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.”
There's no indictment without that audio, and there's no conviction with that audio. LOFL! Schadenfreude.
Yep, the President IS the Executive Branch. All executive authority vests through him. Article II also makes clear that any officers of executive departments are subordinate to the President. I read that to clearly indicate that the President has sole authority to decide what the Executive Branch exists of and how it is structured. In fact, I think that clearly indicates that the President has the authority to create or abolish federal executive departments at will (though their funding could only be authorized by Congress). Yet the prevailing opinion is that various statutes limit the ability of the President to reorganize federal departments, an opinion for which I can find ZERO constitutional support.
If all executive authority resides in the President, then there is also no way that a bunch of pipsqueaks who are subordinate to him within the executive can impose procedural requirements for declassifying classified information upon him. All executive authority being vested in the President means ALL authority, which has to include any dispensation at will of executive-level secrets.
You are right, the president is not required to follow any process to declassify and that creates a problem like this, especially after the president left office. Do you really think they are going to take Trump’s word for it if he says he declassified everything before he left office? He was not required to follow a process or document it, but now he has to hope they will believe him when he says he declassified them before he left office.
What Trump says doesn’t matter.
What matters is, were they declassified?
Per Judge Amy Berman Jackson (a commie judge) in the Clinton trial a decade or two back, if he had it with him, it’s personal and therefor declassified. And the archivist and the other sniveling commie bureaucrats don’t have any say in it.
I read the possibly fake transcript, and nowhere in it does he state he didn’t declassify it. Dana is putting words in his mouth. But she’s a ‘journo-lister’ aka commie, so no surprise.
Exactly. And there’s even legal precedent for that - the Clinton trial, where the judge wrote that quite clearly. At least, clearly to anyone who doesn’t want to ‘get Trump’ no matter what the reality is.
Whether the documents are classified or were declassified isn’t going to matter when it comes to charges of retaining documents... IF
...the indictment accurately reflects what the subpoena demanded, which was (according to the indictment) the return of “all documents with classified markings in the possession, custody or control of TRUMP or the Office of Donald J. Trump.”
The actual status of classified/de-classified seems to be irrelevant. If the documents had classification markings, they were subpoenaed material.
I do not know if it was possible for PDJT to fight the subpoena (I suspect it MIGHT have been possible).
Too late. That’s the way it rolls. And you ought to also be concerned about what Obola took with him.
This is what they claim to have on him.
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.648653/gov.uscourts.flsd.648653.3.0.pdf
That’s the indictment, not a report on the indictment. No press, political or legal analysis.
I find it useful to address their arguments when I know what their arguments are. (My screen name isn’t just a screen name. It’s a way of life. LOL)
Well first of all? I was just explaining obstruction of justice and how there doesn’t have to be an actual underlying confirmed crime. Just baseline explanation, nothing to do with Trump per se.
Second, my understanding is that the document talked about (audio recording of Trump) is an NDI, which can’t be classified because it carries its own top secret security.
Battle plans etc.
The problem is that to my understanding the fbi doesn’t even know if the document exists!
“Per Judge Amy Berman Jackson (a commie judge) in the Clinton trial a decade or two back, if he had it with him, it’s personal and therefor declassified. And the archivist and the other sniveling commie bureaucrats don’t have any say in it.”
I’d like to read that ruling.
Found that ruling.
And your statement doesn’t appear to reflect that ruling at all.
Here’s the ruling:
Yes
I just listened to Pres Trump say after his court visit that the Presidential Records Act gives him “unconstrained” choice on what he keeps. Does The PRA even say everything must be declassified? I never checked. Unconstrained would mean that it doesn’t have to be declassified.
They also don’t have the document Trump is referencing.
Altered, or the full context of what he said wasn't provided in that snippet.
Here's what I mean:
If Legit President Trump was making an example of what would be considered still classified becuase he didn't declassify it, and some shall we say, very unscrupulous prosecutor or lamestream media member cut the beginning off and left only "now I can't, you know, but this is still a secret" there and is using that to charge or make media talking points, that's the problem right there.
I've never trusted the Government, lawyers or media, so I wouldn't put it past any of them to alter/take out of context what Trump said here.
Gee, it's not like they haven't done that before! < /s >
The documents in question left the White House while still President at his direction. The are by the very act, Ex opere operato, declassified. It doesn't matter what he said.
Here is what I want to understand… just lay it to me straight. Is it TRUE that :
Any document the President of the United States takes out of his office when he leaves the White House is AUTOMATICALLY considered DECLASSIFIED?
That’s all I want to know.
“One interpretation (including mine) is that Trump ineloquently tried to say ‘As president I could have declassified documents like it. Now I can’t.’”
Jordan (and anybody else) is wasting his time trying to apply logic to a logic-less twit like Bash. She hears what she wants to hear only and sees only what she wants to see...just like every other stuckonstupid leftist.
And she outright lied/twisted in this comment:
““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.””
Trump never said that he ‘did not’ classify the document he was holding up. In fact, he had previously stated that all the documents he took he HAD declassified.
These word games and leftist parsing is just another distraction and shame on Jordan for giving it even an ounce of legitimacy by going on Commie News Network and agreeing to that or any interview. He must be just as delusional as everyone else that “thinks” you can reason with these morons on the left.
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