Posted on 09/20/2022 9:01:31 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
In early September, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon approved Trump’s request for a special master to oversee the review of all the evidence seized in the raid and also temporarily blocked parts of the DOJ investigation pending the appointment of the special master. She ultimately appointed Judge Raymond Dearie as the special master to review the details and legality of the raid on Trump’s private Florida estate.
Judge Cannon had ruled against a DOJ request to delay the proceedings and continue to look at the documents separately from the special master.
During the raid, passports belonging to former President Trump were seized. Trump immediately objected publicly to the seizure of his personal property, and the passports were returned in a few days.
Although many items were taken in the raid some particular documents are special attention.
Seized in the raid were documents that reportedly are labeled “classified”.
The implication is that former President Trump has classified material at his home, and that he was in error to have the stated documents.
The former president has repeatedly stated publicly that he himself declassified the documents before leaving the Oval Office and that the stated documents, like other materials in the same room, were slated for his upcoming presidential museum.
Former President Trump has further stated that the Biden FBI has previously visited Mar-a-Lago and the room where the documents were stored to observe the placement of the boxes, and only offered a request that an extra lock be placed on the door to the room.
Trump complied with this offer and had the lock installed.
So there was no secret between Trump and the FBI about what was in the room and Trump was open and and compliant with the government representatives.
Thus far the status of the questioned documents has not been stated in filings to clear up the matter.
The Special Master draft plan sets out a number of requirements, including that Trump’s team provide details about Trump’s claim to have “declassified” documents that were seized during the FBI in the search of Mar-a-Lago.
Former President Donald Trump‘s legal team on Monday night resisted the request set forth by Special Master Judge Raymond Dearie in order to preserve a defense against a “subsequent indictment.”
The request was for the team to elaborate on their assertation that Trump has declassified the documents.
The Hill reports:
In a filing to the court-appointed special master that Tump requested, his attorneys said the “time and place” for making such a disclosure would come in a motion in a criminal trial as an effort to recover his property.
‘Otherwise, the Special Master process will have forced the Plaintiff to fully and specifically disclose a defense to the merits of any subsequent indictment without such a requirement being evident in the District Court’s order,” trump’s legal team wrote.
“The government’s stance assumes that if a document has a classification marking, it remains classified irrespective of any actions taken during President Trump’s term in office,” the team’s filing stated.
“There is no legitimate contention that the chief executive’s declassification of documents requires approval of bureaucratic components of the executive branch,” they added.
The former president’s team sees a legal problem with releasing such information too soon, and seeks to release it at the proper legal time.
According to a letter filed by Trump’s legal team, they won’t comply because they say it would weaken their case against a “subsequent indictment”:
[T]he Draft Plan requires that the Plaintiff disclose specific information regarding declassification to the Court and to the Government. We respectfully submit that the time and place for affidavits or declarations would be in connection with a Rule 41 motion that specifically alleges declassification as a component of its argument for return of property. Otherwise, the Special Master process will have forced the Plaintiff to fully and specifically disclose a defense to the merits of any subsequent indictment without such a requirement being evident in the District Court’s order.
In an effort to push forward the release of the information, the Justice Department next filed:
“Plaintiff principally seeks to raise questions about the classification status of the records and their categorization under the Presidential Records Act (‘PRA’). But plaintiff does not actually assert – much less provide any evidence – that any of the seized records bearing classification markings have been declassified,” the department wrote.
“Such possibilities should not be given weight absent the plaintiff’s putting forward competent evidence,” it added.
New York Times correspondent and Trumpworld pulse-reader Maggie Haberman suggested that Trump’s team was disappointed with the request.
“It’s very possible that Trump’s team – which liked that Dearie is slow-moving and believed he would think just like they do and base decisions on distrust of the FBI – was projecting,” Haberman speculated.
Trump himself is stating no problem with the protocols unfolding, but posted this week, “The 4th Ammendment, and much more, has been totally violated, a grave invasion of privacy.”
I don't think there has to be a "process" at all. Just some record that it actually happened while he was still President, not just a verbal assertion made only after he is no longer President.
For example, the letter he signed stating that he was declassifying the Crossfire Hurricane documents is completely adequate. Why not just do that for the other stuff? Hell, a simple letter signed and left on the desk while he is still President saying "I'm taking the following documents to my home, and hereby declassify all of them."
The argument that a president can take an action that has legal effect simply by thinking it, and not telling anyone or writing anything down, is ridiculous. As I said, the perfect counter example is Obama claiming years after the fact that he mentally pardoned a bunch of criminals< who therefore must now be released.
"Legal effect"; I think that is a good term to use here.
What are the limits to the authority of Congress to dictate how a President handles national secrets? Could Congress demand that the President inform Congress each and every time a document is classified or declassified? Could Congress legislate that classification lapses automatically after 30 days? Could Congress dictate that the President's State of the Union address is classified and that the President does not have the authority to declassify it.
Help me understand the limits of Congressional action and then I can better explain my position. I maintain that the President is simply not bound by the classification system. It's a tool that he can use to do his job. He is the master not the servant of that tool.
This isn't about Congress at all, or about any procedures it might have established regarding the President and classified information.
The question is, how does anyone know whether or not Trump actually declassified documents while President. What is the evidence that he did that, by any method at all?
The impeachment of Andrew Johnson illustrates one possible case. Johnson was impeached, in part, for violating the Tenure of Office Act. This act dictated that Johnson needed permission to fire his own cabinet heads. Johnson violated that act.
The law was later modified and eventually repealed.
Of interest is the following statement in Wikipedia: "While evaluating the constitutionality of a similar law in Myers v. United States (1926), the Supreme Court stated that the Tenure of Office Act was likely invalid."
Congress has a recognized role in providing "advice and consent" to the appointment of officers under the President. They have no role in dictating that the President cannot fire them.
Similarly, Congress has no role in dictating what is classified and what is not classified beyond that with which the President agrees.
If Trump refuses to comment, then the answer may be, "nobody knows". That may be the answer for all time.
Biden didn't and probably couldn't make a claim for having re-classified the documents, because presumably nobody knows which documents are involved. A judge issued a warrant against a former President based on assertions that Trump had classified documents in his possession.
If, as you and others have suggested might have happened, that assertion is a lie. The judge was supposed to weigh the evidence in the application for a warrant and determine that a crime probably had been committed and that evidence substantiating that was probably at Trump's home.
What is the evidence that President Trump decided to declassify those documents, by any method?
I totally disagree. The persecutors of Trump are proceeding completely on the basis that Presidents and former Presidents are subject to legislation involving classification and declassification of documents. Without that legislation the DOJ and the rest of the conspirators would simply have left Donald alone.
Donald Trump has far, far more national secrets inside his brain than he probably ever had inside his house. That is a simple fact of life in our political system. Trump is being treated differently because he is a threat to those who are attacking him.
If that is the case, then as long as the government can prove - which it very likely can - that those documents were classified, then they are still classified.
I claim you are asking the wrong question. What is the evidence that President Trump decided to maintain the classification of those documents?
As I stated in a posting above, the question is "who is the master and who is the servant?" The President is the master and the classification system is his servant.
There is a saying in the legal community, "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence".
If I were on a jury, the prosecution would have to prove that Donald Trump DID NOT declassify these documents. Even if they did prove that, I would not convict a President or former President in such a case. The legislation simply can't be applied to the President.
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