Former President Donald Trump faces the prospect of multiple, separate criminal trials in 2024, as he seeks the GOP presidential nomination.
“Of course they did! They may have been the boxes etc. that were openly and plainly brought from the White House, as is my right under the Presidential Records Act,” Trump posted on social media.
Because they are bigots. They genuinely want to hurt "those people". They are afraid of being called out on their bigotry, so like to see people in power act the same way. Because they're bigoted themselves, they see bigotry in leaders as "telling it like it is".
Brain disease? At the very least a broken Bullshit detector.
In all seriousness I contribute it to a lack of critical thinking skills. Which I guess could be argued is a “broken bullshit detector” so maybe I wasn’t joking after all.
Even if he did have a right to take secret documents from the White House, he has a clear duty to protect their secrecy. This is an admission of guilt.
The President is not god, he has a duty to serve the people and the nation.
i was under the impression he had to sign paperwork stating he was responsible for the documents specifically, and legally. you dont just get to grab secret crap without process.
When he was within his term of office then as POTUS he could reveal classified information to anybody if he felt it was appropriate. Previous presidents have done precisely this, disclosing classified information during state of the union addresses, etc. The important thing to keep in mind here is that the material actually remains classified. Just because the POTUS mentioned something classified it doesn’t mean everybody in the White House, military, CIA, etc. are now free to talk about it as well.
At the same time he could declassify specific material, typically via an executive order. The key is that this is a formal process with a paper trail that lets all the appropriate governmental agencies, departments, etc know precisely what is being declassified. He can’t just verbally say something like “this box of papers is now declassified”. At the very least there would need to be a printed list of exactly what is in the box.
The minute Trump left office he lost the ability to perform both these things. At that point he’s basically considered a civilian with a security clearance. He can have access to appropriate classified material, but he’s not at liberty to disclose any of it.
You know, the fun part of this all is, in a way, all the presidency is is its norms and traditions. Trump flaunted all of them. He didn't understand they were in place to protect him. It should come as no surprise when he isn't treated like a former president because he never acted like a president in the first place.
Right? He wants all the unofficial but traditional perks and benefits of being a president without being bound by all the traditional obligations and expectations of the office.
It's like he thinks being rich gives him an exception to all this shit, but he's to stupid to realize that MOST American Presidents are rich, many of them more than he'll ever be.
That's Trump's whole life. He thinks being rich cures him of rules and obligations, but then he wants into "high society" because of the access and authority that it provides. But that price of admission to that circle isn't JUST about being rich, it's about following the very rules that Trump doesn't feel bound by.
It's why the only thing he can think to do with the office of the president is trying to find cool stuff to show people to make people fonally like him.
Which by the way the US has caught spies trying to get in to this exact property, plus the Australian billionaire who wasn't a spy but repeated state secrets from Trump to tons of people.
I don't think linking classified documents, at the level a president had, falls into regular schmucks.
Throw him into a military prison. While he won't suffer as much as he would under the general population, it certainly wouldn't be a "witch hunt" compared to when inmate 0792348 shanks him because he can't fathom a social structure where he isn't "superior."
Then, when the trial completes, with a guilty verdict, throw him in with gen pop. Preferably in a predominately black cell block in NY. A lot of bad blood there for a vocally racist piece of shit who directly acted against the black community over decades.