The MAGA-friendly federal judge who keeps siding with Donald Trump in his Mar-a-Lago classified records case has forced prosecutors to make a stark choice: allow jurors to see a huge trove of national secrets or let him go.
U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon’sultimatum Monday night came as a surprise twist in what could have been a simple order; one merely asking federal prosecutors and Trump’s lawyers for proposed jury instructions at the upcoming trial.
But as she has done repeatedly, Cannon used this otherwise innocuous legal step as yet another way to swing the case wildly in favor of the man who appointed her while he was president.
Department of Justice Special Counsel Jack Smith must now choose whether to allow jurors at the upcoming criminal trial to peruse the many classified records found at the former president’s South Florida mansion or give jurors instructions that would effectively order them to acquit him.
Can’t categorize files as personal after you vacate office. Classified files are by law government property and cannot be owned by anyone. Can’t declassify files after leaving office.
This hack needs to be impeached and this trial appealed and the judge replaced posthaste.
“Hey random person! How’s about you read this document and tell me if it sounds Top Secret.”
“Okay, but in your uninformed opinion, is this document one or two levels more secret than those other declassified files?”
Another option for the prosecution is to redact classified info. It doesn’t actually matter what is in the document, just that it’s classified because a former President is disallowed to possess classified material.
For more info: classified documents have extensive
marketsmarkings. The header and footer of every page with material is marked either, Unclassified (if present in docs with higher), CUI, Secret, Top Secret, etc. In addition, the document will have markings for each paragraph on if that particular paragraph or line contains classified material and at what level. So the prosecution could definitely just redact everything above Unclassified and the remainder of the text should paint a fairly clear picture of what the document contains without revealing specific classified details.Of course this treasonous judge would probably interpret as you did because she belongs behind bars not a bench.___
Playing a bit of devil’s advocate.
We have a tendency to over classify things in general. When I was in a TS SCIF, we would mark things S/TS because we were lazy and didn’t want to go through the process to see if something was subject to disclosure.
Assuming, with a great heaping serving of salt, that there is validity to Trump’s claim, I can sort of understand putting to a jury to see if the files that Trump took were in fact classified. I can see him stealing the documents simply because it had a cover sheet and not because it was valuable. While I’m sure that he absolutely took sensitive and classified information, I’m equally sure that there is probably a take out menu or two in those boxes.
The problem is that the run of the mill citizen isn’t equipped to properly classify a document. I don’t know what probative value exists in giving the documents to jurors outside of forcing the prosecution to put them in the public record.
Jurors provide no value beyond the markings even if they are over-classified. I mean I guess you could beat out the security classification guides and a derivative classification course… But even so, the president is only an OCA while in office so the point is kinda moot. I don’t think the specific document content matters, just whether or not updated SCG exists with same content, yeah?
Basically, “this line is referencing this item in the guide, the guide still says classified, ergo this is a spill”.
Im just trying to understand your experience there. So being lazy, documents could be marked S/TS. And then following on to allowing the jurybto see whether they were classified.
This sounds to me you’re suggesting the jury should verify these documents, and assuming some are marked S/TS, come to a decision as to whether it should actually be that classification and not some lower classification allowing more general disclosure?
The markets for these ones were Saudi Arabia, Russia, and maybe China.
Lol. Damn Freud up in my typos.
Face it, you want to fuck classified documents, which are also your mother.
Yo pops, that’s a real nice dong you got there. Sure would be a shame if something were to happen to it.
Judge: ignore any markings on the filed indicating top secret, classified, human intelligence, and make your own decisions on each file!
The government doesn’t really do consequences for conservatives to well.
If Trump is such an imminent threat to democracy, and his game plan is full on fascism, why doesn’t Joe Biden or the democrats simply ban him from running?
The supreme Court has already ruled (deliberately incorrectly) that a candidate cannot be barred from running for federal office unless 2/3 of Congress declares them an insurrectionist.
(The original language of the amendment says that 2/3 of Congress is required to allow a former insurrectionist to hold office, the SC intentionally got it backwards to allow so the treasonous Rs, not just Trump, who participated in 1/6 to avoid consequences.
So what you’re saying is that under our system, fascists are entitled to run for president?
Trump broke every rule on the book - why can’t Joe? The democrat’s weird-ass obsession with precedent, civility, and the sanctity of American politics (that were devised by 30 year old white slave owners) has made them entirely toothless and ill equipped to deal with fascism. I’ll never understand the liberal position that fascists must, at all costs, be allowed to run in elections. Stomp that shit out.
This makes me a bit excited to see a court rule that a sitting president is immune. If that happens (it won’t), I would expect Biden to immediately take full advantage of his newfound powers and publicly announce a dead or alive bounty for a whole slew of right-wing fascists currently holding or running for public office. That particular ruling could really solve this little Nazi problem that’s been developing here in the US.
“Good news, Mr Trump! You’re off the hook since one of those obviously illegal things you did were crimes because you had presidential immunity. Hey, while I have you…”
Technically Trump could be done with a simple majority, if you can get it through the senate.
A couple states did. But Trump also owns half the supreme court and they just ruled the states have to let Trump run.
If Trump is such a threat to democracy, why don’t we do away with democracy to stop him??
Joe Biden was never the candidate who was going to go tough on fascism. In fact only the most stalwart of the progressives would do that.
Also Democrats raised more money during Trumps candidacy and term in office than ever before. Hes a great monster under the bed they can point to. Its the same reason Republicans will never fix the border, even when they have a majority, they need those issues to exist so they can manufacture Fear Uncertainty and Doubt, and use it to keep the power they have.
Biden ran for president like six times and when he won was when his opponent was a literal fascist. It’s factually correct to say that the threat of Trump allows the DNC to run candidates that would otherwise lose elections. I also suspect when Democrats say things like ‘we have to beat Trump at the ballot box’ it’s because they know if Trump was locked up and Haley got the nomination, Biden would have a much lower chance of winning.
Biden would wipe the floor with Haley.
He’s still not beating Trump in swing states, and that’s with the anti Trump Republicans on his side, you live in a fantasy world if you dont realize Biden loses all the center right support he has to Haley if she’s in the general.
The judge was appointed by trump and should be automatically recused from the case.
Recusal, by definition, is to remove oneself. She isn’t going to do that.
and you can’t just handwave classification away. There is a legal process involve.
It’s a Trump appointed judge. I doubt they could even pass an intro to law class.