What is this thread all about?
Just a place for general discussion. A place to unload whats on your mind and talk about anything - personal, health, help needed, achievements, daily highs and daily lows, theories, predictions and what have you.
Does not need to be Q related.
It's not either or - it's both classification and ownership. Since most documents a president has access to and creates as President don't belong to the President the human who will stop being President some day, they belong to the office.
In your hypothetical, if Trump printed out non-classified information on his own printer, that would be fine. He has not claimed that was what happened, and it wouldn't be believable if he suddenly started claiming it now. He has claimed that yes, he took documents, but it's okay because he declassified them by mental executive order. It'd be one thing if he had been consistent about a frame job from the beginning, but he instead immediately opened up a can of worms about executive privilege. Even if his longshot legal argument works, it would give all future administrations unprecedented ability to legally leak state secrets. So unless you're convinced there will never be an untrustworthy adminsitration again...
Of course, this is all assuming what we are seeing is what we will get, and that this isn't a longcon honey trap on the part of Trump.
This is very typical for Trump. He never plays his real defence in the media because it would be dumb to do so. Instead, he uses it as an opportunity to use marginally questionable defence that would raise eyebrows and gets coverage in MSM, while at the same time he will be able to judge certain aspects of that defence as a trial balloon.
So, regardless of what the reality is, one thing I am not going to put too much into is what Trump's defence was publicly - because we can be 100% sure its not going to be the real defence, and its part of the fun to watch.
As for the academic question we are honing towards is:
"Is there is any condition or situation under which a person who is an ex official of the government with a certain security clearance, can legally be in possession of such information in their secure possession"
Do you agree with this formulation of the question?
(And I use the word ex-official rather than ex-president, because I know that people like John Brennan etc, who still have security clearance, routinely acknowledge implicitly or explicitly accessing classified information in their role as experts on media - like with Hunter Biden's laptop. The question should encompass these people as well).
I'm sorry, your quoted question just doesn't make sense to me. Try rephrasing?
I'm not so sure that publicly stating a different defense than your actual legal defense is a good idea, especially if that actual legal defense contradicts what you publicly stated. Publicly stating that he intentionally removed these documents means there are several avenues that simply can't be walked down in court.
I'm curious as to what you think the defense will be if it's not executive privilege, and it's not that the docs were planted, and it's not a grand reveal Perry Mason moment.
Ans any good lawyer would tell you, "Commenting anything about a pending litigation is a very bad idea". And yet Trump is commenting. So clearly the case is so cut and dry and there is nothing for Trump to worry about.
Oh, don't get me wrong. I am betting 99% on the "grand reveal" and 1% on "nothing burger" as in timing is not yet aligned. My point was that we cannot ignore this 1% because no one, not a single one of us, knows the timeline. We can only guess that things are going to go down, but there is always a possibility we are wrong.
Man, I thought that was my point.
I remain curious - if you think there's a non-ignorable one percent chance of it not being the Perry Mason Moment (and we know that in grand stories, the "one percent chance" is at least a thirty percent chance), what positive road do you see extending from such an outcome? The confidence you cite Trump displaying certainly indicates a non-standard day (weeks) in court, but confidence is a flimsy shield.
Here is my point as plainly as I can make it: this seems like Endgame either way. This seems like the moment when the buzzer beater shot is released, the bomb's wires are cut at the last second, the arrow is loosed at the underside of Smaug, etc. If the shot is hit, if the right wire is cut, great, but like you say, the chance that the shot is missed and Smaug continues to wreak havoc is significant enough to warrant discussion. I don't see anything good for Trump or the ideologies here down that road. I am both looking to see if people are also viewing things the same way (and if you don't have a better answer than "Trump moves in mysterious ways" that's fine, I'm down with a Deus ex machina), and pointing out a possible avenue that should be mentally prepared for.
Being slippery is good. But without a grand reveal of something not currently obvious to the masses, Trump honestly seems fucked - which in and of itself is a strong argument for this being the moment for status quo-breaking revelations! But if it's not, even a survivor like Trump seems pinned between three large investigations into different sectors. I see this as make or break time, and it is best to be prepared for the possibility of break even as you anticipate and try to push for make.