The RNC recently passed an official resolution declaring that the January 6, 2021 domestic terrorist coup attempt that led to death, assault on police officers and calls for the assassination of our leaders was nothing more than “ordinary citizens who engaged in legitimate political discourse that had nothing to do with violence at the Capital.”
Say what?
Please share widely!
Passing this resolution should be marked in the history books as the day the Republican Party officially became a fascist institution. Governor Baker has denounced it and since he’s no longer running for office he doesn’t need the party. He should get himself down to Swampscott Town Hall and change his voter registration to unenrolled (and be very public about it).
“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
― George Orwell, 1984
We now learn that Donald the Ripper illegally kept boxes of White House documents from the National Archives and took them back to his vermin-infested golf resort. They include ‘love letters’ with Kim Jong Un.
Crickets.
But her emails !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
But did he tear them up? 🙂
I don’t think the Ripper tore up the papers he took to Florida. The Washington Post is reporting the National Archives retrieved 15 boxes of papers they characterized as “out of the ordinary…never had that kind of volume transfer after the fact like this.”
Yeah — I realize my comment needs a smiley. Done.
Burn bags were used by some Trumpers to destroy some records, also.
Destroying public records is a criminal act with a three- year sentence.
The most valuable thing the Ripper stole from the White House was the dignity of the office.
President Biden restored that dignity the day he was sworn in.
” ‘Libertarian’ is Latin for ‘Embarrassed Republican’.” John Fugelsang
I do actually have a question about this. In an age where everything is typed/saved on computer I find it difficult to fathom that Trump actually tore up the sole existing copy of a document. Seems to me if a hard copy is destroyed all one would need to do is hit the print button again.
My understanding is that the law only applies to ORIGINAL documents, not copies.
Remember when Speaker Pelosi tore up Trump’s State of the Union address and he accused her of breaking the law ? Actually, she didn’t break the law because it was a COPY.
I think Christopher’s question remains unanswered, though.
If somebody puts an “original document” on a copier and presses the “copy” button, then lets stipulate that the result is a “COPY” that can legally be torn up.
That’s different from pressing the “print” icon of a pdf document and specifying that 10 copies be made on ten different printers.
The result will be 100 identical artifacts in 10 different places that are each indistinguishable from each other.
Which, if any, of those 100 is “original”?
I suspect that Mr. Trump is in very little real danger from these acts. I know that Neil Katyal says otherwise, and he’s argued before the Supreme Court many times, so perhaps I’m mistaken.
I think Christopher has asked very real question though, with no simple answer.
I’m not a lawyer so I answered Christopher’s question as best I could.
Hmm. Here’s one answer for both you and Christopher — all 100 documents in my scenario are “official”.
Presumably each piece of paper that goes in front of the president gets some kind of stamp or other physical mark that identifies that specific document.
This may be like the “chain of custody” in other physical evidence.
If the stamped document that was known to be in the president’s custody has no handwritten annotations on it, then an attorney for either side can cite that evidence.
If it DOES have handwritten annotations, then those annotations are significant (they are exactly why the records act exists).
So when a president rips that document into pieces, the president is in violation of the law.
Neil Katyal, in his MSNBC comments about this, said that the difference between Trump Inc CEO Donald Trump tearing up documents and President Donald Trump tearing up document is that the presidential records act does not apply to the former.
The moment Mr. Trump took the oath of office, it became a felony for him to do what he did.
So the question is whether and how Mr. Trump will be prosecuted for that. If he isn’t prosecuted, then the law is made irrelevant.
It is yet another case where if Mr. Garland does not prosecute Mr. Trump, it will confirm Mr. Trump’s outrageous claim that as President he can do anything he wants.
Mr. Trump’s aberrant and outrageous behavior will forever after be normalized if he is not prosecuted.
The handwritten aspect probably would answer my question. Otherwise why painstakingly tape the pieces together when other copies are easily obtained. For that matter in our current age the electronic files could be considered the originals for the purpose of the law provided they are backed up multiple times.