Read More HERE: https://www.mediaite.com/weird/alex-j…
“Jones added the globalists, whom he clarified are “mid-level,” have tricked many Americans into thinking there will merely be a “leftist revolution.” In fact, Jones prophesied, there will be a “civil war.”
What the hell is going on! This is lawful gun ownership when a 7 year old can get ahold of and go to school with 2 handguns and ammo? Why did the kid feel he should take them to school. What kind of storage did the parents have for the guns? Hugs
A 7-year-old boy at a Cochise County school was discovered with two guns and ammunition in his backpack on Monday, according to the Cochise County Sheriff’s Office.
Deputies arrived and met with school officials and the second-grade student, who they learned was discovered with a gun and ammunition inside of his backpack. After searching his backpack, they found a second handgun.
The Cochise County Sheriff’s Office did not identify the student nor specify what school the incident occurred at.
The parents of the student were contacted, and a “juvenile referral” was completed for charges of misconduct with a weapon and a minor in possession of a firearm.
Similar incidents have taken place in Arizona this year. On Thursday, a gun was confiscated from a fourth-grade student attending Legacy Traditional School in Queen Creek.
And in March, a 15-year-old teenager was arrested after he brought a gun to Verrado High School and had it confiscated by officials.
Pure hate for hate’s sake. Promising further harm when informed that your actions lead to death threats and threats of bombing of hospitals along with the violent attacks on drag queen events such as the drag queen story hours. These people seem to forget that many comedians in the past often dressed up as women. But the libsoftiktok are insidious in spreading their propaganda. Just the name makes you think they are liberals when they are the most rabid of the maga cult. Then the stuff they spout is the most vile and out right lies that have been frequently debunked but they push them out as fact to rile up their gang of thugs followers. Like most of the rabid right and other LGBTQ+ haters they have to make up things like this fake pamphlet, they have to selectively edit the video to change the meaning, and they pretend that things are being done to kids that are not at all true. Hugs
An image of the fake pro-pedophile pamphlet Photo: Twitter screenshotA video posted this month by the far-right anti-LGBTQ Libs of TikTok Twitter account has since spread among anti-LGBTQ Russian and European disinformation networks, effectively furthering the anti-queer agenda of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The account’s founder has pledged to do even more to threaten LGBTQ lives in the future.
On August 10, Chaya Raichik, who goes by LibsofTikTok on social media, posted a video of a therapist who works with jailed sex offenders. In the video, the therapist announces their pronouns and advises people to use the term “minor-attracted persons” (MAPs) rather than “pedophiles.” They said the latter term has “moved from being a diagnostic label to being a judgmental, hurtful insult that we hurl at people in order to harm them or slander them.”
Indeed, the Libs of TikTok account itself has regularly accused pro-LGBTQ teachers of being “groomers” and has called the youth anti-suicide organization The Trevor Project a “grooming organization.” Grooming is a term for gaining the trust of a child so you can rape them. The term has since become a common anti-LGBTQ slur. Gay men were frequently accused of being pedophiles by the religious right although that accusation had faded over the years.
The therapist also said that MAPs are among the most vilified people in society, and added that most of them don’t choose their attraction to underage people. The therapist said that MAPs shouldn’t be solely defined by that one aspect of themselves.
Raichik only posted the first two minutes of the therapist’s presentation, which made it seem like they were advocating for people to be nicer to child sex abusers. However, Vice News reported that, in the full archived version of the video, the therapist unmistakably condemns such crimes. The therapist has since gone into hiding after Raichik posted the video.
After Raichik posted it, “major Russian disinformation networks on Telegram, some with hundreds of thousands of followers, began sharing it” alongside images of a fake leaflet that had gone viral on Russia’s social network Vkontakte.
The fake leaflet, which local St. Petersburg news organizations claimed had been found in the U.K. by a Russian tourist, was entitled, “What to do if a stranger comes up to you on the street.” It advised children to stay silent if a stranger approached them in public, not to call them a “pedophile,” and to invite the strangers back to their homes.
Polish fact-checkers questioned the leaflet’s authenticity, noting that its original social media sharer neither disclosed any details about where the leaflet was found nor of the Russian tourist who allegedly found it. The leaflet uses the American-English spelling of “pedophile” (not the British-English “paedophile”), it contains no logos or credits atrributing its creator, and only four photos of the brochure exist with no other copies being found.
On August 15, the Russian Tsargrad TV channel published an article titled “British Children Learn to Invite Pedophiles Home.” The channel’s editor-in-chief was the Kremlin’s chief ideologist, Alexander Dugin, who helped promote Putin’s infamous law against “gay propaganda” as a way to “protect children.”
Tsargrad TV’s article said the leaflet was evidence of Western culture’s “moral decay,” and added, “It is worth noting that the promotion of the legalization of pedophilia in the West is not an isolated incident, but a deliberate vector of the hard work of perverted lobbyists. We in Russia do not need such ‘values’ — violence against our children is categorically unacceptable.”
Russian and European social media users combined mentions of Raichik’s video along with news of the leaflet to create an emotional argument against LGBTQ-inclusive “groomers.” One message, shared on a Telegram channel with 180,000 followers posted the video and leaflet images and declared, “This is definitely not a fake.”
Similar posts also surfaced on a Russian Telegram channel with 400,000 subscribers.
Libs of Tik Tok received a seven-day no-posting suspension from Twitter after falsely claiming that the Children’s National Hospital in Washington D.C. was performing hysterectomies on transgender children — her claim led to harassment, bombing and death threats against hospital workers. Libs of TikTok has also been suspended multiple times on multiple platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, Media Matters reported.
Despite the slap on the wrists, Raichik recently pledged on her Substack newsletter to do even more to endanger hospitals that provide gender-affirming care to trans youth.
“Any sane person realizes that mutilating children for gender affirmation is barbaric,” she wrote, pushing the lie that gender-affirming surgeries are performed on children. They are not.
“Any doctor performing these surgeries should have their license revoked. They belong in prison,” she continued. “But alas, they are celebrated while Twitter and the media are running cover for them. Getting suspended by Twitter has only made me realize my biggest mistake. I only called one hospital I should have called dozens because I promise you Children’s National is not the only one. I promise to learn from my mistake and uncover more of what our Big Tech overlords don’t want us to know. I will do better in the future.”
Substack, a digital newsletter platform, has made millions from anti-vaccine movement influencers and anti-LGBTQ figures, according to the Center for Countering Digital Hate. The platform has become popular for “hate actors,” according to the Center for Countering Digital Hate CEO Imran Ahmed. Ahmed says the platform’s leaders regularly fail to enforce its own safety rules and guidelines under the guise of “not censoring writers.”
There’s proof that Libs of TikTok’s posts result in real-life threats against queer people and their allies. Raichik’s posts on all-ages drag shows have compelled Proud Boys and other forces to angrily confront LGBTQ parents, their children, allies, and drag performers in public, taking their pictures, and sharing their identities on social media.
CNN reports:
US government documents were “likely concealed and removed” from a storage room at Mar-a-Lago as part of an effort to “obstruct” the FBI’s investigation into former President Donald Trump’s potential mishandling of classified materials, the Justice Department said in a blockbuster court filing Tuesday night.
More than 320 classified documents have now been recovered from Mar-a-Lago, the Justice Department said, including more than 100 in the FBI search earlier this month.
Tuesday’s filing represents the Justice Department’s strongest case to date that Trump concealed classified material he was keeping at Mar-a-Lago in an attempt to obstruct the FBI’s investigation into the potential mishandling of classified material.
Read the full article.
What’s hilarious is that none of this shit would likely be prosecuted had he not raised hell about the “raid” and that nothing that came to.light in this filing would be publicly available information had he not pulled the “Special Master” stunt. Keep shooting your own foot, Shitgibbon…
Dwight Williamson • an hour ago • edited
Any other person any where any time who had the record of DJT would have been indicted, imprisoned, or shot! Let’s go Brandon ♥️
Concealment shows intent to steal.
320 Classified documents? It’s going to be hard to claim that so many just got mixed in with personal stuff as Trump & Co. packed up to go back to Mar-a-Lago. I suspect they’ll try, but really? He needs to spend time in prison, like any other human who stole classified documents. So do his lawyers.
The Trump judge will rule in his favor and the DOJ will appeal.
Who knows how many documents remain hidden & unrecovered?
This would explain his absolute shit-fit yesterday, and him begging to return to the ‘sanctuary’ of the Oval Office.
Read more HERE: https://www.mediaite.com/trump/trump-…
“Senator Lindsey Graham warned Fox News host Trey Gowdy and anyone who was watching that if former President Donald Trump gets arrested for having classified documents in Mar-a-Lago, there will be riots. Video of Graham’s ostensible threat of violence by Trump’s base was nearly immediately pulled from Fox News and then shared by Trump himself on his social media platform TruthSocial.
Gee, I wonder what the message is here?
Graham appeared on Sunday Night in America to discuss, among other things, a recent video of Mark Zuckerberg revealing that thee FBI had warned Facebook of a potential ‘Russian propaganda’ dump in the weeks before the 2020 elections, also just several days before the Hunter Biden laptop story emerged.
Graham then pivoted from that story and noted, “most Republicans, including me, believe when it comes to Trump, there is no law; it is all about getting him.”
“There is a double standard when it comes to Trump,” Graham continued, saying that regarding the Hunter Biden laptop, the FBI had “weighed in to make sure the story didn’t break before the 2020 election.” Whistleblowers claimed they were “told to slow down and back off Hunter Biden.”
Read more HERE: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2…
“Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis made a spectacle out of the round of arrests made by his election police force earlier this month, jailing 20 people on charges of voter fraud and promising more prosecutions to come. At least one target was dragged to jail in his underwear by a SWAT team at 6 a.m. But it turns out that the individuals ensnared in DeSantis’ dragnet had no idea that they could not lawfully vote. The governor’s own appointees flubbed their legal duty to stop them from registering. And because of their sloppy errors, all 20 defendants may well be acquitted of crimes they did not intend to commit.
DeSantis’ misadventure traces back to Amendment 4, the ballot initiative that was supposed to restore voting rights to most people who had completed sentences for felony convictions. (Those convicted of murder and sex offenses were excluded.) Floridians overwhelmingly approved the constitutional amendment in 2018. Yet DeSantis and his fellow Republicans promptly sabotaged the amendment by enacting an unnavigable, incomprehensible system for individuals who wished to regain their right to vote. The state refused to establish a coherent process for people convicted of felonies to learn they are eligible to cast a ballot. Many Floridians with disqualifying convictions, including the defendants arrested this month, are therefore unaware that amendment 4 does not apply to them.
This is the damage that the rabid right wing rhetoric causes. Attacks on hospitals caring for kids. The right wing is working overtime to spread lies and misinformation about trans and other LGBTQ+ children getting the maga thug base so worked up they attack / abuse the LGBTQ+ over things that are not happening. This rhetoric gets repeated by people using the right wing sources yet claim not to be right wing? But you don’t see the misinformation posted in mainstream media, just in the rabid right media arm of the republican party. These toxic bomb throwers do not care about the truth which is the major medical group in the US promote and support with affirmative care for trans kids. Here is a short list from https://transhealthproject.org/resources/medical-organization-statements/
Medical Organization Statements
Leading medical groups recognize the medical necessity of treatments for gender dysphoria and endorse such treatments. Most of these groups have also explicitly rejected insurance exclusions for transgender-related care.
- American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
- American Academy of Dermatology
- American Academy of Family Physicians
- American Academy of Nursing
- American Academy of Pediatrics
- American Academy of Physician Assistants
- American College Health Association
- American College of Nurse-Midwives
- American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
- American College of Physicians
- American Counseling Association
- American Heart Association
- American Medical Association
- American Medical Student Association
- American Nurses Association
- American Osteopathic Association
- American Psychiatric Association
- American Psychological Association
- American Public Health Association
- American Society of Plastic Surgeons
- Endocrine Society
- GLMA: Health Professionals Advancing LGBTQ Equality
- National Association of Nurse Practitioners in Women’s Health
- National Association of Social Workers
- National Commission on Correctional Health Care
- Pediatric Endocrine Society
- Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine
- World Medical Association
- World Professional Association for Transgender Health
Here are some more links that cover this topic as well. https://www.glaad.org/blog/medical-association-statements-supporting-trans-youth-healthcare-and-against-discriminatory or https://www.aclu.org/news/lgbtq-rights/doctors-agree-gender-affirming-care-is-life-saving-care or https://publications.aap.org/aapnews/news/19021/AAP-continues-to-support-care-of-transgender?autologincheck=redirected?nfToken=00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
As you can see, I am tired of the lies that are now increasing the threats and abuse of the LGBTQ+ and their supporters by maga thugs using these lies as a reason to attack. Just like these same thugs went after school boards and Dr Fauci along with any organization promoting medically approved safe practices for Covid. The right wing media kept promoting / pushing fringe doctors that were making lies, misinformation, and using misdirection to achieve their goal of making a political issue out of a medical one. The right wing media is the media arm of the republican party and they do not care how much what they lie about hurts people, as they say it is OK as long as they win. I am done with it. Learn the facts. don’t let the fringe groups lie to you. Hugs
Photo: ShutterstockChildren’s National Hospital in Washington D.C. has been targeted with bomb and death threats after the far-right anti-LGBTQ Twitter account Libs of TikTok falsely claimed that the hospital was performing hysterectomies (the removal of the uterus, cervix, fallopian tubes, and sometimes ovaries) on transgender children.
The post may have caused the Twitter access for Libs of TikTok to be suspended, The Daily Dot reported, as it hasn’t tweeted since last Friday.
Last Friday, Libs of TikTok’s founder Chaya Raichik posted an audio recording of her discussion with hospital telephone operators who said that “a 16-year-old trans boy would be eligible for a hysterectomy at the hospital’s gender development clinic,” The Washington Post reported.
One operator told Raichik that a 16-year-old child would be “in the clear” to receive the operation. A second operator told her that “all different type[s] of age groups” come in for the operation and that “kids” younger than 16 have come in for the procedure.
Right-wing media outlets like Fox News and The Daily Caller shared articles about the recording.
The hospital has since said that the telephone operators provided incorrect information. The World Professional Association for Transgender Health has said that hysterectomies shouldn’t be performed on minors.
“None of the people who were secretly recorded by this activist group deliver care to our patients,” hospital spokeswoman Ariana Ahmadi Perez said. “We do not and have never performed gender-affirming hysterectomies for anyone under the age of 18.”
However, the Twitter account’s claim was bolstered by the hospital’s website which stated, before Thursday, that gender-affirming hysterectomy was available to patients “between the ages of 0-21.” The erroneous statement has since been corrected, Perez told The Post.
This isn’t the first time that Libs of TikTok has directed ire against a hospital’s trans youth clinic.
On August 11, Raichik reposted about 13 tweets and a right-wing “expose” claiming that the Boston Children’s Hospital in Massachusetts was conducting gender-affirming surgery on children as young as two or three years old.
The fact-checking site PolitiFact later debunked the claims, but physicians at the hospitals received so many death threats, harassing calls, and emails that the hospital had to hire extra security and give doctors new guidance on responding to threats.
The hospital’s website says that surgery recipients must be at least 18 years old and have a “persistent, well-documented, gender dysphoria.”
Anti-LGBTQ politicians and activists have falsely claimed that medical providers are giving “irreversible” treatments to trans “children.” However, in reality, young children are only encouraged by medical professionals to continue exploring their gender. Pubescent children are given “puberty blockers” to give them time to stave off further biological changes while they decide on their future course of treatment.
Numerous states have introduced bills seeking to ban gender-affirming care for trans youth even though major U.S. medical associations have said such treatment is essential for the youths’ well-being.
Alabama and Arizona have both passed laws banning gender-affirming care for trans youth. Similar bills remain in committee in the Ohio and New Hampshire legislatures. Similar bills failed to become law in 12 other states.
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2022/08/armed-guards-protect-ages-drag-event-texas-far-right-protesters/
This is what it is coming to. Where LGBTQ+ groups doing a legal event have to have their own armed people to defend against the violent maga brownshirts who are armed and violent. The LGBTQ+ have faced these bullies before and refuse to give in to them now. It will escalate because the maga gang thugs don’t care about the law and feel most police back them up. There is going to be a fire fight, a gun shooting where many people are hurt. Is that going to be what it takes to wake up the people to the dangers of the maga brownshirt enforcer gang thugs! These vigilantes feel it is their right and entitlement to shut down anything they don’t like. They are egged on and riled up by republican politicians that are openly calling the LGBTQ+ groomers, pedophiles, and claiming we are forcing / talking kids into changing sexual orientation and gender. This is why the rhetoric used by the right is so problematic, it gives their more violent member thugs permission to attack the LGBTQ+. Also notice how fast the two tough alpha Porud Boy thugs run to the police claiming to be spit on thinking the police will move against the LGBTQ+ protectors for them. The police lady was having none of that. She told them they were trying to start trouble and shouldn’t have been there. That causes the big tough Proud Boys to whine. Hugs
A counter protestor wears a rainbow while carrying a rifle. Photo: ScreenshotAnti-LGBTQ demonstrators protesting a Sunday drag brunch at Anderson Distillery and Grill in Roanoke, Texas were met by armed counterprotesters carrying rifles. The incident illustrates the growing culture war as rightwingers baselessly accuse drag performers and the queer community of “sexualizing children,” leading to threats of violence and mounting tensions.
The restaurant held a “Barrel Babes Drag Brunch” on August 28. Its advertisement said, “All Ages Welcome!” The brunch was hosted by drag performer Trisha Delish.
News of the event quickly spread on right-wing social media with groups like Texas Family Project and Protect Texas kids both alerting their followers to the event. Both groups regularly post messages against transgender youth and LGBTQ civil rights.
Steven Monacelli, a journalist with Rolling Stone and Texas Observer magazines, posted a tweet with pictures of the protest. Monacelli’s tweet read, “Anti-trans activists are protesting a drag brunch in Roanoke, Texas, but are outnumbered by supporters of the event. I’ve only been here for about five minutes and I’ve already seen quite a few heated exchanges.”
The images he shared showed anti-LGBTQ protesters holding signs that said, “Christ is KING,” “Drag the queens out of town,” “Children cannot consent,” “Stop sexualizing children,” and “Caution: Monkeypox hotspot approx. 50 ft away. Stay back.”
A Reddit user butcher_of_the_world posted an image of a Proud Boy allegedly taken from the protest. In the image, the Proud Boy wears a yellow bandana over his face and sunglasses while holding a baseball bat covered in barbed wire. The Proud Boys have repeatedly harassed and attacked family queer events over the past year.
Proud Boy outside of a Drag Brunch in Roanoke, TX today
A Reddit user named werdmouf posted a nearly two-minute video of the incident which showed the armed counter-protesters standing outside of the venue. One of them carries a queer Pride flag while a bearded man claims that another one of the guards spit on him.
When approached by an interviewer, the man admits that he called the armed guards “F**king pu****s,” and says, “I’m here to support people who don’t indoctrinate and groom little eight-year-old kids.” Republicans have repeatedly claimed that anyone who lets children know that LGBTQ individuals exist is trying to “groom” them for rape.
When a female police officer tries to get the man to stand away from the armed guards, another man wearing an Infowars T-shirt comes over and tells the man that he doesn’t have to listen to the officer. Infowars is a far-right program that peddles conspiracy theories, including Pizzagate, which accused a gay-owned Washington D.C. pizza shop of running a child sex trafficking ring in its non-existent basement.
Another man in the video expresses anger that the armed guards have covered their faces in bandanas and sunglasses. Some Antifa and Proud Boys members hide their faces to avoid having their images taken and identified by police or web users.
Kris Cruz, a producer on the far-right media outlet Blaze TV, wrote via Twitter, “Armed #Antifa showed up in Roanoke, TX to protect the ‘kid friendly’ drag show at this bar. Armed #Antifa escorted attendees to the vehicles. I counted about 9 AR-15s.”
At other drag events, anti-LGBTQ protesters have followed, harassed, and doxed the performers and parents who bring their children to the events.
In response to news of the incident, Texas state Rep. Bryan Slaton (R) wrote “A drag show is no place for a child. I’m working to ban these entirely next session. I look forward to working with @FamilyProjectTX to make this happen.”
Slaton has previously said that he would like to sponsor such legislation. He characterizes kids attending drag shows as tantamount to sexual abuse. “The events of this past weekend were horrifying and show a disturbing trend in which perverted adults are obsessed with sexualizing young children,” he said.
However, Slaton hasn’t yet specified exactly what he means by “drag shows,” how they’d be defined in a bill, or how his bill would avoid violating the Constitution’s protections for free speech.
tRump lawyers are trying to push the idea that presidents and former presidents are above the laws. Laws don’t apply to them. The lawyers also want to use the powers of a current president somehow remain with the former president. The US has only one president at a time, but trumps lawyers want to argue that former presidents retain the powers and protections they had when they were the president. I remember where I heard this before, yes during the Mueller report, but also in Russia where trumps handler Putin made himself and his family legally above any laws, to the point where Putin / his family cannot even be investigated about in any crime in any capacity even as witnesses. They are totally untouchable by the authorities of any kind. Monkey see, monkey try to do. Hugs
But many experts questions in any powers remain after a presidency ends.A newly unsealed FBI document about the investigation at Mar-a-Lago not only offers new details about the probe but also reveals clues about the arguments former President Donald Trump’s legal team intends to make.
A May 25 letter from one of his lawyers, attached as an exhibit to the search affidavit, advances a broad view of presidential power, asserting that the commander-in-chief has absolute authority to declassify whatever he wants — and also that the “primary” law governing the handling of U.S. classified information simply doesn’t apply to the president himself.
The arguments weren’t persuasive enough to the Justice Department to prevent an FBI search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate this month, and the affidavit in any event makes clear that investigators are focused on more recent activity — long after Trump left the White House and lost the legal authorities that came with it. Even so, the letter suggests that a defense strategy anchored around presidential powers, a strategy employed during special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation when Trump actually was President, may again be in play as the probe proceeds.
It’s perhaps not surprising that Trump’s legal team might look for ways to distinguish a former President from other citizens given the penalties imposed over the years for mishandling handling government secrets, including a nine-year prison sentence issued to a former National Security Agency contractor who stored two decades’ worth of classified documents at his Maryland home.
But many legal experts are dubious that claims of such presidential power will hold weight.
“When someone is no longer President, they’re no longer President. That’s the reality of the matter,” said Oona Hathaway, a Yale Law School professor and former lawyer in the Defense Department’s general counsel’s office. “When you’ve left office, you’ve left office. You can’t proclaim yourself to not be subject to the laws that apply to everyone else.”
It’s not clear from the affidavit whether Trump or anyone might face charges over the presence of classified records at Mar-a-Lago — 19 months after he became a private citizen — and FBI officials are investigating who removed the records from the White House to the Florida estate and who is responsible for retaining them in an unauthorized location.
The FBI recovered 11 sets of classified records during the Aug. 8 search, and the affidavit made public Friday said 184 documents with classified markings also were found in 15 boxes removed in January. The Justice Department, responding to a Trump team request for a legal special master to sort through the materials, said Monday that officials had completed their own review of potentially privileged documents.
No matter the outcome of that latest issue, the affidavit makes clear that investigators are focused on potential violations of three felony statutes, including an Espionage Act provision that criminalizes the willful retention or transmission of national defense information.
Another law punishable by up to three years in prison makes it a crime to willfully remove, conceal or mutilate government records. And a third law, carrying up to 20 years imprisonment, covers the destruction, alteration or falsification of records in federal investigations.
The Espionage Act statute regarding retention of national defense information has figured in multiple prosecutions. Past investigations have produced disparate results that make it hard to forecast the outcome in the Trump probe. But there have been convictions.
Harold Martin, the ex-NSA contractor, pleaded guilty in 2019 to storing troves of classified information inside his home, car and storage shed, including handwritten notes describing the NSA’s classified computer infrastructure.
Which is why the Trump legal team may look to play up his status as a former President.
When it comes to handling government secrets, there are indeed some differences that could possibly be considered: Presidents, for instance, don’t have to pass background checks to obtain classified information, they’re not granted security clearances to access intelligence and they’re not formally “read out” on their responsibilities to safeguard secrets when they leave leave office.
“There’s no intelligence community directive that says how presidents should or shouldn’t be briefed on the materials,” said Larry Pfeiffer, a former CIA officer and senior director of the White House Situation Room. “We’ve never had to worry about it before.”
The May 25 letter from Trump attorney M. Evan Corcoran to Jay Bratt, the head of the Justice Department’s counterintelligence section, describes Trump as the leader of the Republican Party and makes multiple references to him as former president.
It notes that a President has the absolute authority to declassify documents, though it doesn’t actually say — as Trump has asserted — that he did so with the records seized from his home. It also says the “primary” law criminalizing the mishandling of classified information does not apply to the president and instead covers subordinate employees and officers.
The statute the letter cites, though, is not among the three that the search warrant lists as being part of the investigation. And the Espionage Act law at issue concerns “national defense” information rather than “classified,” suggesting it may be irrelevant whether the records were declassified or not.
Corcoran did not return messages seeking comment Monday.
It’s possible to “imagine a good faith mistake” or a President taking something sensitive without realizing it or because they needed it for a particular reason, said Chris Edelson, a presidential powers scholar and American University government professor.
But that argument could be complicated by the fact that the documents were not returned earlier in their entirety by Trump to the National Archives and Records Administration and that the FBI came to suspect — correctly — that there was still classified information at the property.
“I think if he had simply returned the documents right away, he’d be in a much stronger position legally,” Edelson said.
Ashley Deeks, a University of Virginia law professor and a former deputy legal adviser to President Joe Biden’s National Security Council, said in an email that the Trump team claims in the letter “seem to be more of a political argument than a legal argument.”
She added, “The president’s defense team seems to be trying to point out the magnitude of proceeding with this case rather than articulating a clear legal defense.”
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