Every time they shove another "Squirrel" at us, all we have to do is shove this one piece of information back in their faces.
We have to stop following the "Squirrel!"
Posted on 06/20/2023 8:01:03 AM PDT by SoConPubbie
On Tuesday, 45th President and leading 2024 presidential candidate Donald Trump pleaded not guilty to all 37 fraudulent counts relating to him supposedly “mishandling” classified documents from Special Counsel Jack Smith.
President Trump has turned Jack Smith’s frivolous federal indictment of him on its head as he cites the Presidential Records Act as a defense.
"Under the Presidential Records Act, which is civil not criminal, I had every right to have these documents," Trump said after returning from Miami during a speech at his Trump National Golf Club in New Jersey.
The Presidential Records Act is a 1978 law that allows presidents to decide what records to keep and take, regardless of what the National Archives and Records Administration thinks.
Trump is correct, as per usual, to use this act as a defense.
Senior Attorney Michael Bekesha, a man who lost a case against former President Bill Clinton for taking White House audiotapes when he left office and kept them in his sock drawer, explains Clinton was safe because he was a President who saw it fit to take the documents before his term ended.
"The same is true with Mr. Trump," Bekesha writes in an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal.
He adds, "Mr. Trump, like Mr. Clinton, took those boxes with him when he left office. As of noon on Jan. 20, 2021, whatever remained at the White House was presidential records. Whatever was taken by Mr. Trump wasn’t. That was the position of the Justice Department in 2010 and the ruling by Judge Jackson in 2012."
“SO NOW THAT EVERYONE UNDERSTANDS THAT THE PRESIDENTIAL RECORDS ACT, PLUS THE CLINTON SOCKS CASE, TOTALLY EXONERATED ME FROM THE CONTINUING WITCH HUNT BROUGHT ON BY CORRUPT JOE BIDEN, THE DOJ, DERANGED JACK SMITH, AND THEIR RADICAL LEFT, MARXIST THUGS, WHEN ARE THEY GOING TO DROP ALL CHARGES AGAINST ME, APOLOGIZE, AND RETURN EVERYTHING THAT WAS ILLEGALLY TAKEN (FOURTH AMENDMENT) FROM MY HOME?” Trump wrote in a post on Thursday on his top-rated social media platform, Truth Social.
“THIS WAS NOTHING OTHER THAN ELECTION INTERFERENCE!” Trump added.
In an op-ed by former Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz on Substack, he concludes that a "[c]riminal indictment of former president has no legitimate basis."
“The bottom line is that if Mr. Trump or his lawyers allege — even without his testifying — that he declassified the documents, a criminal charge of unauthorized possession of classified documents will be difficult to prove. That doesn’t mean that a prosecutor could not get a grand jury to indict this particular ham sandwich. It does mean that it’s unlikely that a conviction against Mr. Trump would be sustainable,” Dershowitz writes.
“Based on what we know, we believe that there is no legitimate basis for a criminal indictment of Mr. Trump based on the material that was found at Mar-a-Lago,” Dershowitz concludes.
I’m going to out on a limb here, but I predict Trump will not get access to the same justice system Hunter did.
This is as easy as “A equals A, but A does not equal B.”
Every time they shove another "Squirrel" at us, all we have to do is shove this one piece of information back in their faces.
We have to stop following the "Squirrel!"
Ah, but difference, Trump is not being prosecuted under the presidential records act.
Trump as a private citizen saying he has some “secret documents” doesn’t retroactively reclassify anything he had at his home.
I need a reference point of where it allows all records to be personal records for the taking.
Unless they were never declassified in the first place?
Won’t matter. The rats are muddying the waters. The woke public won’t know who’s at fault so they stick with Biden in ‘24. He’s the devil you know. Trump is the devil you don’t want to go back to. Trump’s success gets covered up in the mud.
But that could be the rub, couldn’t it?
They know they can’t get him on the PRA. First because he’s entitled to the documents. Second, there’s no criminal aspect to it.
So, make chicken salad out of chicken sh*t and try the espionage act. But then have to prove that he was selling or giving away secrets.
So, Clinton had the right to take all the FBI files he used to blackmail?
A former POTUS taking the FBI documents would be legal. Using them for purposes of blackmail, or any other unlawful reason, is always illegal.
“They know they can’t get him on the PRA. First because he’s entitled to the documents. Second, there’s no criminal aspect to it.”
Under the PRA, he is only entitled to his personal documents. Anything related to his duties as president belongs to the government, whether or not they were classified. But you are right, it is a civil statute, not criminal. NARA could sue for the return of presidential records, but can’t charge him criminally under the PRA. That is probably why he is only being charged with 31 counts of possessing and withholding national defense information - those were the documents they could make a criminal case over. For the rest, it would have to be civil.
In a subsequent case, the judge stated that the President among declassification is the action of notification. That was in the Judicial Watch v Clinton case.
As another court in this district has observed, “[t]he PRA incorporates an assumption made by Congress (in 1978) that subsequent Presidents and Vice Presidents would comply with the Act in good faith, and therefore Congress limited the scope of judicial review and provided little oversight authority for the President and Vice President's document preservation decisions.” CREW v. Cheney, 593 F.Supp.2d 194, 198 (D.D.C.2009). Indeed, the PRA permits the President to dispose of any Presidential records that “no longer have administrative, historical, informational, or evidentiary value” after notifying the Archivist of the United States and designated members of Congress of the proposed disposal. 44 U.S.C. § 2203(c), (d).
It’s been posted many times.
This ain’t the first time. Ok
A lower court judge had something completely different to say. You countered that it was only a lower court, thus there was no precedent set.
Judicial Watch did not appeal.
DOJ seemed perfectly happy to accept the judges decision. Ergo, it is a case precedent until a higher court says otherwise.
From Clinton to Obama, they’ve all kept records, personal or otherwise and that is documented.
PIAPS and Biden, had them from the time they were NOT President.
At this point, what the PRA says does NOT matter. It’s been standard practice since the ‘sock drawer case’.
Additionally, has it not been reported that NARA didn’t send anyone to the WH to do their job?
Enough.
If he did it legally sure.
What’s your point?
The DeSanctimonious Online Influencers are so desperately trying to find anything negative to slime President Trump with!
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