called DOJ.I'm pretty sure that You mean the department of INjustice.
9
posted on
06/21/2023 5:18:36 AM PDT
by
mabarker1
( (Congress- the opposite of PROGRESS!!! A fraud, a hypocrite, a liar. I'm a member of Congress!!!)
To: euram
Thanks, I’d never heard of that POS before.
10
posted on
06/21/2023 5:19:49 AM PDT
by
mabarker1
( (Congress- the opposite of PROGRESS!!! A fraud, a hypocrite, a liar. I'm a member of Congress!!!)
To: MtnClimber
Has William Bosanko been asked why the National Archives didn’t take part in the packing up of the White House as it did for Reagan, Bush1, Clinton, Bush2, and 0bama? Has he been asked why the National Archives didn’t rent a storage facility for the Trump papers as they have done for the above-named presidents?
By letting GSA and Trump’s staff just pack up everything in the Oval Office and elsewhere in the White House, they had to have known that there were “classified” documents there. All these boxes sat out in the WH parking lot for several hours without Bosanko showing any interest whatsoever, it was only after they were being unloaded at Mar a Lago that he got interested in what was in those boxes.
This smell like a setup, no unlike all the previous plots hatched by Clinton, 0bama, Biden, the media, etc. They’re bound and determined to get Trump one way or another.
11
posted on
06/21/2023 5:26:49 AM PDT
by
euram
(allALL)
To: mabarker1
12
posted on
06/21/2023 5:31:45 AM PDT
by
FlingWingFlyer
(FJB is out there signing hundreds of new gun laws and won't even enforce one against his own son.)
To: mabarker1
I’m sure Smith and Garland sleep with Freisler’s picture next to their beds.
13
posted on
06/21/2023 5:32:41 AM PDT
by
euram
(allALL)
To: MtnClimber
This tells you everything you need to know about the "classified document" hoax:
Click on image to be taken to article.
14
posted on
06/21/2023 5:33:20 AM PDT
by
E. Pluribus Unum
(The worst thing about censorship is ████ █ ██████ ███████ ███ ██████ ██ ████████. FJB.)
To: MtnClimber
After reading the entire 75-page transcript of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) testimony to congress [READ HERE], a testimonial that almost no one in the mainstream news has written about, issues surrounding the document search against President Trump take on some new context.
The NARA officials are essentially professional DC bureaucrats with a mission to look out for the best interests of the DC system they support. It is very clear from their opinion; Donald Trump was considered an outsider to the DC system of government – and that baseline established the framework for why and how NARA took such extreme processes with President Trump.
From the transcript, one NARA official says,
“I am storing 555,000 cubic feet of classified national security information. To put that in perspective, the white boxes that many of you have seen in your offices, that is a cubic foot. It holds about 2,500 pages. Another way for me to describe it, a typical stack area that we store records in a Federal records center can hold about 100,000 cubic feet. And that is a room that is about roughly the size of a football field. So you are looking at five and a half football fields floor to ceiling shelving.” {Transcript, page 24}
President Trump did not turn over the letter left to him by President Obama, nor did President Trump turn over the 27 letters exchanged between himself and North Korea Chairman Kim Jong-un. NARA was looking for these along with other documents pertaining to President Trump engaging in discussions with other foreign leaders, and NARA was angry about the perceived lack of respect shown by Trump toward their endeavor.
However, when you take the current DC establishment system, look at the history of the Trump administration engagement in foreign policy, then overlay that dynamic with the gatekeeping responsibilities outlined by NARA, what you may discover is an entirely different prism through which to view the DC motives.
One can easily argue the Deep State per se’ was looking for notes, information, contacts, tips and hints of discussions that took place between Trump and foreign leaders, that may have actually exposed the mechanisms of DC money and policy laundering.
Consider the NARA apoplexy around the Trump-Kim letters as outlined on pages 43 & 44 of their testimony. However, expand your perspective to get larger than simply the Trump-Kim letters.
NARA officials view themselves, their role, as more important than the President of the United States, that is very clear. NARA officials consider themselves “gatekeepers” to government information. The gatekeepers were not happy with President Trump not following protocols when he was not in office. An example from media:
The Washington Post’s Greg Miller reported Sunday that President Donald Trump’s confiscation of the translator’s notes from a one-on-one conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2017 was “unusual.” This is incorrect. It was unprecedented. There is nothing like it in the annals of presidential history.
It is also truly unusual that Trump failed to bring in a note taker, along with his translator, during his meetings with Putin, as almost every other president has done when meeting with foreign heads of state since the end of World War II. Usually the note taker is an official or aide with deep background in the subject under discussion.
[…] There are good reasons for presidents to bring a note taker with them to such meetings. First, they want a record of what was said, both to remind themselves later of what happened and to confirm or dispute some later account of the meeting, either by the foreign leader or some reporter. Second, the president’s national security officials want to know what was said so that they can orient policy accordingly. Third, historians value these notes, once they’re declassified, as a record of behind-the-scenes U.S. foreign policy. (link)
President Trump was violating institutional norms. He was not following the unwritten rules of the DC bureaucracy; a political system that is predicated on maintenance of a financial system where US policy is promoted with laundered dollars that flow back to the politicians.
Think about the risk that DC viewed from Trump’s processes that violated their norms. Think about the meetings they would not know about. Think about the conversations that might take place without their knowledge.
Think about Vladimir Putin (Russia), Abdel Fattah al-Sisi (Egypt), Mohammed Bin Salmon (Saudi), Viktor Orban (Hungary), or even Lopez-Obrador (Mexico), talking openly to President Trump about how their nations were told to engage with U.S. political systems via the State Dept., or functional politicians on various committees.
Think about the apoplexy amid a DC system built on selling foreign policy and gaining affluence, when suddenly there is a guy in the office of the President who has never made a dime from this network and financial construct. Think about how the DC Democrats and Republicans would view Trump from the perspective of his personal engagement with foreign government officials who know the dirt on those same DC Democrats and Republicans. Think about the fear inside the beltway as a result of this.
Consider yet another example from 2018:
2018 – President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un held their first-ever meeting, and there may never be a full record of what was said.
After meeting shortly after 9 a.m. (local time) for a handshake and photo-op, the two leaders entered a library at Capella Hotel on Singapore’s Sentosa Island to begin a one-on-one bilateral meeting. The two men were each accompanied only by an interpreter, raising concerns among experts.
Suzanne DiMaggio, who facilitated the first official discussions between North Korea and the Trump administration last year, recently said that without aides present “the fear is that he [Trump] might give away too much.”
But while Trump, and Kim, regularly stray off diplomatic scripts, a larger risk may be that there may be no full transcript, public or secret, of what the two leaders discussed. (link)
Think about a DC system that is built upon leverage and blackmail worrying about a President who might gain leverage and blackmail with evidence of their corrupt endeavors. What would this DC system do to make sure that evidence, if it existed, was never used?
Think about an elitist and very eco-chambered DC political system viewing President Trump through the prism of a vulgarian man who will say anything, expose anything, and discuss anything without curtailment or consideration for the collateral damage his words may create. Think about the palpable fear that would reverberate amid a professional political class who have created this system for their own financial benefit.
Does the desperation of NARA and the DC political establishment take on a new perspective?
15
posted on
06/21/2023 5:35:53 AM PDT
by
Bratch
To: MtnClimber
“Of course, Smith and his vultures won’t abide by their own rules. A steady stream of leaks has fueled the Justice Department’s public framing of the charges.”
Is it legal for a prosecutor to leak evidence? To possibly create biases in the potential jury pool?
Assume not, and leaks should result in a criminal penalties and mistrial.
16
posted on
06/21/2023 5:48:37 AM PDT
by
Made In The USA
(Ellen Ate Dynamite Good By Ellen)
To: MtnClimber
In May 2021, William Bosanko, NARA’s chief executive officer, noticed two presidential documents were missing.
Anything beyond that point is iffy area the democrats with the help of the MSM have been working on a Trump set up from 2016.
No concern about all the files Biden stole
17
posted on
06/21/2023 7:43:17 AM PDT
by
Vaduz
(....)
Disclaimer:
Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual
posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its
management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the
exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson