I am sorry, what foreign policy successes did he have? I cannot think of one.
There was also Trump's family separation policy and his Muslim ban. Some here may regard these as cruel policies that harmed the long-term interests of the United States, but they were examples of Trump successfully enacting his preferred policies on other nations and the citizens thereof.
For those who are interested in such things the redacted version of the affidavit used to obtain the search warrant for Mar-A-Lago can be found here [PDF]. It's thirty-eight pages long, but probably only ten pages worth of unredacted text.
I haven't had time to read through the whole thing myself, but it sounds like Trump was suspected of having some very sensitive stuff (signal intelligence, human intelligence sources, etc.) that he had no good reason to need.
To properly interpret that time-line, I think we need to know how common it is for the CIA to lose informants. If, for the sake of argument, it's not uncommon for the CIA to lose dozens of informants over a period exceeding two years, the time-line might not be that significant.
To properly interpret that time-line, I think we need to know how common it is for the CIA to lose informants. If, for the sake of argument, it's not uncommon for the CIA to lose dozens of informants over a period exceeding two years, the time-line might not be that significant.
I think we can apply Ockham's razor here. If Donald Trump kept a bunch of highly sensitive government documents in defiance of the law he was doing so because he derived some benefit from it. The most obvious explanation is that he was selling them. Sure, that's inference and not "proof beyond a reasonable doubt", but since none of us is a judicial system we can use our wits to reason.
I mean, what would our assumptions be in the case of any other recently fired, disgruntled former government worker who was caught with valuable and sensitive government property they had no right to?
To properly interpret that time-line, I think we need to know how common it is for the CIA to lose informants. If, for the sake of argument, it's not uncommon for the CIA to lose dozens of informants over a period exceeding two years, the time-line might not be that significant.
I think we can apply Ockham's razor here. If Donald Trump kept a bunch of highly sensitive government documents in defiance of the law he was doing so because he derived some benefit from it. The most obvious explanation is that he was selling them. Sure, that's inference and not "proof beyond a reasonable doubt", but since none of us is a judicial system we can use our wits to reason.
I mean, what would our assumptions be in the case of any other recently fired, disgruntled former government worker who was caught with valuable and sensitive government property they had no right to?
Those are valid points, but that's not the argument the tweeter was making. He was infering espionage on Trump's part simply based on the number of informants who had been nabbed over a two-year period. In order to assess the validity of THAT argument, we'd need to know whether that was an unusual tally.
To properly interpret that time-line, I think we need to know how common it is for the CIA to lose informants. If, for the sake of argument, it's not uncommon for the CIA to lose dozens of informants over a period exceeding two years, the time-line might not be that significant.
Indeed. It is speculative.
No doubt there is a mortality rate for informants. Both hostile governments and non-government groups of interest (I.e. terrorists, drug-trafficers etc.) are known to extract horrible retribution. However, an unusually high number of informants lost tends to correlate with a security breach. Or, to be exact, analysts who are basically trained and paid to be paranoid will no doubt start with the assumption that a leak occurred and work from there. Primarily by seeing if there's a common link between the losses - I.e. someone with information on most/all of the individuals lost.
What is known:
1. Trump has significant money issues, despite what he claims
2. Trump has links to Russia
3. Trump had in his possession, in an unsecure location lots of very sensitive documents he should not have had which included information on confidential informants at the time of a Spike in CIs being captured
I'm not an intelligence analyst but I do know that's the kind of chain of facts they begin with.
Trump had in his possession, in an unsecure location lots of very sensitive documents he should not have had which included information on confidential informants at the time of a Spike in CIs being captured
But see, that's what I'm wondering about. WAS there a spike in the capture of informants?
Fair point. There has certainly been talk of it in certain media circles but I guess we'll have to wait 30 years for a definitive answer.
The CIA is notoriously secretive about such matters. If this found its way into the New York Times that indicates an unusual set of circumstances by itself.
Plus, even if there was a spike it could have as much to do with the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan as anything else.
If that were the case you wouldn't expect the CIA to have sent that memo to all of its locations, just the ones in Afghanistan and surrounding countries. From The Week, which is not paywalled like the NYT is.
An "unusual top secret cable" sent to every CIA station and base around the world last week alerted officers about dozens of cases in the last several years involving foreign informants who had been killed, arrested, or most likely compromised, The New York Times reports.
The alert itself wasn't necessarily unique, but the Times notes the fact that the cable specified the number of lost informants — information that is usually kept strictly under wraps by intelligence officials — suggests that the issue is more urgent than usual.
On the one hand we don't want to be jumping to conclusions, but we also want to avoid reflexively jumping away from conclusions.
Nothing to do but wait and pray. I'm certain there are a shitload of people in various government agencies cursing his name as they shift shit around (locations, identities, equipment, whatever) so that the documents in question (and really, anything he or his goons ever had access to) is no longer accurate. Billions of dollars worth of effort there, and lives torn up and rearranged, as well as those simply destroyed.
Trump needs to face justice for something. I don't think it matters which of his alleged crimes, he's tried for.
American democracy is almost certainly lost if he isn't held accountable.
Whilst I would argue a lot about the 'freedom' of the USA, about American exceptionalism etc., the collapse of US democracy would be hugely destabilising to the rest of the world. This matters to all of us.
Yesterday, the DoJ released a response to the question of appointing a special master to review the documents that were seized by the FBI, Basically, they argue the former president has no standing for the suit because the documents did not belong to him in the first place. It also hints that Trump and his legal team may be charged with obstruction of justice since they had claimed all documents had been returned previously.
Just want to put that here. There are lots of reasons I could be wrong but for the first time it is a statement I'm prepared to make as a probability, rather than just a possibility.
Basically, they argue the former president has no standing for the suit because the documents did not belong to him in the first place. It also hints that Trump and his legal team may be charged with obstruction of justice since they had claimed all documents had been returned previously.
For those who want a tweet-thread length analysis of the filing instead of thirty-six pages of legal reasoning, here you go. They also note that at no time during the lengthy negotiation with NARA over possession of the documents did Trump's legal team argue that the documents belonged to him, so the DoJ is arguing that it's too late to argue that fallacious point now.
Why do so many of the Republican senators and congress people not care ? I would have expected this to be a deal breaker.
Why? Seriously, why, after all this time, does Republican Congress members carrying water for Trump's most egregious offenses surprise anyone at this point? One of the obvious conclusions is that they support Trump and everything he stands for. Why don't fascists think The Leader is answerable to the law? To ask the question is to answer it!
But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked — if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the ‘German Firm’ stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.
Republicans in Congress had ample opportunity to break with Trump, from his firing of the FBI director to replace with his hand-picked toady (9 May 2017) through a whole host of other abuses culminating in not one but two impeachments. If they didn't break from Trump at that point why would they now? Everyone who still has a position of power within the Republican Party has it because they have invested their credibility and reputation in the idea that Donald Trump is honorable and trustworthy. Breaking from him now would mean admitting their own complicity and accomplicehood.
I suppose I would have thought that this would have allowed enough political cover to break with him. It is not a culture war issue, they could appeal to the patriotism of their base etc as a reason to reject him.
I suppose I would have thought that this would have allowed enough political cover to break with him. It is not a culture war issue, they could appeal to the patriotism of their base etc as a reason to reject him.
It's a political calculation. GOP Members/Senators overall in many locations would be more successful if they ditch Trump but
1. In extreme red areas, this isn't true.
2. Most red areas are even more red due to gerrymandering
3. Even in constituencies where the balance is against being close to Trump/MAGA in the general, they can't win a primary by running away from Trump.
I suppose I would have thought that this would have allowed enough political cover to break with him. It is not a culture war issue, they could appeal to the patriotism of their base etc as a reason to reject him.
Patriotism means love of one's country. Their base don't love their country so much as they love Trump.
3. Even in constituencies where the balance is against being close to Trump/MAGA in the general, they can't win a primary by running away from Trump.
Which provides the basis of the most recent attack by Trump on Mitch McConnell (a pox on them both). McConnell essentially expressed concern that because the primaries generally resulted in the Trumpiest candidates getting nominated, the GOP has nominated Republicans likely to have a harder time getting elected to the Senate in swing states. Trump, of course, didn’t like that.
The Republican party started becoming more Conservative after the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Nixon developed a Southern Strategy that appealed to the likes of the KKK and the Gun Lobby, the Christian Nationalists, and the anti-abortion people. Over the past few years as the white population started to realize it was going to eventually be a minority (estimated in 2040). In addition, there were Court decisions allowing for equal marriage and the LBGTQA? movement. As time has gone on the Republican tent has become more narrow.
Look at Lindsey Graham. When Trump first announce he was going to run, Graham puh-puhed the idea of Trump as President. But he soon discovered many of his voters were part of the MAGA crowd. He realized if he wanted to be re-elected he would have to kow-tow to Trump. Many Republican Congresspeople found themselves in the same bind.
Now, though, those same people have found they are now mired in quicksand. They may also be charged with co=conspiracy on several violations. I am thinking this new DoJ filing just may be the excuse they are looking for to extricate themselves from the Trump web.
Of note, is how quiet Trump has become in the last 24 hours. He was expected to announce another run at the presidency this weekend, but that has been cancelled. Could it be Trump tower is now crumbing?
Allegedly Truth Social owes millions in hosting fees and is only staying afloat due to the largesse of its (avowedly right wing) hosting service.
If he's serious about running again, wouldn't it be worth his while to pay the bill personally, just to stop the rumours?
(If he can raise the cash!)
Trump didn't get where he is today by paying his bills. I'm sure right now he's looking for some way to grift his acolytes into coughing up to pay for it.
Which provides the basis of the most recent attack by Trump on Mitch McConnell (a pox on them both). McConnell essentially expressed concern that because the primaries generally resulted in the Trumpiest candidates getting nominated, the GOP has nominated Republicans likely to have a harder time getting elected to the Senate in swing states. Trump, of course, didn’t like that.
The other complaint that McConnell and other Republicans concerned about the mid-terms have about Trump is that he has raised a lot of money in the form of donations to his PAC. What little he's spent has mostly been towards his own legal fees. Of course the pool of Republican donors, particularly Republican small-ticket donors, is finite. This means that a dollar going into one of Trump's PACs is a dollar that's not going towards the campaign of anyone who's running for office in 2022. (This is another reason why most non-incumbent presidential candidates don't announce their campaigns before the mid-terms are over.)
Just want to put that here. There are lots of reasons I could be wrong but for the first time it is a statement I'm prepared to make as a probability, rather than just a possibility.
Just want to put that here. There are lots of reasons I could be wrong but for the first time it is a statement I'm prepared to make as a probability, rather than just a possibility.
Just want to put that here. There are lots of reasons I could be wrong but for the first time it is a statement I'm prepared to make as a probability, rather than just a possibility.
Now we’ve got a bunch of classified documents folders with the docs missing from them.
I am not so much concerned about empty classified folders unless we find evidence of the missing material in the hands of the wrong people. Given the chaotic way the White House was cleared at the end of the Trump regime, it could be the material got dumped at the WH, or in transit. But, maybe it will give the FBI more reason to do yet another search of Trump's premises.
I am not so much concerned about empty classified folders unless we find evidence of the missing material in the hands of the wrong people. Given the chaotic way the White House was cleared at the end of the Trump regime, it could be the material got dumped at the WH, or in transit. But, maybe it will give the FBI more reason to do yet another search of Trump's premises.
I'm pretty sure that "eh, it's probably okay" is the exact opposite of the way the intelligence community reacts to the possibility that sensitive information has gone missing. The usual reaction to a potential compromise of information is to treat that information as compromised until and unless you can prove otherwise.
As private individuals we don't have an obligation to react to this the same was as the American intelligence community, but we should bear in mind how this is likely to be treated by them.
I am not so much concerned about empty classified folders unless we find evidence of the missing material in the hands of the wrong people. Given the chaotic way the White House was cleared at the end of the Trump regime, it could be the material got dumped at the WH, or in transit. But, maybe it will give the FBI more reason to do yet another search of Trump's premises.
I'm pretty sure that "eh, it's probably okay" is the exact opposite of the way the intelligence community reacts to the possibility that sensitive information has gone missing. The usual reaction to a potential compromise of information is to treat that information as compromised until and unless you can prove otherwise.
As private individuals we don't have an obligation to react to this the same was as the American intelligence community, but we should bear in mind how this is likely to be treated by them.
Now that you put it that way, it is probably not okay.
Well if he has sold then then that is treason. Would his followers really follow him then. What I understand of patriotism in the US his followers must react badly to that
Well if he has sold then then that is treason. Would his followers really follow him then. What I understand of patriotism in the US his followers must react badly to that
Some are so far through the looking glass they'll just claim that he declassified them so he can do what he wants with them, and simultaneously claim it never happened and the deep state framed him, and that is just demonstrates what a savvy businessman he is.
The Mar-a-Lago search seems to have focused the minds of a few Trump associates.
Within a week of the FBI search of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows handed over texts and emails to the National Archives that he had not previously turned over from his time in the administration, sources familiar with the matter tell CNN.
Meadows' submission to the Archives was part of a request for all electronic communications covered under the Presidential Records Act. The Archives had become aware earlier this year it did not have everything from Meadows after seeing what he had turned over to the House select committee investigating January 6, 2021. Details of Meadows' submissions to the Archives and the engagement between the two sides have not been previously reported.
"It could be a coincidence, but within a week of the August 8 search on Mar-a-Lago, much more started coming in," one source familiar with the discussions said.
The new complaint from Trump? He is now complaining the photo of all the classified documents spread out on his carpet made him look like a slob. No, Donald, being morbidly obese with your long necktie and crumpled shirts had already done that.
Reports are now coming out that some of the secret documents seized at Mar a Lago allegedly showed a foreign government's nuclear and military capabilities. As pointed out previously: if the unknown foreign country could get their hands on that material, they could reverse engineer the report and figure out supposedly relayed the information to the US,
Comments
There was also Trump's family separation policy and his Muslim ban. Some here may regard these as cruel policies that harmed the long-term interests of the United States, but they were examples of Trump successfully enacting his preferred policies on other nations and the citizens thereof.
I haven't had time to read through the whole thing myself, but it sounds like Trump was suspected of having some very sensitive stuff (signal intelligence, human intelligence sources, etc.) that he had no good reason to need.
Indeed. They can probably be summarised as one group though; a potential financial value to Trump.
This is all a little bit speculative
https://twitter.com/highbrow_nobrow/status/1563549407299383304?t=uyKI1N6Jld2A_mtJkMwH_w&s=19
But plausible and really scary.
AFZ
To properly interpret that time-line, I think we need to know how common it is for the CIA to lose informants. If, for the sake of argument, it's not uncommon for the CIA to lose dozens of informants over a period exceeding two years, the time-line might not be that significant.
I think we can apply Ockham's razor here. If Donald Trump kept a bunch of highly sensitive government documents in defiance of the law he was doing so because he derived some benefit from it. The most obvious explanation is that he was selling them. Sure, that's inference and not "proof beyond a reasonable doubt", but since none of us is a judicial system we can use our wits to reason.
I mean, what would our assumptions be in the case of any other recently fired, disgruntled former government worker who was caught with valuable and sensitive government property they had no right to?
Those are valid points, but that's not the argument the tweeter was making. He was infering espionage on Trump's part simply based on the number of informants who had been nabbed over a two-year period. In order to assess the validity of THAT argument, we'd need to know whether that was an unusual tally.
Indeed. It is speculative.
No doubt there is a mortality rate for informants. Both hostile governments and non-government groups of interest (I.e. terrorists, drug-trafficers etc.) are known to extract horrible retribution. However, an unusually high number of informants lost tends to correlate with a security breach. Or, to be exact, analysts who are basically trained and paid to be paranoid will no doubt start with the assumption that a leak occurred and work from there. Primarily by seeing if there's a common link between the losses - I.e. someone with information on most/all of the individuals lost.
What is known:
1. Trump has significant money issues, despite what he claims
2. Trump has links to Russia
3. Trump had in his possession, in an unsecure location lots of very sensitive documents he should not have had which included information on confidential informants at the time of a Spike in CIs being captured
I'm not an intelligence analyst but I do know that's the kind of chain of facts they begin with.
Watch this space is what I'm saying.
AFZ
But see, that's what I'm wondering about. WAS there a spike in the capture of informants?
AFZ
The CIA is notoriously secretive about such matters. If this found its way into the New York Times that indicates an unusual set of circumstances by itself.
If that were the case you wouldn't expect the CIA to have sent that memo to all of its locations, just the ones in Afghanistan and surrounding countries. From The Week, which is not paywalled like the NYT is.
On the one hand we don't want to be jumping to conclusions, but we also want to avoid reflexively jumping away from conclusions.
This is getting rather speculative. Just a reminder to everyone that the Ship's budget doesn't run to defending a libel case.
Please take care not to post anything that might result in us getting sued.
Thanks
Hostly beret off
la vie en rouge, Purgatory host
Trump needs to face justice for something. I don't think it matters which of his alleged crimes, he's tried for.
American democracy is almost certainly lost if he isn't held accountable.
Whilst I would argue a lot about the 'freedom' of the USA, about American exceptionalism etc., the collapse of US democracy would be hugely destabilising to the rest of the world. This matters to all of us.
AFZ
Just want to put that here. There are lots of reasons I could be wrong but for the first time it is a statement I'm prepared to make as a probability, rather than just a possibility.
AFZ
Document here [PDF].
For those who want a tweet-thread length analysis of the filing instead of thirty-six pages of legal reasoning, here you go. They also note that at no time during the lengthy negotiation with NARA over possession of the documents did Trump's legal team argue that the documents belonged to him, so the DoJ is arguing that it's too late to argue that fallacious point now.
Letting go of the MAGA tiger is a lot harder than grabbing it in the first place.
Why? Seriously, why, after all this time, does Republican Congress members carrying water for Trump's most egregious offenses surprise anyone at this point? One of the obvious conclusions is that they support Trump and everything he stands for. Why don't fascists think The Leader is answerable to the law? To ask the question is to answer it!
One of the insidious things about fascism (yeah, I said it) is its incremental nature.
Republicans in Congress had ample opportunity to break with Trump, from his firing of the FBI director to replace with his hand-picked toady (9 May 2017) through a whole host of other abuses culminating in not one but two impeachments. If they didn't break from Trump at that point why would they now? Everyone who still has a position of power within the Republican Party has it because they have invested their credibility and reputation in the idea that Donald Trump is honorable and trustworthy. Breaking from him now would mean admitting their own complicity and accomplicehood.
It's a political calculation. GOP Members/Senators overall in many locations would be more successful if they ditch Trump but
1. In extreme red areas, this isn't true.
2. Most red areas are even more red due to gerrymandering
3. Even in constituencies where the balance is against being close to Trump/MAGA in the general, they can't win a primary by running away from Trump.
AFZ
Patriotism means love of one's country. Their base don't love their country so much as they love Trump.
Look at Lindsey Graham. When Trump first announce he was going to run, Graham puh-puhed the idea of Trump as President. But he soon discovered many of his voters were part of the MAGA crowd. He realized if he wanted to be re-elected he would have to kow-tow to Trump. Many Republican Congresspeople found themselves in the same bind.
Now, though, those same people have found they are now mired in quicksand. They may also be charged with co=conspiracy on several violations. I am thinking this new DoJ filing just may be the excuse they are looking for to extricate themselves from the Trump web.
Of note, is how quiet Trump has become in the last 24 hours. He was expected to announce another run at the presidency this weekend, but that has been cancelled. Could it be Trump tower is now crumbing?
If he's serious about running again, wouldn't it be worth his while to pay the bill personally, just to stop the rumours?
(If he can raise the cash!)
Trump didn't get where he is today by paying his bills. I'm sure right now he's looking for some way to grift his acolytes into coughing up to pay for it.
The other complaint that McConnell and other Republicans concerned about the mid-terms have about Trump is that he has raised a lot of money in the form of donations to his PAC. What little he's spent has mostly been towards his own legal fees. Of course the pool of Republican donors, particularly Republican small-ticket donors, is finite. This means that a dollar going into one of Trump's PACs is a dollar that's not going towards the campaign of anyone who's running for office in 2022. (This is another reason why most non-incumbent presidential candidates don't announce their campaigns before the mid-terms are over.)
LOL! How much money you got on that?
How much you prepared to offer?
I like a forlorn hope : )
For the life of me, I do not understand how he still has followers, much less why.
I am not so much concerned about empty classified folders unless we find evidence of the missing material in the hands of the wrong people. Given the chaotic way the White House was cleared at the end of the Trump regime, it could be the material got dumped at the WH, or in transit. But, maybe it will give the FBI more reason to do yet another search of Trump's premises.
I'm pretty sure that "eh, it's probably okay" is the exact opposite of the way the intelligence community reacts to the possibility that sensitive information has gone missing. The usual reaction to a potential compromise of information is to treat that information as compromised until and unless you can prove otherwise.
As private individuals we don't have an obligation to react to this the same was as the American intelligence community, but we should bear in mind how this is likely to be treated by them.
And that you never will unless they're as incompetent as he is.
Now that you put it that way, it is probably not okay.
Some are so far through the looking glass they'll just claim that he declassified them so he can do what he wants with them, and simultaneously claim it never happened and the deep state framed him, and that is just demonstrates what a savvy businessman he is.