I recently came upon a question I had never personally dug on:
"What is 'State Secrets' and how upheld in the SC?"
Well shit, I wish I had done this sooner as it is enormously relevant to just about everything going on.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_secrets_privilege
Imagine you have a court case--a voting fraud case. You assemble your slam dunk evidence and head to court. All of a sudden, the executive branch swoops in and claims "state secrets" on some of your evidence.
What happens? Well the court traditionally defers to the executive on such matters, and if the court finds that your evidence qualifies as a state secret, the evidence is removed from litigation.
Check out this Pennsylvania decision, around line 8.
The first attorneys hired by Giuliani quit, they hired a new set and ended up dropping claims. Does that sound normal? What explains that behavior? State secrets invocation or threat thereof?
It is plausible that white hats are nuking these voter fraud cases. Don't buy that? Well how about this:
"...in 2001, George W. Bush issued Executive Order 13233 extending the accessibility of the state secrets privilege to also allow former presidents, their designated representatives, or representatives designated by their families, to invoke it to bar records from their tenure."
So under this EO, state secrets became a permanent privilege that can be exercised at any point by the elected executive, their representatives, and representatives designated by families.
And thus we reach the TLDR:
What if Obama, Bush, Clinton, or any of their "representatives" is invoking State Secrets privileges on the voting fraud cases?
This may apply to other matters too... 🤔
Another court case but one that applies to first amendment rights:
https://web.archive.org/web/20230425164315/https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/us-invokes-state-secrets-privilege-to-block-american-journalists-challenge-to-alleged-spot-on-drone-kill-list/2019/09/24/15580b88-dee9-11e9-b199-f638bf2c340f_story.html
EDIT:
"Collyer noted that if Abdul Kareem were to face criminal prosecution, the government would be required to disclose classified information important to his defense. But she said that no such requirement applies to offset the state secret privilege in a civil case."
So the judge here implies that there is a difference in state secrets w/respect to civil vs. criminal.
EDIT:
https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/6428771/Kareem-Rejection.pdf
Ok check out page four of that for an actual example of an invocation of the privilege:
"Patrick M. Shanahan, then-Acting Secretary of Defense, and Daniel R. Coats, then-Director of National Intelligence, submitted formal declarations, both public and in camera/ex parte, explaining that they are the individuals responsible for the relevant information and invoking the privilege"