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naraburns  nihil supernum  16d ago (text post)   26868 thread views

U.S. Election (Day?) 2024 Megathread

With apologies to our many friends and posters outside the United States... it's time for another one of these! Culture war thread rules apply, and you are permitted to openly advocate for or against an issue or candidate on the ballot (if you clearly identify which ballot, and can do so without knocking down any strawmen along the way). "Small-scale" questions and answers are also permitted if you refrain from shitposting or being otherwise insulting to others here. Please keep the spirit of the law--this is a discussion forum!--carefully in mind.

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I don't want it stop. Trump might have "started it" in the sense that he saw Hillary committing naked crimes no other person would have gotten away with when it came to mishandling classified information. Like, literally anybody who has ever had a clearance knows you don't systematically exfiltrate your classified work materials home. And most of us had to take additional training after that happened about how no, no matter what you hear in the news, you are not allowed to do that and you can go to jail.

Trumps alleged crimes are more.... creative. Decades old sketchy sex stories, bizarre process crimes with no apparent victim, novel legal theories applied for the first time ever in history. He got nailed on shit you can have reasonable confidence almost every billionaire or politician has probably done, and/or things you are reasonably confident didn't actually happen.

I'd say he has a moral obligation to at least try to jail the corrupt government officials that weaponized the government against him.

So, uh, how’d you feel about Trump’s own handling of classified material?

Different.

There are two things. One, Trump was president, and it's in his (poorly exercised) authority to do as he wishes with classified information. Second, this was not the systematic exfiltration of all his classified work material to an unclassified office. It was lazy, haphazard, stupid exfiltration of some of his work material. Why does this matter? Clinton did it methodically and exclusively in clear violate of the law as secretary of state, with the specific intent of giving FOIA the run around. Trump did it because he got kicked out of the Whitehouse and shit had to go somewhere.

Bonus third reason was that so many Presidents and Vice Presidents from the last 10 years also got caught with some classified information in their unclassified offices.

The president is literally allowed to do whatever he wants with classified material -- this does not apply to the SoS.

OTOH I do believe that FOI law applies to the President, same as any other government employee -- so get back to me when Trump diverts all his comms to a private server where he can delete whatever he thinks will embarrass him later.

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