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A Deeply Fractured US

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I said nothing about blanket immunity. Yes, I thought we settled that one, hence why I didn't say anything about it. I don't know why you brought it up.

Whether giving a ruling, kicking it back down, not being heard til after the election, they all sewer the immunity challenge and originate with the SCOTUS. I don't think there's a darn thing Jack Smith will accomplish, shit is starting to fall around him. They have shown the Top Secret and below folders, strewn around the floor was staged. The FBI had brought those folders with them and just stuffed papers in them, supposedly as the TS documents. It's also been found, classified material has been moved and no longer match the audit sheets, while under Smith’s control. Sounds like mishandling classified docs, doesn't it.
Sorry, the way you described it confused me. ‘Immunity challenge’ was just a bit of an odd way to put it since the ‘challenge’ (or claim of immunity) was raised by Trump, but I took ‘sewer’ to mean you think SCOTUS will find in his favour in a way that effectively kills the trial. Or sure what you mean by ‘originate with SCOTUS’ since nothing originates with SCOTUS, it’s always an appeal from something else.

Regarding the revelations about precisely how some documents were handled on scene, or when processed later, that’s an evidentiary issue that will need to be heard, but it will fundamentally come down to if they have continuity over the evidence itself, and sufficient description of what was found where. The court will likely find that it suffices that all the materials were found in the boxes they were found in, unless order within the individual boxes is a trial issue (for instance to try to date the documents based on how they were layered with magazines, news articles, etc). Given that the folders themselves aren’t what’s being charged, and neither are any placeholders slip sheets that were being used when they ran out of folders, I don’t think it will turn out to be as big a deal as your preferred sources are making it out to be. Which document was where within a specific box will matter less if the court is satisfied that all the charged documents were still there in the individual boxes they were found in. There’s no suggestion in any of this that any of the lawfully seized evidence is not, in fact, lawfully seized evidence, or that any of the documents are anything other than what they’re purported to be. As an analogy, if police searched a drawer within a closet and found a gun, a brick of coke, and a wad of cash, this is basically about how the items were laid out in the individual drawer, not whether they were found there at all. I’m not worried about it and I doubt prosecutors are either.

And no, this is not ‘mishandling classified documents’, since the documents were seized and secured on site, and what is at issue is either empty folders or hand-drawn replacement slip sheets specifically to avoid further handling or potential misplacement of the actual documents containing Defense Information. It was those empty folders and slip sheets that in a few cases got jumbled after, likely when an examination and review of the boxes was being conducted pursuant to the judge’s own order that was later knocked down on appeal to the 11th circuit.

A whole lot of reaching is happening here. For those watching but not commenting, this article describes the issue : https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/03/mar-a-lago-trump-classified-documents-00156124
 
They have shown the Top Secret and below folders, strewn around the floor was staged. The FBI had brought those folders with them and just stuffed papers in them, supposedly as the TS documents. It's also been found, classified material has been moved and no longer match the audit sheets, while under Smith’s control. Sounds like mishandling classified docs, doesn't it.
Not mishandling classified docs. Mishandling evidence.
 
"Judge, we only manipulated this part... nothing else, we promise!"

This is all starting to sound like the Crossfire Hurricane charade. I'm starting to wonder if a single case will actually stick... or is it all just another show to damage someone ahead of an election? If after the election there is not even one conviction of a substantive crime - this was all bullshit and many people need to be indicted for the abuses.
 
"Judge, we only manipulated this part... nothing else, we promise!"

This is all starting to sound like the Crossfire Hurricane charade. I'm starting to wonder if a single case will actually stick... or is it all just another show to damage someone ahead of an election? If after the election there is not even one conviction of a substantive crime - this was all bullshit and many people need to be indicted for the abuses.
kind of hard to do so when Team Trump is specifically trying to delay until after the election. They don’t want that Sword of Damocles hanging over him.

People who know they are innocent would want to get stuff like this done quickly so they can get back to campaigning, no?

🤔
 
kind of hard to do so when Team Trump is specifically trying to delay until after the election. They don’t want that Sword of Damocles hanging over him.
Or, Team Trump is just acting prudently when yet another piece of obstructionism falls away because each of the Teams Not-Trump was specifically trying to engineer its investigation and prosecution to land smack in the middle of primary and election seasons (I can read minds, too), and the engineering wasn't fireproof. Can't imagine why the people content to let all other prosecutions slowly play out are suddenly all in a panic, unless the point of everything is political damage, not justice.
 
As does this one.

If the photo was just a setup (misinformation), then it leaves open an entire universe of manipulation - there is no reason to believe claims that nothing else was prejudicially altered.
You guys really need to find better sources for your counter claims.

The author used this phrase and term: "The photo was a stunt, and one that adds more fuel to this dumpster-fire case."

That doesn't sound like honest and unbiased reporting; the author clearly has an angle.

Also, as @brihard already alluded to, even if it was true as implied in the article that that FBI staged these photos in some sort of partisan FBI conspiracy to hurt Donald Trump, it wouldn't change the fact that large numbers of classified documents were found there.
 
Or, Team Trump is just acting prudently when yet another piece of obstructionism falls away because each of the Teams Not-Trump was specifically trying to engineer its investigation and prosecution to land smack in the middle of primary and election seasons (I can read minds, too), and the engineering wasn't fireproof.
Why would Teams Not-Trump want to put it in between the primary season? Wouldn’t it be more advantageous to have it done prior to the primaries, so Trump gets disqualified from being the GOP nominee in the first place?

Can't imagine why the people content to let all other prosecutions slowly play out are suddenly all in a panic, unless the point of everything is political damage, not justice.
I think the folks in a panic are the Trump defence team, trying to delay the trials. They definitely do not want any of those done before the election.
 
That doesn't sound like honest and unbiased reporting; the author clearly has an angle.
Sure. No-one from the FBI has yet explained otherwise, though.

"“[If] the investigative team found a document with classification markings, it removed the document, segregated it, and replaced it with a placeholder sheet. The investigative team used classified cover sheets for that purpose.” [Jay Bratt, of DOJ]

But before the official cover sheets were used as placeholder, agents apparently used them as props. FBI agents took it upon themselves to paperclip the sheets to documents—something evident given the uniform nature of how each cover sheet is clipped to each file in the photo—laid them on the floor, and snapped a picture for political posterity."

The photo was a very juicy bit of "news", and if it wasn't a legitimate representation of the way things were and no-one corrected the misinterpretations, the reasonable assumption is that deception was intended.

Also, as @brihard already alluded to, even if it was true as implied in the article that that FBI staged these photos in some sort of partisan FBI conspiracy to hurt Donald Trump, it wouldn't change the fact that large numbers of classified documents were found there.
No, those are two different things. Bias in the heart of the investigation, though - that's a huge deal, legally and politically.
 
Why would Teams Not-Trump want to put it in between the primary season? Wouldn’t it be more advantageous to have it done prior to the primaries, so Trump gets disqualified from being the GOP nominee in the first place?
Is that a serious question? People openly advocated pumping up Trump in 2016 as a means of sowing discord and chaos during the Republican primaries. Why wouldn't some people try to do it again?
I think the folks in a panic are the Trump defence team, trying to delay the trials. They definitely do not want any of those done before the election.
It was reasonably clear months ago that Bragg's was the only effort likely to complete (including appeals if needed) before the election, and some Democrat supporters wanted it abandoned because they foresaw that it was weak and risked giving Trump a "win" before the election. For the rest, it doesn't matter. They can just do what Mueller's investigation was supposed to do - hand over a package to support impeachment. Trump's team doesn't have to panic; the prosecution teams are doing all the work of providing entry points for more things to fit into schedules.

I can guess that all of the people panicking now understood the scheduling issues and how things were likely to fall, and that it was all fine when they expected it to hang over the primaries. But the primaries ended abruptly and prematurely, so there's no utility left to dragging Trump around through courts. So they want to jump into trials, but circumstances impeded their wishes, and they are vexed.
 
Is that a serious question? People openly advocated pumping up Trump in 2016 as a means of sowing discord and chaos during the Republican primaries. Why wouldn't some people try to do it again?
There is a huge difference between 2016 and now. People didn’t seriously think he would win in 2016 so he was the wildcard. In the buildup to 2024, everybody knew that the GDP nominations would be [insert name] v. Trump. Why wouldn’t folks try to take Trump out as early as possible? DeSantis or Haley wouldn’t have the MAGA on lock like Trump does.

It probably doesn't. Some people in it obviously - this has been known since 2016 - have an anti-Trump bias.
Sure. But there is a difference between having a personal bias and being unprofessional. You can have a personal bias against someone but still be professional and do your job without bias.
 
There is a huge difference between 2016 and now. People didn’t seriously think he would win in 2016 so he was the wildcard. In the buildup to 2024, everybody knew that the GDP nominations would be [insert name] v. Trump. Why wouldn’t folks try to take Trump out as early as possible? DeSantis or Haley wouldn’t have the MAGA on lock like Trump does.
You're giving people too much credit for their ability to think things through. They are not chess players; they are Cersei Lannisters. They insist on fighting every possible battle for every point of political advantage and I doubt they ever bother to think even one more step ahead to anticipate the new problems they are likely to create. You need to go one year back - most Democrats in 2023 didn't seriously think he could win in 2024, so a strategy of f*cking around with the Republican primaries (eg. funding Trump supporters, switching party registrations to vote in Republican primaries) to elevate Trump looked good, along with goading every Republican to declare for or against Trump. The unexpected end of the f*ckery opportunity, and now the consistency of Trump's position in polling averages - particularly in the EV battleground states - are two things they did not anticipate. The only good news for them in polls are the ones that suggest enough voters would turn away from Trump if he is convicted of something, which is why the ordinary pace of justice in America has a few of them screaming and tearing their hair.
Sure. But there is a difference between having a personal bias and being unprofessional. You can have a personal bias against someone but still be professional and do your job without bias.
If the classified covers were not actually part of the evidence, then there was no reason for them to be prominently present in evidence photos. It was an unprofessional execution of the job due to personal bias.

[Add: it probably isn't possible to guarantee objectivity in the presence of bias. It's why we have the concept of recusal.]
 
If the classified covers were not actually part of the evidence, then there was no reason for them to be prominently present in evidence photos. It was an unprofessional execution of the job due to personal bias.
This was done only for public consumption. Which speaks to the true reason for all of this.
 
As does this one.

If the photo was just a setup (misinformation), then it leaves open an entire universe of manipulation - there is no reason to believe claims that nothing else was prejudicially altered.
Thx Brad,


Pretty well what I was trying to say, above, in my ham fisted way.

But hey, what do I know?
 
I wouldn’t say that the FBI normally has a left bias…
But is you sent in the biggest ass kissers with a suggestion that if this case proceeds well, then there might be good for their career, then you see some interesting stuff. Ass kissers rarely give a crap about left or right, just what they believe will help their career and what they think/are told what their boss wants.
 
Thx Brad,


Pretty well what I was trying to say, above, in my ham fisted way.

But hey, what do I know?

Sorry, been busy at work for the day.

So, regarding this photo- it’s very important to recognize what it was, what it was not, and the judicial context in which it’s a part of the case.

A couple things happens when a search warrant is executed. Police have to return a report to the court if everything they seized; this is an accountability mechanism to identify to the court what has been taken by the state and what the implications are on someone’s lawful ownership and reasonable expectations of privacy.

Separately and distinctly, police are collecting and identifying evidence; that is to say, items and information that help to prove the alleged offences. For this there’s the ‘what’, the ‘where’, and depending on what police are looking to prove, greater or lesser degrees of detail will be documented. Gold standard, you want photos or videos of the located and seized evidence exactly as it was found. This will be documented in an investigator’s notes and eventually in some sort of written report.

The photo in question is not something ai’ve ever seen purported as representing exactly how the evidence was found. It appears to be a visual aid to help with the search warrant return to be visually representative of the nature and amount of material that was found.

A search warrant return will be an open court document. That’s why we’ve been able to see it. For that same reason though, when the evidence includes classified information, there is a need to protect that classified material. It looks to me that in this case that’s why they replaced actual classified documents with folder covers or slip sheets as representative of the level of classification. So a TS folder could be used as representative of a twenty page TS//SI document that was seized, carefully noted and secured, but cannot be shown unredacted in open court records.

We have access to this photo (and some others) and the very generalized text contents of the warrant return. We have not seen investigators’ notes or reports, or any photos of the actual documents themselves as found in situ. Any of that material will be part of what’s going through the CIPA process to protect classified material through the disclosure of evidence process.

Come trial, we can expect prosecutors to introduce witnesses whom they will question about precisely what was found where and how it was arranged. That testimony will be subject to limitations on classified content that will get hammered out in CIPA. But that’s how they’ll actually introduce the evidence of what documents were found where. If they have releasable (releasable) photos that are actually intended for evidence, that’s where we’ll see it.

Defense will try to obfuscate what was found where with the intent of getting evidence excluded on continuity grounds. Good chance that gets handled before the jury hears it. This will hinge on the quality of officers’ notes and, if they exist, photos or videos of the crime scene and search.

This is a sensational investigation, and the media loves going after publicly available court documents and blowing up certain material within contexts that material isn’t actually intended or suitable for. What will matter in court will be what prosecution actually presents, how they corroborate it, and what challenges (if any) defense can raise to admissibility. The deciders of fact will be the jury, and they will decide based on the actual admissible evidence, rather than the larger but sometimes murkier body of stuff that has become public pre-trial.
 
But is you sent in the biggest ass kissers with a suggestion that if this case proceeds well, then there might be good for their career, then you see some interesting stuff. Ass kissers rarely give a crap about left or right, just what they believe will help their career and what they think/are told what their boss wants.

It absolutely boggles my mind that between this hack of a MAGA sycophant and Brihard's very neutral, thorough, and technical analysis that clearly contradicts the premise of the article, you put more stock in the ham fisted reporting.
 
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