(01-15-2023 05:11 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(01-14-2023 11:56 PM)tanqtonic Wrote:  

(01-14-2023 11:47 PM)Was SoMs Eagle Wrote:  Except….. Trump had months to copy any documents he wanted. Copies he made would be his and his alone.

Uhhh.... specifically and categorically incorrect as to the sensitive/ classified documents.

Here I am going to agree with Tanq. If there were classified documents, neither Trump nor anyone else could make or retain copies for personal use.

And here I am going to point out that tanq. does not get to claim rhetorical ownership of the more-than obvious (to most) position that Trump might just be guilty.

Two things are true:

1. Donald Trump is a moron and a menace, who is in this latest self-made situation because he was too stupid and lazy to bother with the most basic requirements for handling classified papers - - regardless of how sensitive those withheld may turn out to be.

2. Our Justice Department and FBI are rotten at the core - - more than willing to doctor “302” reports (Strzok), submit false affidavits in support of FISA warrants against U.S. citizens (Comey), lie about their involvement in concocting a raid on the residence of a former president (Garland), and duck out on testimony before Congress on a lie of an important meeting to attend which really turned out to be a taxpayer-paid flight to a family vacation (Wray).

There are some who deny point #1 - - and refuse to see Donald Trump as anything other than an unqualified idiot. The Trump fans are capable of pretending that he is above the law, with the after-the-fact ability to claim declassification powers over whatever he now declares. This is sadly the one (and maybe only) valid point that tanq. makes in this discussion. I am not a classified-papers expert, but I am certain that this is a dangerously false argument. I don’t know how sensitive the Mar-a Lago documents might turn out to be. The fact that Donald Trump has not (yet) been arrested suggests not very. But that does not forgive his flouting of very basic rules.

Tanq., on the other hand, insists on arguing an even more dangerous position. He holds up the falsity of the Trumpist position as a reason why we should all defer like compliant lemmings to the dictates of our deep-state betters. That is downright unAmerican. And it insists that we ignore glaring problems with our Justice Department and FBI and judiciary that are a far greater threat to the functioning of our nation than the idiocy of as former president.

You are a good guy, owl#’s, and obviously have a personal fondness for tanq. I will therefore take it as a given that he likewise is a good guy in person. But what he is arguing for is extremely dangerous. And it needs to be called out for what it is: authoritarian propaganda.