FBI search warrant executed at Mar-a-Lago (Update: Trump Indicted!)

[HisGrace]

Another thing here is that an official can have the legal power to do something and it can still be obstruction of justice if it is done with corrupt intent, i.e using executive power to stop an investigation into yourself.

[HisGrace]

I have a question for the people still going with the "Trump could mentally declassify these documents without telling anyone" schtick – what if Biden declassified these documents mentally without telling anyone? Do you see how stupid these things get if you reduce a type of document classification to a purely philosophical and fundamentally unknowable state of being?

That's another thing here, I don't really think thoughts have legal standing in that way. If he's going to say he declassified it then he has to produce some kind of contemporaneous document from when he was president showing that. I think we know he didn't actually do that.

[HisGrace]

I guess mods deleted the Mark Levin quote thread so I'll repost my comment about executive privilege.

Executive privilege is a made up legal doctrine with no basis in statutory law. Judges can decide whether they're going to honor it on a case by case basis. The Nixon supreme court decision established that you can't use executive privilege to withhold information central to a case, which is certainly the case here.

Regardless, Trump is not the president anymore, and wasn't in June when he allegedly signed a false statement saying he did not have any classified documents with him.

[HisGrace]

Trump might actually get convicted if his lawyer is that big of a moron.

[HisGrace]

I just read that they didn't take his passport. The guy owns a fu**ing plane for crying out loud.

If Trump wants to leave the country and never come back I'd just take the W

[HisGrace]

I just read that they didn't take his passport. The guy owns a fu**ing plane for crying out loud.

If Trump wants to leave the country and never come back I'd just take the W

I was going to agree with this, but he'd be a huge security risk if he was seeking asylum in an adversarial nation. It'd be a big enough risk that the CIA would likely need to take him out. He can't be allowed to leave the US.

True, you wouldn't want him going to Russia, but his going to live at some Swiss ski resort for the rest of his life would be a fair trade off for his never running again and being out of American political life.

[HisGrace]

https://twitter.com/AnnaBower/status/1669794252828602369

What do some of our more legally inclined posters think of this? This doesn't sound good, reminds me of the rationale for all the stuff that was left out of Barr's summary of the Mueller report that was pretty much just to cover up things that might embarrass Trump.

[HisGrace]

I think any attempt to amend the law would have be widely bipartisan for it to be politically feasible. And maybe at some point it will be, who knows. But I think the argument has been made that it's entirely possible for the Secret Service to protect him at a prison somewhere. Granted there's disagreement on that point.

Nothing needs to be amended in order for Trump to go to prison. Contrary to what some believe, the Secret Service does have the authority to override criminal law and somehow veto a prison sentence.

Wouldn't Trump at least be be held custody in a different part of the prison, separated from ordinary inmates? I think that has been done with other high-profile fellons as well. Especially as a safety measure, as he (or any famous prisoner) would be at risk.

I talked about this in another thread, I don't see why this needs to be different from people like organized crime figures, informants, or anyone else who is a high assassination risk in prison. Trump could get extra security and be separated from the general prison population. The only reason anyone is pretending this is that complicated is because they want an excuse for why Trump can't go to jail since they can't actually defend his behavior.