Trump’s secrets: How a records dispute led the FBI to search Mar-a-Lago

So, the gist of the article is that Trump just didn't want to return the docs. He returned what he thought they needed and simply kept what he wanted and if they were a about nukes, 'so'? So, the bottom line is simple, he didn't understand that he isn't above the law, that the Presidential Records Act applies to him, specifically, not to mention Trump's cavalier and reckless attitude towards documents, complaining about toilets not flushing not realizing his flushing paper (yeah, tearing up papers and flushing them down the toilet, which he is not supposed to do) papers not designed to be flushed which caused the problem in the first place. Moreover, the National Archives had been trying to get the docs for over a year, there was even a subpoena and that didn't do any good, and Trump was stonewalling and they finally gave up and referred the matter to the FBI.

Another fine example why this man is unfit for the office, and a threat to national security.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/08/13/trump-mar-a-lago-search/

As FBI agents pulled up to Donald Trump’s Florida club Monday morning to conduct a search for top-secret government documents — approved by a federal judge and requested by the attorney general of the United States — the former president was by chance already huddled with his lawyers in Trump Tower in New York, a thousand miles to the north.

They were supposed to be preparing Trump to be deposed later in the week in an entirely different matter, a civil probe of Trump’s family business. But the session was interrupted by a phone call informing the former president of the extraordinary events unfolding at his Mar-a-Lago Club, said Ron Fischetti, his New York attorney.

[...]

The court-authorized search was a remarkable moment even for Trump, who has been under investigation by state and federal prosecutors nearly continuously since he swore the oath of office in 2017. What began as a low-level dispute over the Trump White House’s chaotic and haphazard record-keeping had morphed into a deeply serious probe of whether the ex-president had endangered national security by hoarding highly classified documents, some potentially related to nuclear weapons.

[...]

Government officials had worried as Trump left office that he presented what experts considered the perfect profile of a security risk: He was a disgruntled former employee, with access to sensitive government secrets, dead set on tearing down what he believed was a deep state out to get him. But Trump had spent years nurturing a growing distrust among his most fervent supporters of the agencies charged with monitoring those risks, the FBI and Justice Department.

A Trump adviser said the former president’s reluctance to relinquish the records stems from his belief that many items created during his term — photos, notes, even a model of Air Force One built to show off a new paint job he had commissioned — are now his personal property, despite a law dating to the 1970s that decreed otherwise.

[...]

“He gave them what he believed was theirs,” the adviser said.

“He gets his back up every time they asked him for something,” said another Trump adviser. “He didn’t give them the documents because he didn’t want to. He doesn’t like those people. He doesn’t trust those people.”

And why not? This is the attitude of a criminal, such paranoia, wow. I mean, whatever happened to the GOP's reverence for law and order? Oh, you're going to tell me that a few rogue agents relating to a FISA warrant, none of whom are at the FBI anymore, is sufficient to indict all the 30,000 hard working patriots fighting the good fight putting there lives on the line and putting bad guys in jail because of some sloppy FISA applications for some guy no one has heard of? Sure, I know it's convenient for y'all to grasp at straws and scour the landscape for any item that will forward the right wing agenda and defend Trump, but, at some point, you just gotta swallow bitter pill and realize that you backed the wrong man.

Fat chance of that, eh?

 

TRaitor tRump taking these sensitive documents created a far reaching mess for security to officials. They now have to attempt to define where they have been and who may have viewed them. It may seem, after more than a year and a half, to be an impossible task, but that is their job, and they are good at it.

Determining tRaitor tRumps culpability is really secondary to assessing the damage he's done to our Nations security.

One thing has been proven beyond doubt, tRaitor tRump is unqualified, lacks the self discipline and hasn't the respect for our national security to hold a position of trust in our Government, certainly NOT President.

 

THIS IS NOT ABOUT CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS AND THE PRA......

Haven't y'all figgered that out yet?

 

Yeah, it's about espionage, Trump's reckless disregard for the law, reckless disregard for TS docs.

The right shouted 'lock her up' when all they had were 3 emails marked with a C, which were later determined to be incorrectly marked, but are suprised when we allege espionage with Trump makes off with TS stamped nuke docs which, if made public, would pose a grave threat to national security.

Talk about having your priorities upside down.

 

It AbsaByGodLutely IS about Classified Documents, and their unauthorized distribution to unknown operators from god knows where, AND what it could do to OUR National Security. While you're snug in your home, trashing OUR Government, hard working, diligent professionals are constantly working to keep you and your loved ones safe in a very dangerous world. You don't see that, safely behind your monitor but, WE do have a GREAT Government that watches and vigilantly keeps us all safe.

It's easy to trash "BIG GOVERNMENT" because Faux News tells you to. But from the Weather Service to the highest Brass in the Pentagon OUR GOVERNMENT is ensuring your safety, freedoms and the life you and your family enjoy. When our secrets are compromised it compromises the safety of all of us. It compromises all the little fences and dams and the procedures around them that keep our American Dreams alive. When an egotistical maniac like tRaitor tRump thinks he knows more than those professionals and causally keeps Top Secret documents, that would normally be locked up and guarded in a Secure Compartmentalized Information Facility, in a store room under his dance floor it sets off a chain reaction of investigation into what may have compromised those documents, who might be compromised by that compromise and what procedure need to be modified to keep our enemies off balance and mitigate the damage caused by their being causally, inappropriately cared for.

YES, it IS about those Classified Documents and the idiot that thinks he knows so much and, in fact, knows NOTHING!

 

This about barring trump from running in 24. If he simply agrees not to run, or campaign, all this will disappear.

 

NO ... "IT" ... WILL NOT! Our National Security has been compromised and that compromise needs to be dealt with, procedures may need to be modified AND it needs to be ensured that what happened CAN'T happen again and it. It's NOT all about tRaitor tRump this on this one, he may need to be made an example of, but there's a lot of hard work to be done before this is over.

 

How was it compromised and be specific with evidence of it.

 

That is what needs to be determined, "they" will trace chain of custody, fingerprints, interview everyone that may have had access to the documents. BUT, these types of documents are supposed to be kept in a secure facility, that they've been in an ungarded or monitored store room makes them compromised.

 

So you are saying NARA and the FBI have lost secret documents for 18 months and did not know where they went to?

 

No, I'm saying tRaitor tRump took documents he wasn't supposed to have, lied that he had returned them all, and is still lying about the nature of the documents he stole. If that's what you want to talk about.

Actually what "I" was saying is tRaitor tRumps reckless handling of sensitive documents put OUR whole Nation at risk. That breach of security will take many people, many long hours to repair, shore up and redesign protocols for Presidential handling of secure documents.

 

You made a statement of fact

How was it compromised and be specific with evidence of it.

Trump conducted national security business from Mir a Lago it has secure areas. It is surrounded by Secret Service. Anyone working there is vetted. the NARA and FBI were satisfied as to how they were being stored else they would have collected them all back in February.

 

It is a fact that Secret and Top Secret documents were not handled in a secure manner.

Now a full investigation will have to be done to determine the damage.

Even If Mar-A-Lardass had a SCIF (tRaitor tRumps store room doesn't count) it's unlikely it was maintained and properly staffed and monitored once he was no longer Present. The Secret Service doesn't count.

NARA and FBI were lied to when they were told they had ALL documents. Since then they tried to get the remaining documents back but we're being stonewalled by tRaitor tRump and his lawyers. Hence the search warrant.

 

Balderdash! You are trying to stir the pot of a typo with a howitzer. The DOJ doesn't give a rat's ass about an former president taking a few classified documents with him. They want some dirt.

 

You just don't understand classified, secret and top secret documents. This is very serious stuff that affects the security of EVERY American. The people that dedicate their lives to this take it very seriously, thank goodness. Trust me the intelligence community would rather everyone followed the rules, the DOJ only enforces laws, but tRaitor tRump keeps digging himself a hole to be buried in. It seems one hole just isn't enough for him, he isn't happy until he has several going at once; he thinks law doesn't apply to him; one of these days he's going to find out otherwise.

 

Wray is a republican appointed by Trump, yeah, and after all the accusations surrounding McCabe, Comey, that makes a lot of sense.

I'll file that in the wishful thinking and other partisan unicorns file.

 

no? it is about limiting the damage to our country of trump's entire toxic existance. these documents are just the tip of the iceberg

 

Yes this is about high level government officials including law enforcement attempting to prevent someone from running for office anyway they can. IOW we are now a banana republic.

You guys have been on the "tip of the iceberg" for almost SEVEN YEARS and the Titanic keeps sloughing off the glancing blows.

 

I don't know that he IS a Republican and so what who he was appointed by does that insinuate from mismanagement of the agency and allow what we have seen the last six years from criticism? Please explain how.

 

I most certainly do. For starters I know that a president can declassify any document by simply opening his mouth. I also know that the residence for him as a former president is under tight security 24/7 by the secret service. Sometimes former presidents take things they really shouldn't (usually in form but not substance) per the Archivist and they are usually asked for them back which the ex-president says oops and the archivist says try not to do it again and have a nice day. In Trump's case, though, they sent an army of FBI and DOJ agents -- about as subtle as a train wreck and as camouflaged as a bonfire..

 

Yet he was told to put an extra lock on the room where the stolen documents were stored.

 

Right! You can't do an unjustified raid without SOMETHING happening. In this case they came up with the genius idea for an extra lock.
PATHETIC!

 

lol, no it wouldn't. If anything his title has allowed him to get away with more than most would. Maybe not this time though.

I think many on the left want Trump to run because he'd be easier to beat than whoever replaces him, because he's alienated so many moderates.

 

As I have said before your excitement and enthusiasm over picayune insignificant situations or actions is near incomprehensible -- but there it is. What the hell does Trump appointing Wray have to do with anything? ANS: nothing.

 

Trump was illegally in possession of classified material the DoJ had been lead to believe he didn't have. Absolutely nothing about the search was unjustified.