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@TWS1405
This is completely irrelevant to the point I just made.
And did you have a point of your own?
Trump is an idiot
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@Double_R
Greyparrot understood, because he read it.
Clearly you did not.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
"I think maybe we have learned from the past. We'll see." If history teaches anything , it teaches that nothing is learned from it. I give you the WEF, G7, WHO, UN, as just a few examples. All seek to control the world and every living human being in it.
I would like to add that ever major first world country in the world is funding those organizations to achieve world domination over all people. Learn from history? Ya what a joke that is.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
The circumstantial evidence is overwhelming. Hunter had no skills that were of any value to burisma. Hunter did not speak Ukrainian. The only possible reason to pay Hunter a single dollar much less how much he was paid was his connections. We know from the laptop, emails, and the whistle-blowing partner that Hunter was financially entangled with his father to the point of sharing bank accounts. The "Big guy" has been fingered as Biden and contextual evidence of texts strongly supports this.Biden was the "policy maker" in Ukraine.
I asked you for evidence of a money laundering case, which is what you have been claiming. Yet you seem to have forgotten the most important part... Money. An email suggesting they may have shared a bank account is not evidence of money laundering. Please connect your dots.
You're stubbornly sticking to an absurdity
No, you're stubbornly caricaturing it as an absurdity despite me explaining it's simplicity to you multiple times. And once again, I am not the one alleging to know what this was about. I am merely pointing to an alternative possibility but unlike yours, my position is not based at all on what happened here.
The seizure does not prove that Shokin was actively investigating Burisma at the time Biden engaged in the "quid pro quo". That's the point. That's the only point here.
It is in US interests to not have its foreign policy sold for personal enrichment, it is also in US interests to know when a candidate for public office does things like that.
We don't just investigate things because some guy on Fox news made an allegation. There has to be actual evidence of wrongdoing first, not merely the potential.
I said nothing about "starting over" but a "good job letter" does indicate that there was not at that time an international consensus that Shokin must go.
You absolutely argued that his time was effectively starting over when you pretended that the international community only had 6 months to evaluate his performance despite him being on the job for 10.
And once again, the "good job letter" only spoke of his agenda and ambition, not his results, so the idea that there was some consensus that he was doing a good job is just silly. Once again, look at all of the articles I provided, none of that was written at the time of the letter. Public sentiment regarding public officials isn't set in stone, they change over time based on how people perceive them to be performing in their duties.
The push by the US executive branch to remove Shokin cannot be separated in time with what can only very generously be called international angst against him. Biden was the "policy maker" in Ukraine and it is therefore reasonable to believe that despite what may be written in your civics power point Biden was the US executive branch when it came to Ukraine. As such his personal motivations could very well have steered focus and his orders led to US officials (like ambassadors) pushing a narrative against Shokin.
Once again, you show a remarkable disregard for basic critical thinking in favor of classic conspiracism. You presume, with no evidence nor supporting reason, that various individuals within our government and throughout the world have no idea what's going on and cannot form their own opinion, but instead defer to the ultimate conspirators to tell them what to believe.
You disregard example after example provided to you of displeasure regarding Shokin from within our own government, around the world, and even within Ukraine, but latch onto one letter written months before the time period in question as evidence that outweighs all of it. It's confirmation bias personified.
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@TWS1405
Greyparrot understood, because he read it.Clearly you did not.
I read it in full, I'm wondering if you did.
Again, you're the one who posted it on response to my post, presumably in an attempt to deflect because you know how absurd it is to be even more supportive of republicans in response to their standard bearer being raided by the FBI and in serious legal trouble, so you instead try to change the subject to a perceived double standard that if you actually read the article you posted and gave it some thought would realize is nonsense.
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@Double_R
I'm thinking you are some kind of superhero, who's superpower is patience.
Faced with impenetrable conspiracy armor you fight the good fight, reason and facts just bounce off of course, and yet, you are still right there, firing away. Impressive.
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@Sidewalker
Oh yeah, nothing more admirable than a modern day brownshirt.
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@Double_R
The only part of that article that has any importance is exactly what Grayparrot quoted.
A dweeb at the National Archives has zero authority to get the FBI involved in such an action of raiding former President Trump's residence looking for documents he has no authority to classify one way or the other. Moreover, the two quotes from that article is a matter of settled case law. If Clinton and every president before him and after him can do it, so can Trump. The fact that the raid took place is of grave concern to us all.
So, the only nonsense on display here is coming from YOU!!
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@TWS1405
Fkn edgelord brownshirts should be exposed.
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@Greyparrot
*clap* *clap* *clap*
Agree 100%
Fkn edgelord brownshirts should be exposed.
says the dude with JoJo the Hitler Youth for his profile pic. Demanded and exposed in a single sentence. spot on.
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@TWS1405
Greyparrot's quote, and your article concern specifically the Presidential Records Act, and while that is what some of the media is raising a debacle about, the actual laws cited in the warrant however are
So the questions to me are quite simple:
1. Did Trump have the power to declassify the materials he took?
2. Did he wield those powers to declassify the materials he took in established procedure before leaving the presidency?
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@TWS1405
Moreover, the two quotes from that article is a matter of settled case law. If Clinton and every president before him and after him can do it, so can Trump. The fact that the raid took place is of grave concern to us all.
Well for starters we can begin by using the correct terminology as that does matter because words carry connotations - this was an executed search warrant, not a raid. Trump by getting ahead and telling the world how to think about this has once again succeeded in shaping the narrative for those who want the narrative to be handed to them.
I do agree however, the ESW is of grave concern. What was in those documents and on earth was Trump planning to do with them? And who has already seen them? These are questions the American people should have answers on.
The Clinton example is the usual false equivalence we've come to expect from the political right. They've perfected their strategy; anytime Trump is found committing an egregious act, scower the archives to find any occurrence that has some resemblance and then pretend the two examples are exactly the same. They're not.
The Bill Clinton tapes were made by him and taken from the White House to assist him in writing house memoir. This is arguably a violation of the presidential records act but as the judge noted, the president is the primary source for what qualifies as presidential records. So given that we do not know what is on those tapes, the burden is on those advocating for their seizure to show that possession of them is in fact in violation of the law and that the public interest to attain them outweighs the privacy concerns and political concerns of seizing the possessions of a former president. They failed to meet that burden.
Now contrast that with Trump.
First off, were not even talking about the same law. The concern here is not that he violated the presidential records act, it's that he violated the espionage act. The documents he held in his possession were classified, many of them to the highest degree. Furthermore some of those documents involve nuclear weapons which Trump cannot declassify by himself. Second, the documents were asked to be returned and then eventually subpoenaed, Trump ignored them and his lawyers lied to the FBI telling them all classified documents had been returned.
The search warrant was their last option, all others had been exhausted.
So when looking at these two examples, they are not even close. But as usual, this will spread all over Fox News, OANN, and right wing talk radio uncritically and repeated endlessly. As long as they keep pushing it the base will believe it because the overwhelming majority of them would never dare to read a post as long as this one.
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@dustryder
Even if your premise is true, the fact that it took the FBI 500 plus days to challenge the law shows malicious malfeasance beyond the consideration of the legal precedent TWS cited.
There really is no other explanation for the 500+ day delay.
If the Biden administration really believed Trump had dangerous secrets, if they really thought Donald Trump possessed documents that posed an imminent danger to American national security, then you have to wonder, why did they wait a year and a half to do anything about it? Why did they wait till 90 days before a midterm election, an election that polls suggest they will lose? It doesn't make, oh, wait, actually, it does make sense.
There exists No explanation beyond the obvious one.
Despite superficial appearances, the raid of Mar-a-Lago was not an act of law enforcement. It was the opposite of that. It was an attack on the rule of law. It was a blatant power grab. The raid on Trump's home was exactly what it looks like, a show of force against the opposition leader by the head of state and his personal bodyguards. If this happened in, any other country with a sane and informed public, the FBI raid would immediately be denounced as the act of a dictator.
If Americans heard that Putin ordered a State Police raid on his political rival 90 days before an election, the outrage would be far different. This is the tragedy of living within the comfortable bubble of evil.
Milgram would be amazed to study such a monumental dysfunction of society.
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@Greyparrot
If the Biden administration really believed Trump had dangerous secrets, if they really thought Donald Trump possessed documents that posed an imminent danger to American national security, then you have to wonder, why did they wait a year and a half to do anything about it?
Trump defenders: 'If this was so serious they shouldn't have waited so long, they should have just went right in there and gotten the documents'
Also Trump defenders: 'This is a very serious action to take against a former president, they better have all their I's dotted and T's crossed cause we're going to investigate all of them'
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@Greyparrot
Despite superficial appearances, the raid of Mar-a-Lago was not an act of law enforcement. It was the opposite of that. It was an attack on the rule of law.
They really should have gotten a federal judge to sign off on it first, that would have alleviated the concerns of politicization here.
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@Greyparrot
Also, just out of curiosity... Let's assume, just for the sake of argument, that Trump was in violation of the law by storing top secret documents in an unsecured location posing a threat to national security, and then despite multiple requests to give them back including a subpoeana that Trump ignored and Trump's lawyers lying to the FBI telling them all of the documents were returned when they were not... What should the FBI have done?
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@Greyparrot
That is a fair assertion if it can be shown that there was in fact a 500 day delay.
The issue here is that there was a 500 day delay is pure conjecture without an accurate timeline of events occurring.
For example, to me the most relevant point here would be when was the affidavit from the Trump insider actually submitted and how long it did it take to get processed?
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@dustryder
Greyparrot's quote, and your article concern specifically the Presidential Records Act, and while that is what some of the media is raising a debacle about, the actual laws cited in the warrant however are
So the questions to me are quite simple:
1. Did Trump have the power to declassify the materials he took?
2. Did he wield those powers to declassify the materials he took in established procedure before leaving the presidency?
If you actually read the laws you posted, then you would know that they do not in any way raise the questions you raised, they are non-sequitors.
The laws mention nothing about the classification of the subject information, legally it just doesn't matter whether or not he declassified the documents. None of the three crimes depends on whether the documents are classified, that contention is just a typical Trumpist Pavlovian response.
The list of items that the search warrant approved F.B.I. agents to seize were:
1) “documents with classification markings”
2) “any government and/or presidential records created between Jan. 20, 2017, and Jan. 20, 2021” — the dates of Mr. Trump’s presidency
3) “any evidence of the knowing alteration, destruction or concealment of any government and/or presidential records, or of any documents with classification markings.”
Item 2 and a review of the three laws mentioned in the search warrant make it clear that all this whining about whether or not Trump declassified the documents is irrelevent. Even if he did mysteriously engage in some kind of secret declassification as is contended, the search warrant refers to “documents with classification markings”, if the mysterious declassification didn't remove the "classification markings", then again, the contention is irrelevent regarding the lawful seizure of the documents.
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@Double_R
The circumstantial evidence is overwhelming. Hunter had no skills that were of any value to burisma. Hunter did not speak Ukrainian. The only possible reason to pay Hunter a single dollar much less how much he was paid was his connections. We know from the laptop, emails, and the whistle-blowing partner that Hunter was financially entangled with his father to the point of sharing bank accounts. The "Big guy" has been fingered as Biden and contextual evidence of texts strongly supports this.Biden was the "policy maker" in Ukraine.I asked you for evidence of a money laundering case, which is what you have been claiming. Yet you seem to have forgotten the most important part... Money. An email suggesting they may have shared a bank account is not evidence of money laundering. Please connect your dots.
The money is the money paid to Hunter Biden. It's laundering because it was paid to Hunter Biden in an auditable record as opposed to an unrecorded direct bribe. The reason people Launder money is so their apologists, usually only their lawyer, but in this case politically biased persons such as yourself can tell themselves it was all legitimate.
Now which part of the premises I recounted to you reject? Do you reject that Hunter was paid the money? Do you reject that he was utterly useless in that role? Do you reject that Biden was the policy maker of a very nosy and involved US Ukraine tentacle that could very well help keep burisma out of legal trouble and getting all the permits and favours it needed? Do you reject that Hunter's financial prospects are indistinguishable from his father's?
Or do you simply choose to ignore the obvious shape these dots line up in?
The seizure does not prove that Shokin was actively investigating Burisma at the time Biden engaged in the "quid pro quo". That's the point. That's the only point here.
That's the only point you're acknowledging. The only alternative (which you suggested) required Shokin to be aware of the corruption to be plausible. That implies not only an investigation, but an investigation that is definitely dangerous to Biden's personal interests.
It is in US interests to not have its foreign policy sold for personal enrichment, it is also in US interests to know when a candidate for public office does things like that.We don't just investigate things because some guy on Fox news made an allegation. There has to be actual evidence of wrongdoing first, not merely the potential.
Like Russiagate? Like Vindman feeling "uncomfortable"? There was evidence of wrongdoing, that's why Trump asked for the investigation and that's why wrongdoing was uncovered.
And once again, the "good job letter" only spoke of his agenda and ambition, not his results, so the idea that there was some consensus that he was doing a good job is just silly.
You dismiss only the implications you don't like. I granted that the senate letter indicated displeasure with Shokin, but if I had the level of bias you here display I would have dismissed it as vague and not indicating anything about Shokin's performance. Indeed when I pointed out that he was not mentioned by name you would have none of it. You do not apply rules of evidence equally.
The first letter is as much evidence of "no problem" as the second is of "problem".
The push by the US executive branch to remove Shokin cannot be separated in time with what can only very generously be called international angst against him. Biden was the "policy maker" in Ukraine and it is therefore reasonable to believe that despite what may be written in your civics power point Biden was the US executive branch when it came to Ukraine. As such his personal motivations could very well have steered focus and his orders led to US officials (like ambassadors) pushing a narrative against Shokin.Once again, you show a remarkable disregard for basic critical thinking in favor of classic conspiracism. You presume, with no evidence nor supporting reason, that various individuals within our government and throughout the world have no idea what's going on and cannot form their own opinion, but instead defer to the ultimate conspirators to tell them what to believe.
You display a fundamental misunderstanding of political epistemology. People do indeed rely on others to tell them what to believe, often starting from a group of conspirators that could fit in one room. Once the assertion is out in the wild it is amplified and modified by those with pre-existing reasons to favor it, like a giant game of telephone.
That's where Russiagate started. That's where the holocaust started. That's where Trump's claims of election fraud started.
You disregard example after example provided to you of displeasure regarding Shokin from within our own government, around the world, and even within Ukraine, but latch onto one letter written months before the time period in question as evidence that outweighs all of it. It's confirmation bias personified.
I disregard examples of echos bouncing off the walls. I'm sorry that the world is like this and it's hard to impossible to figure out the truth sometimes, but it is the way it is.
It would be just as dishonest to claim "everyone wanted Hunter investigated", millions do now; but whether it is a legitimate desire or not it did not come from them it came from a few people, through Giuliani, through Trump.
Trump was not responding to international consensus or public outcry, how do we know? Because the outcry didn't exist before Trump's request.
You do not seem to understand the logical reason for my focus on dates and the relation to the conclusions that can be drawn. I have debated in good faith in expecting that you understood what it was you were trying to prove/show to be probable.
If you are attempting to show that Biden's quid pro quo was not motivated by his personal agenda then you cannot use anything that could be echoes of his agenda to establish a motivation.
You strawman me by implying that I remove all agency from these people who could be playing telephone. They don't need to be stupid. They don't need to be pawns. They don't even have to be wrong, they just need to have relied on information that originated with Biden's actions... and if that can't be ruled out (via timestamp) it is no more evidence of Biden's motivations than existence of "2000 mules" is evidence that Trump's motivations in claiming election fraud were not personal.
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@dustryder
The FBI and Records stated they knew what the contents were 500 days ago. If they didn't know, or had a suspicion that Trump was engaging in nefarious espionage acts, then they could have and should have performed the raid 500 days ago. Even if the wildest fantasies of establishment defenders were 100 percent true, a 500 day delay would prove without any doubt a level of incompetence so high in the FBI as to consider the FBI itself an existential threat to the country for gross dereliction of duty and for neglecting the safety of the country.
when was the affidavit from the Trump insider actually submitted
Even if the FBI had reason to plant a mole 500 days ago, it shouldn't have taken 500 days. That's gross incompetence.
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@Double_R
Let's assume, just for the sake of argument, that Trump was in violation of the law by storing top secret documents in an unsecured location posing a threat to national security, and then despite multiple requests to give them back including a subpoena that Trump ignored and Trump's lawyers lying to the FBI telling them all of the documents were returned when they were not... What should the FBI have done?
The FBI should have raided his home 500 days ago.
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@Sidewalker
Presumably if Trump did in fact wield his powers to declassify the materials in established procedure, such materials would no longer bear markings of classification.
Though more frankly, while you are correct, this is simply the court of public opinion. We cannot judge his guilt/justification of the raid on the basis of those laws if we don't know the relevance of those documents with respect to those laws. What we can judge, however, is his handling of classified material, as he once did with Hillary.
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@Greyparrot
This is why establishing a timeline is rather important. If it was known 500 days ago that Trump possessed documents that he should not have, the more reasonable course of action to expect is that rather than the immediate raiding of a former President's home, negotiation would first occur.
Since we know that some level of negotiation did occur, the relevant date is not 500 days ago, but however many days since known non-compliance with the measures resulting from the negotiation.
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@dustryder
This is why establishing a timeline is rather important
Why? Why did it take 500 days to discover the criminality that happened 500 days ago that could jeopardize the country? How could you possibly explain away the negligence required to take 500 days to suspect a crime?
What we can judge, however, is his handling of classified material, as he once did with Hillary.
Pretty sure Trump didn't destroy any evidence. Are you claiming that he did?
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@Greyparrot
What was known 500 days ago?
Who knew of these things?
What actions were taken in response to these things?
Why these specific actions?
How can you possibly make a judgement if you don't have the full picture of what happened? A timeline is a part of that picture. It tells us of what was known, who knew, what was done and why.
If the course of action 500 days ago was negotiation with Trump, then something was obviously done and the relevant bodies were not negligent. You just simply disagree with the route of diplomacy over immediate action. That's fine as everyone has their own opinion, but keep in mind that you have the advantage of not bearing any responsibility for the fallout of actions taken against Trump.
An immediate raid against a former president without trying diplomatic channel first, likely without regard to established procedure? Trump supporters would be frothing at the mouth.
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@Greyparrot
Pretty sure Trump didn't destroy any evidence. Are you claiming that he did?
All claims are made in plain English. I cannot be held accountable for any HDS you may or may not have.