Location: Perched on the precipice of the cauldron of truth
Posted:
Nov 1, 2025 - 2:24pm
kurtster wrote:
Thanks again for your response.
I already pulled up the doc and went through the TOC. I'll give it a read and digest it for a memory refresher, which I do admit I need to go on with this discussion.
At the surface without reading, I maintain that Biden did know he had said documents and willfully took them. Something he had no right to do. I see that there is a chapter covering that. The docs that Trump had were declassified already although there is disagreement on that. I'll refresh my memory on that, too.
Meanwhile, the discovery of OAF may have some impact on the above as nothing happened until after Trump announced his candidacy for 2024. Then all hell broke lose. We'll see.
You're there and I'm here. Hopefully we can have an ongoing discussion on this without the usual sideshow that can infiltrate such a discussion.
Got some reading and digging to do.
Before you dig too deep, I should caution that I am not overly interested in debating whether Hur had it wrong and Biden should have been prosecuted. Nor am I overly interested in debating whether Trump should not have been prosecuted because Biden was not prosecuted.
I am interested in hearing any defenses of Trump on the merits â i.e., why he was innocent of the charges.
I already pulled up the doc and went through the TOC. I'll give it a read and digest it for a memory refresher, which I do admit I need to go on with this discussion.
At the surface without reading, I maintain that Biden did know he had said documents and willfully took them. Something he had no right to do. I see that there is a chapter covering that. The docs that Trump had were declassified already although there is disagreement on that. I'll refresh my memory on that, too.
Meanwhile, the discovery of OAF may have some impact on the above as nothing happened until after Trump announced his candidacy for 2024. Then all hell broke lose. We'll see.
You're there and I'm here. Hopefully we can have an ongoing discussion on this without the usual sideshow that can infiltrate such a discussion.
Got some reading and digging to do.
"The docs that Trump had were declassified already..."
I suggest you read the report of Special Counsel Robert Hur on the investigation into Biden’s possession of classified documents — at least the Executive Summary to refresh or correct your memory. https://www.justice.gov/storage/report-from-special-counsel-robert-k-hur-february-2024.pdf. Neither Trump, as a former President, nor Biden, as a former Vice President, had the “right’ to possess the classified documents. As I previously stated, the primary focus is upon whether the possession of the documents is knowing and the retention willful. Trump’s retaining classified documents at Mar-a-Lago in defiance of a grand jury subpoena and despite repeated requests from the National Archives and DOJ that he return them distinguishes Trump’s case from Biden’s. I direct you specifically to pages 10 and 11 of the Executive Summary of Special Counsel Hur, where he distinguishes Trump’s case from Biden’s in terms of the decision whether to prosecute. The critical distinctions, Hur states, were Trump’s refusal to return the documents and his obstruction of justice. That explains, Hur says, why Trump was prosecuted when no other former vice presidents or presidents had been for possession and mishandling of classified documents, which, he notes, is historical precedent. ...
Thanks again for your response.
I already pulled up the doc and went through the TOC. I'll give it a read and digest it for a memory refresher, which I do admit I need to go on with this discussion.
At the surface without reading, I maintain that Biden did know he had said documents and willfully took them. Something he had no right to do. I see that there is a chapter covering that. The docs that Trump had were declassified already although there is disagreement on that. I'll refresh my memory on that, too.
Meanwhile, the discovery of OAF may have some impact on the above as nothing happened until after Trump announced his candidacy for 2024. Then all hell broke lose. We'll see.
You're there and I'm here. Hopefully we can have an ongoing discussion on this without the usual sideshow that can infiltrate such a discussion.
Location: Perched on the precipice of the cauldron of truth
Posted:
Nov 1, 2025 - 9:28am
kurtster wrote:
Thanks for the response.
A little bit to unpack.
I'll start here.
A) Leaving Pence out of this as I give him the benefit of the doubt for this discussion. Not going to challenge Trump's intent to keep the documents. Whether or not they were his to keep is still yet unresolved AFAIK. Biden, had classified documents that he illegally obtained while as a Senator and as VP. He never had a right to possess them in the first place. I believe this to be a major difference between Trump and Biden's situations. He had those documents stored in multiple unsecured locations as well. Law enforcement was never involved in the recovery of the documents. Biden's attorneys rounded them up and turned them over to authorities so we have no specifics of what exactly was where other than the word of Biden's agents.
The legality of Biden's possession of these classified documents has never been addressed in court. Biden was deposed by Hur over this and other things yet not charged because he was determined to be mentally unfit for prosecution. That is the only reason he was not charged. Yet no one even tried to invoke the 25th Amendment at the time.
B) These to me are about the merits of the cases. One had the possible right to legally possess the documents while the other had absolutely no right to possess their documents.
C) The forthcoming charges against Comey, James and others have nothing to do with retribution. They are being charged for activities determined to be indictable by Grand Juries.
The revelations now being discovered with the uncovering the deeply hidden Operation Arctic Frost only makes these things more alarming. This is why I moved my response over here to get away from the MAGA thread which is totally inappropriate for any meaningful discussions on something so important. Hopefully we can have a reasoned discussion on these things going forward over here.
Neither Trump, as a former President, nor Biden, as a former Vice President, had the ârightâ to possess the classified documents. As I previously stated, the primary focus is upon whether the possession of the documents is knowing and the retention willful.
Trumpâs retaining classified documents at Mar-a-Lago in defiance of a grand jury subpoena and despite repeated requests from the National Archives and DOJ that he return them distinguishes Trumpâs case from Bidenâs. I direct you specifically to pages 10 and 11 of the Executive Summary of Special Counsel Hur, where he distinguishes Trumpâs case from Bidenâs in terms of the decision whether to prosecute. The critical distinctions, Hur states, were Trumpâs refusal to return the documents and his obstruction of justice. That explains, Hur says, why Trump was prosecuted when no other former vice presidents or presidents had been for possession and mishandling of classified documents, which, he notes, is historical precedent.
Contrary to your claim, Hur's recommendation not to prosecute Biden was not based âonlyâ on Biden being âmentally unfit.â Far from it, as Hur provided an extremely detailed explanation of his reasons for recommending Biden not be prosecuted (and, to be clear, nowhere did Hur state that he thought Biden mentally unfit to stand trial). You also were incorrect in stating that law enforcement was not involved in Bidenâs return of classified documents. The FBI did searches for classified documents at Bidenâs homes and office. Again, read the Hur report.
Your assertion that the prosecutions of Comey and James are not examples of retribution because grand juries indicted them ignores Trump publicly calling for AG Bondi to prosecute them and the ousting of the incumbent US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia in favor of a former Trump defense attorney with no criminal prosecution experience whose only qualification was her willingness to present the Comey case to a grand jury. Significantly, that incumbent US Attorney and the career attorneys in that office determined that there was not sufficient evidence to prosecute Comey. That an indictment was obtained does not diminish that significance.
In determining whether to prosecute, the prosecutors assess whether they believe, based on the facts, evidence, and law, that they can prevail at trial under a standard of beyond a reasonable doubt. Obtaining an indictment before a grand jury is far easier as it not only is subject to the lesser standard of probable cause but also the grand jurors are presented only evidence and argument from the prosecution.
Your conclusion that those prosecutions are not retribution because of those indictments is not only flawed for the reasons stated, it also exposes a glaring inconsistency: If valid, it also would mean you could not maintain the DOJ was weaponized against Trump because he was indicted by a grand jury in the classified documents case and the January 6 election conspiracy federal case.
I really do not know what your party affiliation is. I believe that you have said that you are a man without a party or something similar IIRC. One thing is certain though, you are against all things Trump.
IMO, you justify using whataboutism as an excuse to ignore an argument by your position that the justice system was never weaponized against Trump or any of his supporters. What the discovery of OAF shows is new compelling evidence that indeed the justice system was weaponized against Trump.
So by all means, sit this one out until the courts tell us otherwise. Works for me.
Cheers.
My argument against trump is very simple.
It lies in his actions post 2020, and then his reelection where he is dismantling our democratic systems.
On there face, not every policy trump enacts is wrong. But I would never support our applaud any of his success based on the prior.
In my mind, anyone who voted for or supports him is being foolish and misguided (to be polite).
If it is established that it was, do you have a problem with that or do you approve regardless ?
A few things....
Define established: evidence or conviction?
As for my party affiliation, I was a registered Republican until 2014... and didn't pick a party when we moved. I never voted for a Democratic nominee until Hillary Clinton (who I don't like), solely because I believed the Republican nominee to be a grifting fraud, incapable of helping the country. You'll disagree, but history will prove...especially now... that I'm right.
I will agree that he has stopped immigration, but he isn't creating a long term solution to the immigration problem, which he should be focused on given his total control of the government.
He has done almost nothing else of value for the country. All of the value is pointed at him and those from whom he can extract money and favor. He is using the country to make himself rich, and in the process destroying our national leadership is countless areas: medicine, technology, education. He is constantly getting played by foreign leaders who are infinitely better at negotiating than "the Donald". Trump is not a business genius... he's a bully. He makes deals now that weaken the US, all while he looks at himself in the mirror and thinks he's stronger than everyone. He's not... the US is.
Your continuous focus on Biden and looking backwards is done intentionally by the right-wing media to distract from the reality of our current situation.
I am not, and honestly never think I'll be... a democrat. But I sure as hell can't support the Republican party.
. One thing is certain though, you are against all things Trump.
But that’s rational.
Yes, and that is OK. Did I say it wasn't ?
He did not disagree.
Just trying to get things clear where people stand for moving forward, not judge.
Edit : The point of this thread is to establish that there indeed was weaponization of the justice system by an incumbent administration against a political opponent.
If it is established that it was, do you have a problem with that or do you approve regardless ?
Location: At the dude ranch / above the sea Gender:
Posted:
Oct 31, 2025 - 5:33am
kurtster wrote:
. One thing is certain though, you are against all things Trump.
But thatâs rational. It doesnât specify a party affiliation (except that the GOP seems to lack a backbone to say anything negative in the face of the things heâs done and his senility - now _thatâs_ a party âaffiliationâ).
If someone were truly flexible and independent and unaffiliated, starting with âgrab them by the pussyâ they would be very critical of the things he does, like hiring his daughter as a White House âadvisorâ and pardoning the insurrectionists, berating/humiliating Zelenski publicly, serving cold fast food to a winning football team, and so much more.
Itâs _OK_ to criticize what he does when itâs wrong, but the GOP doesnât get that and immediately falls back onto âoh, thatâs just TDS.â No. Itâs the sign of someone whoâs a free thinker. And the inability to criticize him shows the opposite.
.webp
So, following a extended conversation about whataboutism, which you waited for a legal opinion on only to be told "you're wrong", your rebuttal is to start another thread about something else so sinister that it demands immediate attention? Do you see the whataboutism irony? With all things Trump, you talk about "until proven in court". Why assume anything? When the courts tell us, I'll engage. Operation Arctic Frost is GOP distraction bullshit. When someone is proven guilty, let me know.
I really do not know what your party affiliation is. I believe that you have said that you are a man without a party or something similar IIRC. One thing is certain though, you are against all things Trump.
IMO, you justify using whataboutism as an excuse to ignore an argument by your position that the justice system was never weaponized against Trump or any of his supporters. What the discovery of OAF shows is new compelling evidence that indeed the justice system was weaponized against Trump.
So by all means, sit this one out until the courts tell us otherwise. Works for me.
A new thread for a recent revelation that appears to have legs. It has already been called by some to be Biden's Watergate.
,,,
The revelations now being discovered with the uncovering the deeply hidden Operation Arctic Frost only makes these things more alarming. This is why I moved my response over here to get away from the MAGA thread which is totally inappropriate for any meaning discussions on something so important. Hopefully we can have a reasoned discussion on these things going forward over here.
So, following a extended conversation about whataboutism, which you waited for a legal opinion on only to be told "you're wrong", your rebuttal is to start another thread about something else so sinister that it demands immediate attention? Do you see the whataboutism irony?
With all things Trump, you talk about "until proven in court". Why assume anything? When the courts tell us, I'll engage.
Operation Arctic Frost is GOP distraction bullshit. When someone is proven guilty, let me know.
A new thread for a recent revelation that appears to have legs. It has already been called by some to be Biden's Watergate.
.
Moved here from the MAGA thread. steeler wrote:
Whoa . . . A lot of back and forth since I posted. Sorry for delay in response; busy yesterday. Rgio is correct that the point of my entire post is that claims of a double standard, a rigged justice system, or a weaponized DOJ are not defenses of Trump on the merits.
The point of that part of my post that you have questioned is that it is not a defense of Trump on the merits to allege that he was subject to a double standard when he was prosecuted for violations of laws relating to the possession of classified documents when Biden was not. At most, that could only surface in court as a motion to dismiss based on selective prosecution and, as explained by the Supreme Court: “A selective prosecution claim is not a defense on the merits to the criminal charge itself, but an independent assertion that the prosecutor has brought charges for reasons forbidden by the Constitution.” In sum, even if Trump’s case had been dismissed because of selective prosecution, that would not mean that Trump was innocent. (Nor does the dismissal of the case because Judge Cannon found special counsel Jack Smith to be unlawfully appointed).
A) Prosecutions for unlawfully obtaining and retaining classified documents must prove elements of intentionality. Possession alone is not sufficient. The obtaining and retention of the classified documents must be knowing and willful. Trump willfully retained the classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. That was not the case with Biden (or Pence).
. B) Therefore, it is not at all true, as you suggest, that both Trump and Biden should have been prosecuted or neither should have been. Determinations of whether to prosecute are made on a case-by-case basis by prosecutors based on an assessment of the facts, evidence, and law. As rgio has noted, Biden and Pence immediately returned the documents. Trump did not. That and other factors distinguished their cases from his.
As I explained in a post here at the time:
There is no question that Trump chose to retain the classified documents in defiance of a grand jury subpoena. We know this because his attorney, Evan Corcoran, subsequently testified to the grand jury that when he had attested to DOJ in June 2022 that the documents being turned over at that time were all of the documents responsive to the subpoena he had located after conducting a required due diligence search, he had only searched the documents in the storage room because he was unaware that other possibly responsive documents had been moved out of that storage room by aides at Trump’s direction.
Corcoran only testified before the grand jury after the presiding judge ruled that the attorney-client privilege that normally would have barred such testimony by him had been pierced. Corcoran also had taken contemporaneous notes at the time that also were produced before the grand jury. Contemporaneous notes adds exponentially to the credibility of a witness. . If this goes to trial, Corcoran will be a virtually unassailable witness against Trump. The Trump defense will move to suppress Corcoran’s testimony by arguing that the prior judge had erred in ruling that the attorney-client privilege had been pierced. If that motion fails, Trump will be convicted based on Corcoran’s testimony and the surveillance tapes showing Walt Nauta moved boxes of documents from the storage room to Trump’s office and residence.
In sum, this is not a witch hunt, and anyone making that claim is either totally ignorant of the facts/evidence or lying through their teeth.
And a follow-up conclusion of mine at the time that is still applicable today and dovetails with my post from the other day that started this discussion:
The only point of the claim (mantra) that this is a two-tiered system of justice especially rigged against Trump is to absolve he and his supporters from having to offer any defense of him on the merits.
C) Lastly, but perhaps most significantly and ominously, this has expanded into a deeply and widely held belief that retribution is not only justified, but imperative.
Thanks for the response.
A little bit to unpack.
I'll start here.
A) Leaving Pence out of this as I give him the benefit of the doubt for this discussion. Not going to challenge Trump's intent to keep the documents. Whether or not they were his to keep is still yet unresolved AFAIK. Biden, had classified documents that he illegally obtained while as a Senator and as VP. He never had a right to possess them in the first place. I believe this to be a major difference between Trump and Biden's situations. He had those documents stored in multiple unsecured locations as well. Law enforcement was never involved in the recovery of the documents. Biden's attorneys rounded them up and turned them over to authorities so we have no specifics of what exactly was where other than the word of Biden's agents.
The legality of Biden's possession of these classified documents has never been addressed in court. Biden was deposed by Hur over this and other things yet not charged because he was determined to be mentally unfit for prosecution. That is the only reason he was not charged. Yet no one even tried to invoke the 25th Amendment at the time.
B) These to me are about the merits of the cases. One had the possible right to legally possess the documents while the other had absolutely no right to possess their documents.
C) The forthcoming charges against Comey, James and others have nothing to do with retribution. They are being charged for activities determined to be indictable by Grand Juries.
The revelations now being discovered with the uncovering the deeply hidden Operation Arctic Frost only makes these things more alarming. This is why I moved my response over here to get away from the MAGA thread which is totally inappropriate for any meaningful discussions on something so important. Hopefully we can have a reasoned discussion on these things going forward over here.
