SCREENSHOT: CNN
Posted on 06/13/2023 9:21:24 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
SCREENSHOT: CNN
House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan broke down the major “flaw” in the indictment against former President Donald Trump Sunday on CNN with Dana Bash.
Trump announced the indictment Thursday, ahead of the official indictment being unsealed Friday. The charges against Trump include 31 counts of alleged violation of the Espionage Act or the willful retention of national security information, as well as one count of “conspiracy to obstruct justice,” one count of “withholding a document or record,” one count of corruptly concealing a documents or record,” one count of “concealing a documents in a deferral investigation,” one count of “scheme to conceal” and one count of “false statements and representations.”
Bash asked Jordan to comment on part of the indictment.
“The indictment said: ‘TRUMP directed NAUTA,’ who’s his personal aide, ‘to move boxes before Trump Attorney 1’s June 2 review, so that many boxes were not searched and many documents responsive to the May 11 Subpoena could not be found and were in fact not found by Trump Attorney 1.’ [sic] In plain English, this alleges that Trump instructed his aide to help him remove sensitive documents in defiance of a federal subpoena. A), Does that trouble you? And B) If he thought he had the right to have these documents, why was he trying so hard to hide them?” Bash asked.
“No, it doesn’t bother me because again, you can’t have obstruction of something when there was no underlying crime. The standard is set. The standard is what the Constitution says. The commander-in-chief — the president of the United States — has the ability to classify and control access to information. That’s what the Constitution and the court have said. So you can’t obstruct when there is — you can’t obstruct when there is no underlying crime,” said Jordan.
“He is not the president of the United States — ”
“That is the fundamental flaw,” Jordan shot back.
“And you’re just taking him at his word?” Dana asked.
“And when he was president, he declassified the material. He’s been — he’s been very clear about that.”
“He says point-blank, on tape, ‘As president I could have declassified it. Now I can’t.’ He says, in his own words, it’s on tape as part of this indictment, that he did not declassify the material. Therefore, it is classified.”
“Dana … saying he could have, saying he could have is not the same as saying he didn’t,” Jordan pushed back.
“He said, ‘now I can’t’,” Bash said.
“Now he can’t — right — because he’s not president now. But when he was president, he did declassify it. He said that,” Jordan said.
“Which means that what he was holding was classified,” Bash argued.
“Not if he declassified it when he was president of the United States, for goodness sake!”
“But he’s saying point-blank in this audio tape that he did not declassify it,” Bash said. “What you’re saying just doesn’t make sense on its face.”
“Dana, what this truly is, Dana, is an affront to the rule of law. It’s an affront to consistent application of the law. You have Secretary Clinton — who had classified material on a server — she was not president of the United States. She was Secretary Clinton. You have that happen, nothing happens to her,” Jordan continued before the duo moved on to other issues.
Bash was referencing was a July 2021 call which alleged Trump showed a “plan of attack” to a writer, a publisher and two staffers, which he said was prepared for him by the Department of Defense, according to the indictment. “As president, I could have declassified it,” Trump allegedly said at the time, and “now I can’t, you know, but this is still a secret.”
RE: the President can classify or declassify anything he wants without anyone’s approval
Ok, let’s accept that for now… here’s the main focus of the indictment — why didn’t he declassify the document he waved in front of the reporter ( by his own admission on the recording )?
And is it a crime for him to wave the classified document to a reporter ( assuming it is indeed classified )?
And it’s a lie.
Did you fail grammar?
The ex president
can’t de - classify now
it was done previously
when he was president
before he left office
simple as that
There are probably dozens of Iran attack plans based on different circumstances.
Who cares? I’ve got hundreds of invasion plans on various countries but, alas, no one listens to me! LOL
THAT IS NOT WHAT HE SAID
My goodness, can’t ANYONE speak or read English any longer.
FR is starting to be filled with people that could work at CNN or MSNBC.
“‘As president I could have declassified it. Now I can’t.’ “
Simple: He didn’t want to show it to someone and used that as an excuse.
That question may get litigated in all of this. I have to say I hope the idea that just because a president takes a bunch of classified documents with him as he walks out the door makes them declassified is not upheld. Imagine the mischief Biden could create when he leaves office. He could take a lot of classified data that would be valuable to businesses or other countries and sell it to the highest bidder. Since the data would no longer be classified, he wouldn’t be guilty of any crime, unless he specifically sold information to an enemy of the United States
It’s too bad he just approved trillion$ in new spending for by executive branch. Maybe he just learned about all of this corruption after his debt ceiling vote.
I am getting real sick of these guys.
They sure love to get corrupt bureaucrats in front of them so that they can scold them in front of the cameras but they won’t do ANYTHING that would actually solve the problem.
It’s real simple....Not one penny is approved for anything in the house and every piece of legislation before the Senate is filibustered until the FBI is gutted and reformed.
These guys have the power to get that done if they actually cared. They don’t though.
They hate us just as much as the Democrats do.
RE: But if you impede the investigation, that’s obstruction of justice.
But what Justice was obstructed?
Here is the argument said in Trump’s defense :
The president is the ultimate authority on national security. Congress cannot decide for him what is classified and what isn’t nor can Congress or executive branch employees decide whether he made reasonable national security decisions.
Likewise, people who work for agencies such as the National Archives, which started the fuss, cannot claim that laws or regulations override their boss’s plenary constitutional power.
Once Trump took those documents from the White House while still president, he effectively and finally determined that they did not implicate national security.
The dispute then becomes, whether or not Trump has the right to hold those documents, and that is supposed to be litigated and determined by a court of law. If so, how is that obstructing? Does a former President not have the right to litigate a point of disagreement?
RE: Did you fail grammar?
Ask the author of this article. I simply copied and paste what he wrote.
But thus far, you have avoided answering my question.
Ok. That’s what I missing. Thanks!
RE: THAT IS NOT WHAT HE SAID
Ok, what exactly did he actually say on the recording?
RE: My goodness, can’t ANYONE speak or read English any longer.
Exactly what post in this thread are you referring to?
The obstruction charge comes from Trump actively hiding boxes of documents to prevent them from being searched by his attorneys, then causing his attorneys to falsely certify that all boxes had been searched and all classified documents returned. As you say, the return was to be litigated, but he is accused of trying hide documents that were supposed to be part of that litigation process.
"“The indictment said: ‘TRUMP directed NAUTA,’ who’s his personal aide, ‘to move boxes before Trump Attorney 1’s June 2 review, so that many boxes were not searched and many documents responsive to the May 11 Subpoena could not be found and were in fact not found by Trump Attorney 1.’ [sic] In plain English, this alleges that Trump instructed his aide to help him remove sensitive documents in defiance of a federal subpoena. A), Does that trouble you? And B) If he thought he had the right to have these documents, why was he trying so hard to hide them?” Bash asked."
Look at big boorained Dana blithely asking "Does that trouble you?" and Jimmy missing a golden opportunity to burn Dana and Jack Smith for indicting an aide, an ordinary American, for merely moving boxes at his employer's request, and trying to bankrupt Nauta through lawfare.
Goddamnit, Jimmy, listen to what you are being offered when talking to a head-full-of-mush like Dana Bash. You could have punched down so hard it would have made the actual #Narrative for a cycle, not some Daily Caller clickbait.
RE: hope the idea that just because a president takes a bunch of classified documents with him as he walks out the door makes them declassified is not upheld.
Up to this point, the above statement you made simply show’s UNCERTAINTY regarding the law. If it were clear, why does this idea need to be “upheld” or “not upheld”?
Also, how is a classified document DEEMED to be declassified? There seems to be no formal written procedure for this other than the President saying I DECLASSIFIED THIS. But then , how do we know that he indeed said so?
“ And is it a crime for him to wave the classified document to a reporter ( assuming it is indeed classified )?”
Just waving it around, probably not a crime. But remember that the transcript does seem to indicate that he actually had the writer read portions of it. “Look what I found, this was Milley’s plan of attack, just read it and show…” Also, even if Trump didn’t actually show the document to anyone, but read aloud classified portions of the document, that would be the same thing.
But as I have said several times, Trump is not being charged with a crime relating to the Milley document. I think they have a different reason for including that in the indictment.
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