Merrick Garland assigns Special Council for Hunter Biden (Page 3/3)
olejoedad AUG 12, 03:02 PM
Please re-read my post.

My opinion is that you present opinions as facts.
williegoat AUG 12, 03:18 PM

quote
Originally posted by olejoedad:

The choice of the special counsel is suspect as well. It's the same guy that agreed to the sweetheart deal for HB prior to the judge throwing the deal out!


This worries me, also.
82-T/A [At Work] AUG 12, 05:04 PM

quote
Originally posted by williegoat:

This worries me, also.




Yes, because if they can clear him of any wrong doing, or decide not to bring charges... he could essentially be protected by the 5th amendment / double jeopardy.

Like, if we wanted to arrest Hillary for the things she did in spades, that Trump is being accused of (but had authority to do)... can we even prosecute her now because the DOJ said, "No reasonable person would prosecute?"
fredtoast AUG 12, 05:22 PM

quote
Originally posted by olejoedad:

Please re-read my post.

My opinion is that you present opinions as facts.




I don't post opinions as facts.

There is no legitimate evidence that we know of proving Joe Biden was involved in any corrupt behavior. We can nit-pick over "legitimate" if yuo want, but what I am saying is fact, not opinion.

Nothing from the laptop.

Nothing from Archer or Bobolinski.

No bank records.

Not even any allegations of corrupt behavior as far as I can tell. Zlochevsky has denied in writing that he ever had any contact with Joe Biden, and the 1023 form from the FBI about bribery in the Ukraine is "unverified". Funny how the Republicans squealed so loudly about the "unverified' information in the Steele dossier when it went against their interests, but now they act like it is solid evidence.

[This message has been edited by fredtoast (edited 08-12-2023).]

fredtoast AUG 12, 05:26 PM

quote
Originally posted by 82-T/A [At Work]:
Yes, because if they can clear him of any wrong doing, or decide not to bring charges... he could essentially be protected by the 5th amendment / double jeopardy.


Double Jeopardy does not exist if he never gets charged or goes to trial.

And 5th Amendment applies no matter who the special counsel is or what he does. As much as you claim to love the Constitution you would not want to interfere with anyone's Constitutional rights would you.
rinselberg AUG 12, 06:11 PM

quote
Originally posted by 82-T/A [At Work]:
Yes, because if they can clear [Hunter Biden] of any wrong doing, or decide not to bring charges... he could essentially be protected by the 5th amendment / double jeopardy.

Like, if we wanted to arrest Hillary for the things she did in spades, that Trump is being accused of (but had authority to do)... can we even prosecute her now because the DOJ said, "No reasonable person would prosecute?"


My clients often ask me "How can I create a home entertainment center that's focused on the comparisons between the Trump Mar-a-Lago documents case and the Hillary Clinton emails scandal?"

The first thing I tell them is go online and call up the Google online search function and enter this into the Google search inputs field:

quote
clinton trump documents OR cases OR secret OR security OR emails OR classified "comparison"


That Google search retrieves a veritable treasure trove of online articles that examine the similarities and the differences between the two cases.

I'm just going to highlight one of the many articles that this Google search flagged for me.

"Dear fellow conservatives: Please stop complaining about Hillary Clinton"

quote
Whataboutism and lamentations of hypocrisy—even when warranted—are only ever heard from the losing side.


Rodge Reschini for USA TODAY; June 20, 2023.
https://www.usatoday.com/st...clinton/70322342007/

It's not a full "magazine length" article. I don't feel like Read-o-Metering it, but anyone who wouldn't have the patience to scroll quickly through this article to see what might catch their eye has no claim to the honorific title of "Expert on the Trump Mar-a-Lago Documents Case." Which is usually abbreviated as ETMaLDc and included with the person's name, in the same way as a PhD or any other academic degree.

Here's a brief excerpt:

quote
The June 8 indictment accuses Trump of cartoonishly showing off classified information while commenting that he shouldn’t be showing it off. If Clinton ever admitted guilt for the email server debacle, it was never as blatant as Trump’s showmanship.

More to the point, Trump could have avoided this nightmare by turning over the documents when asked by the DOJ.

Republican whataboutism becomes ever more tiresome as Trump repeatedly makes fools of his defenders and prophets of his detractors. The left in this country so rarely embarrasses itself, while Trump is more than happy to burn anyone on the right—even his former surrogates—to save himself.


"Google... make the most of your dilettantism."

[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 08-13-2023).]

82-T/A [At Work] AUG 13, 12:37 PM

quote
Originally posted by rinselberg:

My clients often ask me "How can I create a home entertainment center that's focused on the comparisons between the Trump Mar-a-Lago documents case and the Hillary Clinton emails scandal?"




We've talked about this before. Hillary had significantly more documents that were classified, it was hosted on an internet-connected server, multiple cell phones, and even some documents found on Anthony Weiner's machine. They were literally everywhere. None of these locations were a SCIF, and none of those machines were classified or protected to house classified information. Furthermore, the classified information was not hers, and none of it belonged to the State Department. It all came from NSA, CIA, NRO, ODNI, FBI, etc.

Alternately...

Trump's office is a certified and TEMPESTED'ed SCIF. Trump was (at the time) the senior most authority in the entire world for classified information, and brought it all into his SCIF while he was president. The entire existence of classification exists because the President signed an executive order creating it. There is no law respecting the creation or existence of classified information. None of this classified information ever left his office (that we know of), and was never replicated on any media for which it wasn't authorized.
rinselberg AUG 13, 01:01 PM
How is that Trump's defense lawyers just filed a request to have the government create a SCIF at Mar-a-Lago, to accommodate the former president's need to review and discuss the evidence against him? What sense would that make, if there already is a SCiF at Mar-a-Lago?

I've never believed that Trump's office at Mar-a-Lago was still recognized as a SCIF by the federal government after his last day in office, because I believe that Trump would have had to coordinate that with the federal government, and in particular, the National Archives and Records Administration, and I don't believe he did any such thing.

As far as 82-T/A's assertion that all of the classified information that was in Trump's office at Mar-a-Lago remained securely inside of Trump's office at Mar-a-Lago, that is flat out contradicted by the superseding indictment in the Mar-a-Lago documents case. According to the superseding indictment, Trump had a classified document with him at his Bedminster Golf Club and residence in New Jersey that he sort of waved in front of some reporters. There's a tape recording of that moment, and Trump talking about such a document, and the indictment alleges that he actually had such a document.

According to media reports, this document was marked Top Secret and No Foreigners.

Obviously, these are just allegations, until it is proved to a jury's satisfaction at trial, or unless Trump "cops a plea."

I'm betting on the prosecution.

[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 08-13-2023).]

rinselberg AUG 13, 01:14 PM
Something came to mind that I've never said before.

As I understand it, the Biden administration did not grant Trump any deference in continuing to consider him as having any kind of security clearance after he left office.

That had been the norm (or so I believe) for previous transitions from one president to another—but not for Trump.

This is another thought that supports my belief that Trump's office at Mar-a-Lago was no longer considered to be a SCIF after his last day in office. (Except maybe by Trump himself.)

[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 08-13-2023).]

82-T/A [At Work] AUG 14, 07:27 AM

quote
Originally posted by rinselberg:

How is that Trump's defense lawyers just filed a request to have the government create a SCIF at Mar-a-Lago, to accommodate the former president's need to review and discuss the evidence against him? What sense would that make, if there already is a SCiF at Mar-a-Lago?

I've never believed that Trump's office at Mar-a-Lago was still recognized as a SCIF by the federal government after his last day in office, because I believe that Trump would have had to coordinate that with the federal government, and in particular, the National Archives and Records Administration, and I don't believe he did any such thing.

As far as 82-T/A's assertion that all of the classified information that was in Trump's office at Mar-a-Lago remained securely inside of Trump's office at Mar-a-Lago, that is flat out contradicted by the superseding indictment in the Mar-a-Lago documents case. According to the superseding indictment, Trump had a classified document with him at his Bedminster Golf Club and residence in New Jersey that he sort of waved in front of some reporters. There's a tape recording of that moment, and Trump talking about such a document, and the indictment alleges that he actually had such a document.

According to media reports, this document was marked Top Secret and No Foreigners.

Obviously, these are just allegations, until it is proved to a jury's satisfaction at trial, or unless Trump "cops a plea."

I'm betting on the prosecution.





Trump's office IS a SCIF... but the Biden administration likely "de-certified it" immediately as soon as they could. For something to be certified as a SCIF, it means that it's gone through TEMPESTing, in which they do a variety of checks to make sure it's acceptable to house classified materials and have classified discussions... of which includes sweeping for bugs. It would have been SCIF'ed in the first place for Trump to be allowed to host communications there (which he did all through his first term), and every former president gets an encrypted phone on their desk (I'll spare you the acronyms). This likely stays on their desk for a long time, usually until after the administration is done. My guess is Biden probably eliminated all of this, despite normal protocol, due to his absolute hatred of Trump.

That does not mean though that his office wasn't a SCIF... it just means that it had been decertified...