It is true, if you are over 40 the America you grew up in is almost gone. That can be a good thing, if the things replacing the older models are better and more efficient. There is good and bad in all things and sometimes it takes us a while to acclimate to the change, and sometimes you just know it’s wrong.
When things go off the rails, it becomes clear that the system that was supposed to keep the engine on the tracks isn’t working, it is too late to stop the wreck at this point, we just have to ride it out. Our Government, the Engine, has gone off the rails. We have a political party in collusion with the major media outlets, working hand and hand with Big Tech to censor political adversaries and the weaponization of Governmental agencies to prosecute them. If that isn’t off the rails nothing is.
I am going to attempt to tackle the latest example only, since there are so many “gates” like Twittergate, FBIgate, DOJgate and others, I could write for days and not truly cover the subjects. I want to explore “Docugate” the issue of Classified documents held by “so-called” political leaders. Each statement of fact made, that source is going to be noted below in the footnotes.
Let’s start at the FBI raid on Mar-a-largo President Trump’s home and club. On August 8th 2022 the FBI with 30 or so agents raiding the home of the former President. It was supposedly over documents he took from the Whitehouse on or before his departure, these documents were claimed to be Classified and not part of the Presidential documents.
That is the reader’s digest version of the documents issue. There have been a lot of misinformation and speculation as to rather a President can declassify documents and if there is a “process” they must follow to do so. The short answer is yes… the President CAN declassify Classified documents and NO there is no set process for it to occur, basically a president can deem them to be declassified and thus they are. The left leaning news source Politfact in 2017 admitted "The minute the president speaks about it to someone, he has the ability to declassify anything at any time without any process." they refer to several court cases and the Constitution itself and while they hedged and called it “Mostly True” the basic premise they put forth is correct.
However that is not even the real issue rather they were declassified or not, the issue is did Trump “steal”, “hide” or “obstruct” investigation into these documents.
The answer is also as simple as the one to the declassification one, did Trump “STEAL” the documents? If, the answer is, he thought these documents, were in fact declassified, then no he did not. The charge, trying to prove he stole them, is “he handled them as if they were classified” is ludicrous at best, if Trump had not of protected the documents the detractors would be screaming about that and in fact they are. They are literally taken both sides on this.
Trump hid the documents and refused a county subpoena to return them.
This is another charge they level. Trump could be said to have “hidden” the documents if he had not allowed the Archivist and the FBI to view the documents prior to the raid. The very fact that the concerned party, the Archives representative viewed the documents with the FBI and only advised Trump to install a better lock which Trump did only to have it broken by the FBI.
Did Trump “Obstruct” the investigation?
Did he? He provided access to the documents to both the Archives and the DOJ/FBI, at no time did they request access and were denied. Did he secret documents away from them? There is no evidence that he did. When the Archive pointed out 15 cases of documents they felt did not belong to Trump, Trump immediately returned those boxes, not some but all. These 15 boxes of documents were all the Archive stated were “not” de-classified and thus belonged to the Archives department. Negotiations did break down allegedly when the DOJ required Trump to return ALL documents rather classified or not, the Trump attorneys did refuse that “order”. Does any of this rise to the level of “obstruction” in my limited legal knowledge, not even close.
Did Trump ignore a subpoena to return the documents. Yes he did. It was issued by a County judge that had a grudge against Trump and had at one time been forced to recuse himself from a case involving Trump, additionally this judge had no jurisdiction in the case. It would be like a County Judge in the State of Washington issuing a subpoena for production of documents to you for someone in Maine. It is interesting to note this is the same judge the FBI went to for the Search Warrant.
President Trump neither stole documents, attempted to hide documents nor did he try to obstruct the investigation that almost everyone agrees was politically motivated. But that does not matter to the media or the hysterical left, almost daily some talking head makes the accusation then their minions follow suit across the social media sphere. Now comes the story that President Biden had highly classified documents in an old office, in his Penn Biden Center a think tank he had for 5-6 years. These documents were “discovered” by lawyers for Biden cleaning out his old office because that is what lawyers do, clean out peoples offices for them. The documents were in a closet in that office and was secured by a lock on the door.
The count doesn’t matter nor the type. That’s all you are hearing in the media and the Political Left.. it was only 10 or so. It was old material about Ukraine, Iran and the UK.. etc etc.. The real issue is Biden cannot legally take Classified documents period. Only the President can and Biden was not president at the time of the taking thus unlike Trump he has no defense no argument for declassification.
Side note: The Penn Biden Center received 54 MILLION dollars from anonymous Chinese donors during this period. Where did that money go, what were they getting in return?
The media will not raise this issue but believe me that is the only issue that really matters.
Sources:
Politifact Presidents can declassify documents and there is no process
Trump returned documents to the FBI before the raid
Trump was already co-operating with the FBI and the Archives
Feds Used Search Warrant to Circumvent Trump's Fifth Amendment Rights
FBI's 'overly broad' collection of evidence slammed in wake of Trump raid