More than 320 classified documents have now been recovered from Mar-a-Lago, the Justice Department said
www.cnn.com
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Well, well, well.
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After discussion with some of my real-life friends (yes, we do have them - don't we?), my friends & I came to the general conclusion that the decision to prosecute Mr. Trump would come down to what DOJ believes Trump was going to do with the documents:
- Why did he take them?
- What was his motivation?
- Why those specific documents?
- Was there nefarious intent?
One friend in particular was promoting that it seemed many of the documents in Trump's possession were specifically sought-out (and taken), possibly implying nefarious intent. And, the discussion flowed from that.
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To that I've penned above, I find this new development from DOJ troubling. DOJ is claiming a selection of documents was segregated from the main cache subpoenaed in the storage room that Trump was told to return, and then were secreted-away. Many of this secreted cache were of the very highest National Security Classifications - including 'Top Secret' & 'SCI'. They were found after the first subpoenaed recovery, during the performance of the subsequent search under warrant. I think it might be worth noting that after the initial subpoenaed recovery, Trumps' lawyers signed an affidavit declaring all items taken were now returned.
I strongly believe in law & order, and while I detest obstruction-of-justice as much as any crime, those that defend criminals' actions often seem to attempt to portray process-crimes as less than fully criminal. The thought seems to be the government doesn't have adequate evidence to prevail in the primary crime, so it resorts to a secondary process-crime. I can understand the thrust of that argument, too-a-point.
But if Trump tried to segregate and secret-away specific documents that DOJ & the judge had ordered him to return, then my view of this case is going to change quite a bit.
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Here's the DOJ Filing:
(linked through the article)
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Here's a photo of the documents that the government claims were removed from the main cache of documents:
(Exhibit F in the Filing)