Dan Rather @DanRather
We’ve done this before. But let’s do it again. Let’s fill Twitter with some beauty. Share a picture in the comments of a place on earth that touches you deeply. Let’s see where we will all go on a digital journey.
11:01 AM · Aug 29, 2022·Twitter for iPhone
Sarah Palin loses Alaska's lone House seat to a Democrat in a special election upset
former Democratic state Rep. Mary Peltola has scored a dramatic pickup for her party by defeating Republican Sarah Palin 51-49.
Peltola, who will replace the late GOP Rep. Don Young, will be the first Democrat to represent the Last Frontier in the lower chamber since Young won his own special election all the way back in 1973. The new congresswoman, who is of Yup’ik ancestry, is also set to become the first Alaska Native to ever serve in Congress.
“That the FBI, in a matter of hours, recovered twice as many documents with classification markings as the ‘diligent search’ that the former president’s counsel and other representatives had weeks to perform calls into serious question the representations made in the June 3 certification and casts doubt on the extent of cooperation in this matter,” the document states.
Look at how DOJ wrote that. They're pissed. They have had it with 45th. A person who knows what's good for them never gratuitously pisses off law enforcement.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI investigation into top-secret government information discovered at Mar-a-Lago is zeroing in on the question of whether former President Donald Trump’s team criminally obstructed the probe. A new document alleges that government records had been concealed and removed and that law enforcement officials were misled about what was still there.
The allegation does not necessarily mean that Trump or anyone else will ultimately face charges. But it could pose the most direct legal threat to Trump and those in his orbit, in part because the Justice Department has historically regarded obstruction as an aggravating factor that tilts in favor of bringing criminal charges involving the mishandling of classified information.
Yesterday, after I finished writing about Catton, I went into my bedroom and lay down. I forgot about everything and cleared my mind and about an hour later, I got up to go back into the main room and as I stood in the doorway I had a moment of anxiety. "What am I going to read now?" It had been four months since I read anything else but Catton. I quickly scanned the floor (my “horizontal book shelf”), picked up the small, thick copy of War And Peace, sat again at my desk and flopped the book open to a random page, Book II, chapter 21, page 568.
I had forgotten the detail, the incredible amount of detail that Leo Tolstoy provides in every scene (it is, after all, why the book is 1400 pages long). It is as if Tolstoy was there--no, that's too human, it is like the Arnolfini Portrait, there is never an end to the detail and you see beyond human sensory capacity. And page 568 was just a random flopping. I was going to say "insignificant" but there is nothing insignificant in War and Peace, or in the Arnolfini Portrait, or in Remembrance of Things Past which so resembles War and Peace. Tolstoy describes Prince Andrei's approach to Natasha in a crowded room at a card game and what Prince Andrei saw from this angle, then from that:
She was sitting by her sister at the tea table, and reluctantly, without even looking at him, making some reply to Boris, who sat down beside her.
what Pierre saw from his angle of Prince Andrei and Natasha;
Prince Andrei was standing before her, saying something to her with a look of guarded tenderness. She had raised her head and was looking up at him, blushing, and visibly trying to control her rapid breathing.
Prince Andrei went up to Pierre, and Pierre noticed a new and youthful epression in his friend's face.
What Tolstoy, the omniscient narrator, saw:
Pierre changed places several times...sitting now with his back to Natasha, now facing her, and...continued to observe her and his friend.
After six rubbers the general got up, saying that it was no use playing like that, and Pierre was released. Natasha had turned aside and was talking to Sonya and Boris. ...
War and Peace is writing beyond normal human capacity. I have found my next book.
That photo, henceforward “The Photo”, has become instantly iconic, like raising the flag over Iwo Jima, the running, naked, napalmed, little Vietnamese girl, The Lone Student, blue marble Earth.
...according to a filing [in court just before midnight, Aug. 30] During a June 3 visit to Mar-a-Lago by FBI and Justice Department officials, the document states, “Counsel for the former President offered no explanation as to why boxes of government records, including 38 documents with classification markings, remained at the Premises nearly five months after the production of the Fifteen Boxes and nearly one-and-a-half years after the end of the Administration.”
...
The investigators were permitted to visit the storage room but were not allowed to open or look inside any of the boxes, “giving no opportunity for the government to confirm that no documents with classification markings remained,” the Justice Department says.
During that visit, the document says, Trump’s lawyers told investigators that all the records that had come from the White House were stored in one location — a Mar-a-Lago storage room — and that “there were no other records stored in any private office space or other location at the Premises and that all available boxes were searched.”
...
In their August search, agents found classified documents both in the
storage room as well as in the former president’s office — including
three classified documents found not in boxes, but in office desks.
“That the FBI, in a matter of hours, recovered twice as many documents with classification markings as the ‘diligent search’ that the former President’s counsel and other representatives had weeks to perform calls into serious question the representations made in the June 3 certification and casts doubt on the extent of cooperation in this matter,” the document states.
...“In some instances, even the FBI counterintelligence personnel and DOJ attorneys conducting the review required additional clearances before they were permitted to review certain documents.”
Love those people🌻
The Ukrainian decoys are made out of wood but can be indistinguishable from an artillery battery through the lens of Russian drones, which transmit their locations to naval cruise-missile carriers in the Black Sea.
“When the UAVs see the battery, it’s like a VIP target,” said a senior Ukrainian official, referring to unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, encountering long-range artillery replicas.
The destruction of Ukrainian replicas may partly account for Russia’s unusually boastful battle damage assessments on Western artillery, particularly the U.S.-made High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS.
“They’ve claimed to have hit more HIMARS than we have even sent,” one U.S. diplomat observed.
I have finished Catton.
Before this morning I had planned on writing that in the end I was very disappointed. I've read enough books in my life that I don't like my time wasted. I began to think, about half-way through the third volume that Catton would offer no explanation for why the Civil War lasted so long; I was and am still disappointed that Murfreesboro was identified as Stone's River resulting in my confusion; that the character of Pennsylvania and of Pennsylvanians took up more pages than the Battle of Gettysburg did. I read Catton's footnote; what more was there for him to say that others had not? But he was commissioned to write HIS history of the Civil War not cite to that of others on the greatest land battle ever fought in the Western Hemisphere. This was a "narrative history" which means there was an omniscient narrator telling a story from the clouds. I don't think there was enough of that. I think Catton got lost in the weeds some. It occurred to me about the time I had these other thoughts that maybe Catton had just burned out. I thought volume one was great; volume two lost steam, I thought; and volume three was as an exhausted runner willing himself to the finish line. Never Call Retreat, the final volume here, was Catton's seventh book on the Civil War in thirteen years. A Stillness at Appomatox (1953) is his best-known work.
But, as I finished, I thought that Catton had answered, indirectly, by sheer repetition of and detailed accounting of the facts, the question foremost to me. If he had written directly he would have written that the Confederate States of America were destined to lose, were always going to lose, that it was not a matter of "contingency", that the cake was baked when it was put in the oven, and that the reason the war lasted so goddamned long was down to the generals on each side. McClellan and Burnside and Hooker were fools, that they all had in common; McClellan had the added, immeasurable, defect of inconstancy to the mission; Burnside was stupid as well as a fool; and Hooker was a cowardly cockcrow. Lee and Jackson, so long as he lived, and Stuart and Forest had a merry time literally running circles around these jackanapes. But Lee lost Jackson, and part of his mind with him, and Lincoln ran out of fools. When, in the last year, he gave overall command to U.S. Grant with Tecumseh Sherman and Phil Sheridan his chief lieutenants, well then, holy hell was unleashed on the Confederacy and the war was over in short order.
Catton's bird's eye picked out the transcendent military genius of this war when other writers who the undersigned has read have not as clearly identified. It was Abraham Lincoln. With HIS bird's eye of the disposition of forces it was Lincoln who saw first saw, in 1862, who saw most clearly, and who saw constantly how the war was to be won, by attacking Confederate forces at multiple points. Would he have had the generals to do it sooner.
I would have welcomed some "meaning" to the Civil War also, although I am fatally suspicious of deep meanings. The Gettysburg Reunions are always foremost in my mind on this score. What WAS the meaning of those? Of unprincipled Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.? Of killing without feeling? Catton's bird's eye returned rarely in Never Call Retreat, but it did return, and he DID provide meaning to the war and those weird reunions.
...unquenchable guerrilla warfare...had been hint[ed] at [and] was perhaps the one thing that would have ruined America forever. ...
The Civil War was not going to end that way. (emphasis added)
...Yet men have to live by their memories, and the memory of death and defeat is bitter enough to keep unforgiving men carrying their rifles across the hills for generations. Lee made it possible [by rejecting guerrilla war] for [Southern white] men to turn this memory into a strange source of strength, a tragic and moving remembering that provided a base on which the present could be accepted and the future faced. Because of what happened when he and Grant at last met, Lee when he left Appomattox...rode straight into legend, and he took his [white] people with him. The legend became a saving grace. The cause that had failed became The Lost Cause, larger than life, taking on color and romance as the years passed, remembered with pride and with heart-ache but never again leading to bloodshed. Civil Wars have had worse endings than this.
A little of it is due to Grant. It was not grim old Unconditional Surrender with whom Lee sat down...Instead it was a sensitive man...His terms were generous...Beaten [white] men were not to be paraded through Northern cities...
"A little of it"? lol.
See there are too many brackets with words that have to be added for that to be real. We may, I certainly do in 2022, beg to quarrel with Catton over how much Grant's "little bit of" generosity and letting Southern white "men...live by their memories" benefited the reconstructed United States of America and, writing in 1965, Catton acknowledged that post-war America has re-fought the Civil War constantly, and to this day, August 30, 2022. "The Lost Cause"...never again leading to bloodshed."? What, between whites? Certainly not for Blacks! Catton has this blind spot too many times. That though explains the reunions--which were exclusively reunions of white men. Still, it is something.
On the whole, for immediate post-war America, did the peace that was got not beat unending guerrilla warfare? Well...lol. Again, for whites, yes. But it must be said, and Catton knows it but does NOT say it: Bedford Forest DID reconstitute his loyalists into a guerrilla force, they were named the Ku Klux Klan, and they terrorized Black Americans for a century more.
Catton quotes, as does the Ken Burns documentary, a memoir written by a Confederate soldier, Berry Benson, which foretold precisely the reunions:
Who knows but it may be given to us, after this life, to meet again in the old quarters, to play chess and draughts...and again to hastily...[go] to the summons to battle?...And after the battle, then the slain and wounded will arise, and all will meet together under the two flags, all sound and well, and there will be talking and laughter and cheers, and all will say: Did it not seem real? Was it not as in the old days?
A dream...It's a meaning. It's his book and a dream is his meaning.
This is a pleasant story from today!
“He needs a quarterback who’s a real lawyer,” said David I. Schoen, a lawyer who defended Mr. Trump in his second Senate impeachment trial.
…
On May 25, one of former President Donald J. Trump’s [i.e., FPOTUS, aka 45th] lawyers sent a letter to a top Justice Department official, laying out the argument that his client had done nothing illegal by holding onto a trove of government materials when he left the White House.
…
Government lawyers found it deeply puzzling. ...
…
…the legal arguments put forth...sometimes strike lawyers not involved in the case as more about setting a political narrative than about dealing with the possibility of a federal prosecution.
…
“There seems to be a huge disconnect between what’s actually happening — a real live court case surrounding a real live investigation — and what they’re actually doing, which is treating it like they’ve treated everything else, recklessly and thoughtlessly,” Chuck Rosenberg, a former U.S. attorney and F.B.I. official, said of 45th’s approach. “And for an average defendant on an average case, that would be a disaster.”
…
Some of 45ths lawyers’ efforts have also appeared ineffective or misdirected. Mr. Corcoran, in his May 25 letter, made much of 45th’s powers to declassify material as president, and cited a specific law on the handling of classified material that he said did not apply to a president. The search warrant, however, said federal agents would be seeking evidence of three potential crimes, none of which relied on the classification status of the documents found at Mar-a-Lago; the law on the handling of classified material cited by Mr. Corcoran in the letter was not among them.
…
[One of the lawyers, Jim] Trusty was hired after 45th saw him on television. …
…
45th’s allies have reached out to several other lawyers, but have repeatedly been turned down.
Corcoran in particular has raised eyebrows within the Justice Department for his statements to federal officials during the documents investigation. People briefed on the investigation say officials are uncertain whether Mr. Corcoran was intentionally evasive, or simply unaware of all the material still kept at Mar-a-Lago and found during the Aug. 8 search by the F.B.I.
…
The closest thing to a legal quarterback...is Boris Epshteyn, a onetime lawyer at the firm Milbank who was a political adviser to 45th in 2016, ultimately becoming a senior staff member on his inaugural effort and then a strategic adviser on the 2020 campaign.
Epshteyn has championed 45th's claims, dismissed by dozens of courts, that the election was stolen from him, and has risen to a role he has described to colleagues as an “in-house counsel,” helping to assemble Mr. Trump’s current legal team.
Fellas, don't pay any mind to this article by Maggie Haberman, you are doing GREAT. Keep it up!
…
Shortly before Mr. Garland announced that he was seeking to unseal the search warrant, an intermediary for 45th reached out to a Justice Department official to pass along a message that the former president wanted to negotiate, as if he were still a New York developer.
The message 45th wanted conveyed, according to a person familiar with the exchange, was: “The country is on fire. What can I do to reduce the heat?”
…Justice Department…senior leadership was befuddled by the message, and had no idea what Mr. Trump was trying to accomplish, according to an official.
I must say I didn't understand that either. Like my betters at Justice, no idea where 45th was going on that.
While Democrats acknowledge they still face major hurdles, there has been an unmistakable mood shift, according to interviews with candidates, strategists and officials
Democrats are voicing growing confidence about limiting losses in the House and potentially even salvaging their majority in the midterm elections, with candidates and allied groups making moves to capitalize on a backlash to abortion restrictions, signs of improvements in the economy and opposition to Donald Trump.
One House Democratic strategist, who like others interviewed for this story spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly, was blunter in assessing what it would take to win the 218 seats required to control the House, in a chamber of 435 members. “The range has shifted. The world we were living in before, if we ended up in the 200s that was pretty good,” said the strategist. “Now it is much more that the majority is in play. We have a path. It is there.”
Democrats are defending only a five-seat majority in the House, putting Republicans well within reach of winning back control. Nonpartisan analysts still regard the GOP as the favorites and history shows the president’s party does not tend to do well in a first midterm. Republican strategists pointed to continued opportunities to make gains where Democrats are on defense...
That is true. Cook's latest, adding up R Solids, Likely's and Leans has a R majority of 214, four shy of majority. D Solids, Likely's and Leans total only 188. To keep the House D's would have to win 30 of 33 Tossup races, which is close to the definition of impossible. Now, if they can flip one or two of the R Leans then the number of tossups they have to win goes down one or two. So still exceedingly unlikely.
“Every great team experiences some adversity,” Rep. Tom Emmer (Minn.), the chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, wrote in a memo after a special election loss this past week in New York’s 19th Congressional District. Trying to calm Republican nerves, much as Democrats had been doing last year...
Yet several Republican strategists have expressed concern about winning the House with only single-digit margins, which would make it harder for Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to easily ascend to speaker and could complicate the party’s ability to rally for even routine partisan votes. Those same strategists had hoped earlier this year to win a margin of 20 or more on the backs of a soured national mood and rising inflation.
In the battle for the Senate, Democrats started seeing signs of encouragement earlier this summer, due to unsteady Republican candidates and other factors that are also starting to show up in House races, party strategists said. Abortion has been a major driver of the improved Democratic outlook, they noted, with the Supreme Court decision in June to strike down the constitutional right to abortion as a key inflection point that angered many voters.
But the weak R candidates in the Senate and what D's claim they are seeing in the House too, "weak R candidates" is euphemism for Trump-endorsed candidates. If by some near-miracle D's pull this off and retain control of both legislative chambers I am prepared to say Trump is finished as the hidden mailed fist behind R's. D retention of both chambers would be a cataclysm for Trump's influence and you'd see disgusted R's begin to cut lose. I believe that, beyond probably to clear and convincing. It is very, very unlikely but there is a narrow path but a path, and that D's have not had previously.
In four special elections for House seats since that decision — including in New York’s 19th District, where the party’s candidate centered his campaign on abortion — Democrats outperformed Biden’s 2020 showing. The resounding defeat of an antiabortion ballot measure in conservative Kansas was more evidence of the galvanizing effect of the court’s decision...Democrats in recent days have launched ads in several battleground House races attacking Republicans for embracing strict antiabortion stances. ...
Beyond abortion, Democratic strategists said they have found the reduction of gas prices and the slowing of inflation as helpful to their chances. Democratic strategists said they have come to feel, for the moment, that they can fight Republicans to something of a draw on the economy...
Party leaders have sought to channel these developments — along with recent legislative accomplishments on health-care and climate change as well as the high-profile House committee hearings about the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob — into a simple argument they are putting before voters: Republicans are extreme and Democrats have delivered.
The word you are looking for is FASCIST, or at least SEMI-FASCIST. No one likes to be called a fascist and it puts Republicans on the defensive. The label has the virtue of being true and it has stuck. Republicans have seen fit to defend themselves, "We are not fascists." Like Nixon, "I am not a crook," you want Republicans mentioning the word fascist even to deny it.
House Majority PAC, an outside group charged with helping Democrats hold on to the chamber, is investing in three GOP-held seats, according to data from the commercial tracking company AdImpact. The new buys are intended to boost Democratic challengers in California’s 22nd Congressional District, Ohio’s 1st Congressional District and New Mexico’s 2nd Congressional District. All are Republican-held seats where Biden won in 2020.
The House Democratic strategist who said the majority was in play said the shifts in the national mood had not yet resulted in expanding the Democratic battlefield. But they had reduced concern about some safer incumbents who appeared vulnerable at the beginning of the summer, allowing for more resources to be devoted to borderline seats.
...
“With 80 days to go, we like very much the way this is going,” said Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.), chair of the DCCC, in an interview.
...
Following a string of Democratic retirements and the decennial redistricting process, Republicans were left with an open path to the majority, which GOP officials said still exists — even if it doesn’t extend as deeply into Democratic turf as many hoped. The NRCC recently circulated a list of 74 seats they’ve targeted, including nine pickup opportunities in districts that Trump won by more than five points. Democrats are also eying several pickup opportunities in districts Biden won comfortably.
...
In an encouraging sign for Cartwright and other Democrats, Biden’s job approval ratings, while still negative, have shown signs of improvement. A recent Gallup poll showed it ticking up six points from July to August, rising from 38 percent to 44 percent, boosted by gains among independents.
...
At the White House and in Biden’s inner circle, top aides have become more bullish about the House. “Look, the generic data on the House side is in our favor right now,” a Biden adviser said at an Aug. 11 meeting with reporters. “I can tell you, this thing is very competitive across the country. You guys have not caught up to this yet.”
...
“There is a big difference between having a zero chance of success and a 30 percent chance of success,” said Steve Elmendorf, a Democratic lobbyist who previously worked in House leadership staff. “And if we do the right things over the next month, and go out and sell the accomplishments of the last year, we could have a 50 percent chance. Certainly everything is moving in the right direction, and there is room for it to move more.”
It feels like Scott Frost is finished at Nebraska. Brutal for Cornhusker fans. They traveled like crazy to Ireland for this. Tough to watch.
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) August 27, 2022
It does to me too. This feels different. I think this is it. I think Alberts will fire him on the plane back.
They led by 11 twice (!) in today's game and blew it. I feel so bad for Nebraska fans. This is such a painful way to lose over and over. https://t.co/fHR8L3ESf9
— Nicole Auerbach (@NicoleAuerbach) August 27, 2022
I completely agree with Nicole.
Nebraska had a 28-17 lead over Northwestern with nine minutes remaining in the third quarter. For some inexplicable reason, head coach Scott Frost dialed up an onside kick.
Northwestern recovered the onside kick...The Wildcats didn't squander that opportunity, scoring a touchdown to cut the Cornhuskers' lead down to 28-24.
Ooph.
"If I did it over, I wouldn't make the call," Frost told reporters, via Amie Just of HuskerExtra.
Frost questioned the offensive staff's creativity when it comes to calling plays.
...
"I think our offensive staff has to learn you've got to be a little more creative in this league," Frost said.
Some people think Frost is calling out Nebraska offensive coordinator Mark Whipple, who signed a contract with the Cornhuskers last December.
Whipple was the offensive coordinator at Pitt before coming over to
Nebraska. Last season, he was in charge of an offense that averaged 41.4
points per game.
College football fans:
"I still can’t believe Nebraska did that onside kick," tweeted Barstool's Big Cat. "Give Scott Frost a little momentum and he says fuck it let’s go crazy."
"AND AFTER AN INSANE MOMENTUM SHIFT AND GOING UP BY TWO SCORES IN THE THIRD QUARTER NEBRASKA ATTEMPTED AN ONSIDE KICK FOR LITERALLY NO REASON."
"Nebraska fans have vomited 15-20 times this game. Totally normal."
"Nebraska went from a Natty contender to Frost getting fired in a span of two hours on Twitter. FOOTBALL IS BACK."
[I guess "national". Never heard of "Natty" before.]
The SpunFive seasons ago, Scott Frost was the leader of the undefeated UCF Knights and earned his dream job at his alma mater Nebraska.
But since taking over in Lincoln, the Huskers haven't come close to a winning season, suffering heartbreaking losses in the process.
Invincible? Best Arsenal start (4-0) since '04-05
Ha-ha. Tremendous. So happy for Arsenal.
Liverpool tie EPL mark for biggest win in 9-0 rout
BOY DID THEY GET OFF THE SCHNEID!
Northwestern handed the Cornhuskers their seventh consecutive loss going back to last season -- with all seven loses coming by single digits -- and added more pressure on embattled coach Scott Frost.
The Cornhuskers are the first major-conference team in the AP Poll Era, which goes back to 1936, to lose seven straight games by single-digits, according to ESPN Stats & Info.
Si! Northwestern leads Nebraska 17-14 at half-time. "'Huskers" led this one 14-3 early in 2Q. Last dance for Scott Frost if he doesn't turn it around this year. And that began today.
The "Gunners" continue their poifect start to the campaign and top the table for a second week.
FPL Family (Lee)I agree. All respect to the team and manager Mikel Arteta.
I thought, and almost wrote, near the end of the first half, "Guardiola, why did you go out and get a 'true 9' and then not use him?" I could just see him futzing around with tiki-taka all over the pitch and this Monster futzes around with the rest of them. But I didn't watch the match. It sure reads like Pep said at half-time, "Get Erling the ball and get out of the way."
:focal(1469x404:1471x402)/origin-imgresizer.eurosport.com/2022/08/27/3439707-70179308-2560-1440.jpg)
That Tottenham Feed
@Tottenham_Feed
I think Man City like giving teams a head start…
10:38 AM · Aug 27, 2022·Twitter for iPhone
Man City are playing like a bunch of entitled prima donnas. Little rich bitches. Remember where you came fro, City! Fucking Maine Road! The Theater of Doom! Division 2!
Manchester City 0, Crystal Palace 1 on an own goal in the 4th'.
The "semi-fascism" tag has really struck a cord in Republicans. They can laugh off an idiot blogger and a socialist, they can't laugh off a centrist president. Biden and his spokespeople are not walking it back, and they should not. Nobody likes to be thought of as a fascist. It is a correct tag and it has stuck to "MAGA Republicans" like a tin can tied to a dog's tail. It is a winning message for Dems and realigns the parties: the anti-fascist democrats and the "semi-fascist" authoritarians. We should hammer, hammer, hammer the "semi-fascist" message.
Gary M. Stern, the archives’ general counsel, emails 45th’s representatives — the lawyers Patrick F. Philbin, Michael Purpura and Scott Gast — saying that the government had discovered that the original correspondence with Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, was missing, as was a letter that President Barack Obama had left for 45th at the White House upon leaving office.
Mr. Stern, sounding impatient, says that Pat A. Cipollone, the former White House counsel, identified roughly two dozen boxes of material that had been in the White House residence but was never transferred to the archives.
According to the affidavit [for search warrant], the archives continued to make such requests for months.
May 18, 2021
Gast sends Stern a note indicating that 45th will return correspondence with the North Korean leader and asks how to proceed. Another archives official recommends that the letters be sent by FedEx, to which 45th aides object. The letters are not returned.
Stonewalling, dishonesty, lack of good faith, lying. Everything we know 45th does.
Summer 2021
45th shows off the letters from Mr. Kim, waving them at people in his office, where some boxes of material from the White House are being stored.
See above comment. No intention of complying in good faith. Taunting NARA that he got away with it by showing off the letters.
Late 2021
Officials at the archives warn 45th's representatives that there could be a referral to the Justice Department or an alert to Congress if the former president continues to refuse to comply with the Presidential Records Act.
45th’s advisers are concerned about who can go through the documents held at Mar-a-Lago, because appropriate clearances are needed...
That's bullshit, just more stonewalling.
... 45th ultimately goes through the boxes at the club himself, although he appears not to have gone through them all.
In late December, 45th’s lawyers inform the archives that they have found 12 boxes of documents at Mar-a-Lago and that they are ready for retrieval.
Jan. 18, 2022
Officials from the archives retrieve 15 boxes containing presidential records and other sensitive material, along with various news clippings and other miscellanea. According to the Justice Department, the documents “appear to contain national defense information,” sometimes called N.D.I., which is protected by the Espionage Act.
...archives informs the Justice Department, which asks President Biden to request that the archives provide the F.B.I. with access to the boxes for examination. Later, when the Justice Department reviews the materials, investigators come to believe they have not recovered everything that 45th must return.
That is by-the-book cumbersome, jeezus. I assume it's by-the-book. 1) archives informs DOJ 2) DOJ asks Biden to request that the archives provide the FBI with access to the boxes. DOJ can't ask NARA to let the FBI have a look-see? DOJ has to go to the PRESIDENT? Jesus Christ.
Jan. 31, 2022
The archives makes a public statement about Mr. Trump’s record-keeping practices, noting that some of the records it received at the end of his administration “included paper records that had been torn up by former President Trump.”
About a week later, the archives issues another public statement about retrieving documents from Mar-a-Lago, asserting that 45th still has presidential records that should have been turned over to the archives at the end of his time in office.
Precisely one year and 11 days prior. ASS. HOLE. ASSHOLE.
Feb. 9, 2022
Spring 2022
A grand jury is seated...The F.B.I. begins interviewing several of 45th’s personal aides as well as three former White House lawyers who had been among Mr. Trump’s representatives to the archives.
By now, 45th has dug in his heels, insisting to his advisers that he has returned everything and is unwilling to discuss the matter further.
April 29, 2022
The Justice Department tells Mr. 45th’s lawyers that the archives has found over 100 documents — more than 700 pages — with classification markings in the 15 boxes, and says the executive branch must assess “the potential damage resulting from the apparent matter in which these materials were stored and transported and take any necessary remedial steps.”
45th’s team scrambles to find lawyers with appropriate classification to review the documents that were by then in the archives’ possession. Two of his representatives to the archives, Mr. Philbin and John Eisenberg, decline to get involved. 45th’s advisers call several other lawyers with the appropriate clearances to see if they will help review the materials, but they decline.
Some of 45th’s advisers have been telling him for months that he needs to return the documents. But other allies, including Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch, have been telling 45th that he is entitled to keep the documents and never should have been pushed to return them. One adviser, Kashyap Patel, a former senior Trump administration official, offers a defense for Mr. Trump’s handling of the material, telling the right-wing news site Breitbart that the former president had declassified it.
Yes, I agree! That is an excellent, truly excellent defense that is sure to bring 45th closer to the Gray Bar Hotel. Please proceed.
May 11, 2022
45th receives a grand jury subpoena seeking additional documents bearing classified markings.
The following week, as the F.B.I. reviews the material in the 15 boxes recovered from Mar-a-Lago, the agency identifies classified documents in 14 of the 15 boxes. In total, there are 184 unique documents with classification markings; of those, 67 are confidential, 92 are secret and 25 are top secret.
The markings show that some documents pertained to foreign intelligence surveillance and information gathered by human intelligence sources. ["human intelligence sources=SPIES] Some were not to be shared with foreign entities, and others were marked “ORCON,” meaning that the agency that originated the document had to approve any dissemination beyond the government entities approved to see it. [That is, only the gathering agency could approve dissemination to ANY OTHER GOVERNMENT ENTITIY. FPOTUS IS A GOVERNMENT ENTITY.]
May 25, 2022
M. Evan Corcoran, a lawyer for 45th, sends the Justice Department a letter asking that the department consider a few “principles,” including the claim that Orange mammal had the absolute authority to declassify the documents.
Which is principally, actually COMPLETELY, beyond the fucking point. These clown lawyers cannot get it through their Clown heads that the Espionage Act DOESN'T CARE HOW YOU CLASSIFY THEM. CLASSIFY THEM AS "SUITABLE FOR TWITTER". The operative language in the Espionage Act is "RELATED TO NATIONAL DEFENSE". DO YOU GET THAT CLOWNS! I HOPE NOT AND THAT YOU NEVER DO SO THAT YOUR ORANGE MAMMAL CLIENT ENDS UP IN A SECURE ZOO WITH GRAY SECURITY BARS!
June 3, 2022
Jay I. Bratt, the Justice Department’s chief of counterintelligence, visits Mar-a-Lago accompanied by F.B.I. agents. The Orange mammal greets them in the dining room. According to Orange mammal’s lawyers, the former president says: “Whatever you need, just let us know.”
Mr. Bratt inspects a storage room. Christina Bobb, another of Orange mammal's lawyers, signs a written statement asserting that to the best of the lawyers’ understanding, they have turned over the remaining classified material from the White House boxes, satisfying the subpoena, according to several people briefed on the statement.
June 8, 2022
In a letter to Orange mammal’s lawyers, Mr. Bratt requests that the Mar-a-Lago storage room where the classified materials were kept be secured. He also asks that all boxes that had been moved from the White House to Mar-a-Lago be preserved in that room until further notice.
“As I previously indicated to you, Mar-a-Lago does not include a secure location authorized for the storage of classified information,” he writes, adding that since being taken from the White House, the documents “have not been handled in an appropriate manner or stored in an appropriate location.”
Orange mammal with bone in his brain’s team interprets that missive to mean they should put a second lock on the door of the storage room, according to his lawyers.
Orange mammal’s handwritten notes are also found on some of the documents.
They're paw prints.
June 2022
Members of Orange mammal’s personal and household staff are interviewed by the F.B.I.
June 22, 2022
The Orange Mammal Organization receives a subpoena for surveillance footage from Mar-a-Lago and provides it. The 60-day period of footage shows people moving boxes from the basement storage area around the time of one of the outreaches from the Justice Department.
Aug. 5, 2022
Aug. 8, 2022
