The headlines are damning: Trump had national security documents or classified documents or nuclear secret documents in his possession, a clear criminal violation. One former CIA head even put out a tweet effectively saying that Trump should be executed for treason. Everyone who believes Trump committed a criminal act is wrong. These claims completely misunderstand the nature of Trump’s (indeed of every president’s) plenary power and how it plays out with respect to documents and classified information.
The left is ecstatic. The Washington Post hollered, “Trump warrant papers list 11 sets of classified documents seized.” The Atlantic assured readers that “Not Even the President Can Declassify Nuclear Secrets: Fan letters and snapshots are one matter, and launch codes are another—and here the details of classification might decide just how much trouble Trump is in.”
Michael Hayden, who served in the Air Force, and then went on to a career as a high-level government functionary—former Director of the National Security Agency, Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence, and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency—approvingly retweeted “historian” Michael Beschloss’s explicit suggestion that Trump should be executed:
That tweet establishes that brains and an understanding of our constitutional system are not a prerequisite for being either a government hack or a leftist historian.
The Democrat line is clear: Trump had classified national security documents in his possession, which is a criminal act, so he needs to be prosecuted and, preferably, executed. In fact, it is impossible for a president to mismanage classified or national security documents. Indeed, even if Biden reclassified the information, Trump still did not commit a crime. Everything the Democrats believe is dead wrong.
Image: Moving Van (edited) by SGMCA. CC BY-SA 4.0; Donald Trump (edited) by Gage Skidmore. CC BY-SA 2.0.
The President of the United States has plenary power over national security issues, including document classification. That means that, under the Constitution, as to national security, the president has complete and unlimited power. He is the king of the national security world, and no one can gainsay him, whether the bureaucrats who work for him, Congress, or the Supreme Court.
Democrats, however, are pushing back against this reality. The best example I’ve found comes from Graeme Wood, an African-American studies and philosophy major, who authored the above-mentioned Atlantic article (which is currently The Atlantic’s “most popular” article.)
Wood reluctantly concedes some of the president’s unlimited power. He quotes J. William Leonard, former head of the Information Security Oversight Office, who said that “the rules and procedures governing the classification and declassification of information apply to everyone else [other than the president].” Wood continues, saying, “[The president] would not have had to file paperwork—just ‘utter the magic words,’ Leonard told me.” In other words, Wood acknowledges that Trump, while president, by packing up and taking documents with him automatically declassified them.
Wood accurately notes that Biden could have reclassified the documents. There’s no evidence, though, that he did so. In addition, even had Biden done so, that would not convert Trump into a criminal. The Constitution is extremely hostile to after-the-fact (i.e, ex post facto) criminalization of acts that were legal when taken. (Art 1, §§9 and 10.) Britain’s habit of doing that was one of the main reasons behind the American Revolution.
Wood’s core argument against Trump is that a president’s plenary power does not extend to nuclear secrets. The reason, Wood says, is that the Atomic Energy Acts of 1946 and 1954, produced a super-category of classification revolving are anything nuclear, one that overrides even the president. That’s untrue.
Presidents can voluntarily respect a national security law, but they do not have to abide by it. Again, plenary power means, as Wikipedia summarizes, “a power that has been granted to a body or person in absolute terms, with no review of or limitations upon the exercise of that power.”
Wood cites Navy v. Egan, 484 U.S. 518 (1988) to argue that nuclear secrets override the president’s power. He contends that “The 1988 Supreme Court case Navy v. Egan confirmed that classification authority flows from the president except in specific instances separated from his powers by law.” Wrong again.
The Egan decision examines only whether a civil service board can review a “laborer’s” being denied national security clearance. In that context, the Supreme Court was clear about the president’s plenary power, unimpeded by congressional acts:
The President, after all, is the “Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States.” U.S.Const., Art. II, § 2. His authority to classify and control access to information bearing on national security and to determine whether an individual is sufficiently trustworthy to occupy a position in the Executive Branch that will give that person access to such information flows primarily from this constitutional investment of power in the President, and exists quite apart from any explicit congressional grant. See Cafeteria Workers v. McElroy, 367 U. S. 886, 367 U. S. 890 (1961).
In sum, the only proof you need that Trump declassified the documents is the fact that, when he was still president, Trump treated them as declassified. Biden cannot criminalize Trump’s actions by later re-classifying the documents (and there’s no evidence that he did). And of course, if there were nuclear codes, they are changed regularly and would certainly be changed from one administration to the next, meaning that any information Trump has is as useful as the cartoon in an old Bazooka bubble gum wrapper.
Edgar: He was originally from a Texas Jewish Community, so maybe Honeybee has heard about him. The Jewish community in Texas is large.
@Edgar G. @Reader Leo Frank was lynched in 1915.
@READER-
Sorry about partly garbled post, but my computer has a habit of jumping over delayed sentences and by the time I noticed it “Edit’ was just running out. But I’m sure you’ll easily see what I was trying to say.
@READER-
The reason why “Jews are a nation apart”, is because when that prophesy was was made early in our history., they were surrounded by Goyim, Pagans etc. The kind who throughout Israel’s turbulent history, often led Israel “astray”.
As for Anti-Semitism is America, which you point out, I always think of the ignorantjew-Hater who obscenely murdered Leo Frank. I had/.have MANY relatives living in Atlanta, including one who was an Ambassador under President Ford,
I used to correspond with several of , and was an important Community member.. hem and always intended to visit, but hated flying, so never did. But in talking about the Anti-Semitism there One mentioned the lynching of Leo Frank, and how careful they’ve had to be ever since. .He was personally known by several of my very old cousins.
He was originally from a Texas Jewish Community, so maybe Honeybee has heard about him.
(I won’t go as far as to say that she may have known him personally).
@Reader Just the first half of 2022 and the second link goes back almost 200 years.
@Sebastien Zorn
You are using the stats for the US from 2020 and the stats for Israel from 2022.
Just because the Holocaust never came to America doesn’t mean it can’t happen here, moreover, America enabled (together with Britain) the last Holocaust.
And as you yourself quoted [emphasis mine]:
Now, why would that be?
@Honeybee
Yes, but you are confusing the reason and the means here.
I was speaking of antisemitism as the means (how) the Jewish people are kept apart.
@Reader https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_antisemitic_incidents_in_the_United_States
@Reader
https://www.adl.org/blog/six-facts-about-threats-to-the-jewish-community
And the Holocaust never came to America.
@Reader
https://www.israeltoday.co.il/read/over-3700-terrorist-attacks-against-israelis-in-2022-so-far/
@Reader Well, I think that living in a country which possesses its own army, police, etc. (even if we ignore God’s special protection of the place that the religious insist upon and which, in my opinion, has been amply demonstrated) is at least somewhat safer than living unarmed and scattered
Perhaps there is a more profound and significant reason that Jews must be a people who must be kept apart.
@Honeybee
It’s nothing new – most of the Jewish history is like that, especially the recent history – we are counting the 3rd century since the Jews got civil rights, and things are only getting worse in the Diaspora.
I am reading Leon Poliakov’s The History of Anti-Semitism (which I highly recommend – he quotes numerous sources), and what freaks out the Gentiles the most is when the Jews really assimilate and try to look and act the same as the surrounding population.
So, as unpleasant as it sounds, antisemitism exists to keeps the Jews Jewish and separate.
Another must-read is The Oslo Syndrome: Delusions of a People Under Siege by Kenneth Levin (I wish there was a pill to cure the syndrome).
@Sebastien Zorn
You keep faulting Jews for being Democrats.
I already explained using the numbers from the survey you referred to that:
1) they are not the only ones who vote this way;
2) there are religious groups who are more “Democratic” than the Jews;
3) the small or threatened minorities tend to vote for what they perceive to be a safer and more fair alternative for them;
The Jews are unfairly singled out for voting this way, probably because everyone thinks that all Jews are:
a) white;
b) rich;
c) powerful;
d) have some sort of a sneaky plan for grabbing even more power with the help of the “evil” Democrats, etc., etc. (“haven’t you read the Protocols?!”)
YOU think voting this way is not good for us, well, the majority of the Jews in the US apparently think otherwise, and they also think that it is good for the rest of the small or threatened minorities.
You twist my words by accusing me of wishing on the Jews what happened to them 90 years ago.
I think that what is happening now follows the pattern of what was happening in Europe in the 1st half of the 20th century leading to the Holocaust with the Diaspora Jews desperately trying to ignore the ominous signs.
Well, I think that living in a country which possesses its own army, police, etc. (even if we ignore God’s special protection of the place that the religious insist upon and which, in my opinion, has been amply demonstrated) is at least somewhat safer than living unarmed and scattered among the heavily armed population which is getting closer to experiencing another Great Depression and/or Great War (guess who is going to be blamed for everything – and already IS being blamed) while relying on the protection of the local police.
Honeybee and Sebastien,
The “How?” and “Why?” of it are beyond me. I certainly agree with Sebastien in that:
That answers “What?” Some people hate Jews. I think their main problem, is that they are afraid to own up to their own sins, and are looking for a scapegoat. You can’t make these people “like you”, because their problem really has nothing to do with you.
I guess an analogy would be,
“How can a cop get the crooks to like him?”
The reality is, that it’s not the cop’s job to make criminals happy; it’s his job to be a cop.
How American Jews fight anti-Semitism. By asking, “how can we make anti-Semites like us”?
@Reader This is a silly discussion. Ate you not part of the Jewish community? That most Jews are Democrats is not something anyone contests but its not in our interest any more as antisemitism and especially Israelophobia takes hold in that party. And why are you wishing bad things tor Jews like 90 years ago? You seriously think everybody moving to Israel with its Arab fifth column will make them safer? Even if Israel could absorb millions of Olim all at once. You are talking like an armchair ideologue.
@Reader Norman Podhor3tz Why are Jews liberals
https://www.c-span.org/video/?288972-1/why-jews-liberals
The concerned everyone you are speaking of here are conservative Zionist Jews.
@Sebastien Zorn
It is a survey (which is another word for “questionnaire”) of the total of 35,000 people from all the 50 states.
Religion/ % in the population/ vote for Democrats
Jewish/ 1.9% / 64%
Buddhist/ 0.7% / 69%
Hindu/ 0.7% / 61%
Muslim / 0.9% / 62%
Historically Black Protestant/ 6.5% / 80%
Unaffiliated/ 22.8% / 54%
As you can see, the numbers speak for themselves.
It seems that the small or threatened minorities (unaffiliated is an undefined mix) tend to vote for those politicians (the minorities think) who won’t try to defund the Social Security and Medicare, etc.
Then why everyone focuses only on how the JEWS vote?
@Sebastien Zorn
Oh, so Caroline Glick accuses the American Jewish leadership of not fighting antisemitism hard enough.
The idea of fighting antisemitism (especially in the Diaspora) is as delusional as the idea of moving the equator or trying to lower the temperature of the sun.
Which doesn’t mean that the American Jewish leadership is blameless – far from it.
Personally, I think (and I really hope I am wrong) that the American Jews will end up in the same trap that the European Jews ended up in 90 years ago, and this time with the help of the Jewish state.
@Reader https://carolineglick.com/american-jewish-leader-have-failed-and-betrayed-the-community/
@Reader
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/
@Sebastien Zorn
Where does the data come from – actual voting records or limited questionnaires?
Why the are the lights trained only on how the Jews vote and not tens of millions of other minorities?
An why do you assume that the Jews deserve your hatred and ethnic slurs just because you can rationalize them?
Why do you and Michael S. feel free to use the slurs like “court Jews” with Michael openly gloating at the coming punishment for these Jews?
Would you or Michael ever post on a Black-run blog (assuming such blogs exist) a slur that those Blacks “who have prominently hitched themselves to the Democrat horse” are “house slaves to the Democratic party” and assume that the readers of the blog just have to take it because it is “the truth”?
The answer is NEVER!
It would never occur to either of you, of course, and both of you would be horrified to hear that someone might have done this.
Then why do you abase yourself before Michael apologizing for the existence word Goy which means “nation” in Hebrew and “non-Jew” in Yiddish (which is not as pejorative as you like to imagine) when Michael defiantly and unapologetically repeatedly singles out the Jews in the federal government, gloats at their possible misfortune due to their being “evil” democrats, and keeps using the slur “court Jews”?
@Reader
Because they don’t claim to act in the best interests of Jews and Israel to get Jewish voters to support them.
@Reader
g
https://archives.frontpagemag.com/fpm/ben-shapiro-why-jews-vote-leftist-truthrevoltorg/
@Michael Thank you.
😀
XD:
@Michael S.
Why does it bother you
Why don’t you count how many Hispanics, blacks, etc. “prominently hitched themselves to the Democrat horse.”
It is idiotic in the 1st place to place the all the blame on one party – what do you propose ?
To exile or jail all the Democrats and create a one-party state of all the Republicans?
The federal officials are appointed, they can probably refuse their appointment but they don’t, so why is the JEWISH question is a thorn in your whatever.
If Sebastien called them “Court Jews”, then he is wrong or he made a very bad joke.
Hello, Reader. You said,
This looks like something I can comment on. You are hinting, not too subtly, at a conspiracy among members in the Obama-Biden Administration, to pack the cabinet with Jews and use them as political cannon fodder.
You MAY be right here, and some here may very likely agree with you. Giving the Administration the benefit of the doubt, which is probably overly generous, the fact that so many Jews have prominently hitched themselves to the Democrat horse was not forced upon them: They have freely chosen this course. For some reason which I do not fully understand, they may have thought this an advantageous move. What I have noted in several posts, however, is that they are likely to rue their decision.
BTW, Sebastien is the one who first called these people “Court Jews”, which I think is an apt description.
@Michael S.
@Sebastien Zorn
I think this is the reason so many Jewish officials were appointed by this administration.
Under normal circumstances the PTB sic their subjects on each other, i.e., Democrat/Republican, Left/Right, Liberal/Conservative, Black/While, etc., etc.
When there is a danger of a major upheaval and the regular divisions may be put on the back burner or ignored by the population which may get an idea to rise against the PTB, then they sic the disaffected on the Jews.
BTW, the Jewish civil servants in the US are not “court Jews” any more than the others are “courtiers”, and it is not only they who will be in danger but ALL the Jews.
This is why all the Jews (ideally) should be getting out of here ASAP.
Sebastien,
I’m glad I made your day with the “G” word. “Goiim” or “goyim”, however you want to transliterate it, just means “nations” to any Bible scholar; but in certain social groups, I suppose any word can have a sensitive meaning. I guess my advantage is that I have managed to, intentionally or inadvertently, find myself excluded from so many groups.
Your “Steely Dan” comment bounces off my head. I understand that they’re a Baby Boomer age rock duo. Never heard of them, until I looked them up. The “Stephen K Bannon” I mentioned can be found at
https://rumble.com/c/BannonsWarRoom
He’s an in-your-face Irish American from the US Navy town of Norfolk, VA, who was for a while one of President Trump’s chief advisers. He’s a brilliant fellow, with a working class background, and the Globalists are terrified of his viewers. I have bookmarked his Rumble site, and watch him daily.
Concerning emoticons, “laughing” is apparently “X D” (without the space) ( XD ). (Doesn’t work for me — try : D 😀 I stumbled onto them by chance, but there’s an article about them at
https://www.wikihow.com/Type-Emoticons
No big news items today that I can see. Here’s a good article by Dennis Prager:
God-free for decades: How is the totally secular contemporary world doing?
https://www.worldtribune.com/god-free-for-decades-how-is-the-totally-secular-contemporary-world-doing/
He concludes,
“Swimming in a secular sea and ignorance of the disparate moral records of secular and Judeo-Christian regimes and institutions constitute one of the two reasons for the religious apathy among young Americans. The other, as I’ll chronicle in a future column, has been the failure of religious institutions to explain themselves.”
Having worshipped in several Christian and one Jewish venue over the years, I’ve found that the more these institutions “explain themselves”, the less attractive they become. I try to get along with all kinds, as much as possible; my only “spiritual feeding” comes from private prayer, and from the Bible (in original languages). A lot of churches and synagogues shut down out of fear of COVID (and of Big Brother). They should stay shut down.
@ Michael. Pretty funny. Just as only an African-American would dare use the N word, these days, by the same token, no pun intended, only a Christian, or an Aryan, take your pick, oy, there’s that deadly P word, again, would dare use the G word. Whew! Have to catch my breath, here. (My) Word.
@Honeybee We’s Bonnie and Clyde, we is.
@Michael
OK, Steely Dan.
Test 🙂 amazing
Thankyou Michael. I had suspected you were pulling my leg. But now, this wretch I has seen the light. Praise Be! 😉
What’s laughter?
Hi, Sebastien. I’ll reverse engineer the icons for you. Just do the following, without spaces:
: – ) smile
: – | sober
: – ( sad
; – ) wink
Satire, gallows humor, etc., for which Jews seem to be famous, gives temporary relief fro stressful circumstances. There was lots of it in the ghettos. In the gas chambers, though, there were only screams and gasps.
These are perilous times for all humanity (which excludes Obama, Xi, Schwab, etc.). Steven K. Bannon says these are times for steely resolve. I believe he is correct.
@Michael Here’s the real burning question of the day. How do you put laughter and sadness icons on without them coming out as question marks?
And, secondly, are you reiterating your earlier comment that there’s such a thing as too much satire, which is a funny notion in and of itself, especially on the part of a religious fundamentalist? Not that I have anything against even the Kookiest ( no pun intended) religious fundamentalists, so long as they are Zionists, as per the famous gefilte fish quote of Jabotinsky.
@Honey Somehow, I can believe that.
Sebastien, careful Darlin, the Babylon Bee is a very close relative of mine.
Michael, just what I was thinking.
From your link, Sebastien:
🙂 Funny. Ha ha. 😐 …not really.
Bastien, this Administration is making enemies every day, among Rank and File Americans. Against whom is this growing ire being directed? Against the Goy Joe Biden? no. Against the Goy Christopher Wray? no. Against the Goy Barack Obama? no. Against the Jew Merrick Garland?
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! DANGER! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! DANGER! JEW IN THE ROOM! JEW IN THE ROOM!
I don’t see happy 🙂 days ahead, for the Court Jews of America. 😐
Nope… not funny.
https://babylonbee.com/news/opinion-concerns-about-fbi-raids-have-been-overblown-and-theres-no-need-to-wor—hang-on-theres-a-knock-at-the-door
This reminds me of Watergate. It all began on June 17, 1972 with a break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters. The scandal lasted two years, until September 1974. It led to the resignation of President Nixon on August 9, 1974.
There were 69 people indicted, with 48 being convicted. Many held political office in the Nixon Administration.
I think we are seeing history repeat itself. This scandal, mark my words, will last at least two years. It will cost Democrats control of the House and the Senate. There will be hearings, and impeachment charges against Merrick Garland and maybe even President Biden.
What is happening with the Mar-a-Lago raid makes Watergate look like Sunday school by comparison.
Te French Model:
https://youtu.be/HGSp2q0fXNk
The “Committee of Safety” eerily resembles the January 6 Committee. Here is a picture of its leader, receiving justice:
https://imgs.search.brave.com/C1noEJfcD-jv7g7VbYktx4qx96lbqlrZLyPpEXjCSsI/rs:fit:816:271:1/g:ce/aHR0cHM6Ly8yNjY0/MjE4NjA2MjQwNTIz/NzQud2VlYmx5LmNv/bS91cGxvYWRzLzQv/My8wLzQvNDMwNDEy/MDcvMTQxNzAyNTUx/OC5wbmc
Hi, D. Reuveni
Indeed! Off with all their heads!
Welcome to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland!
https://imgs.search.brave.com/U0jbV2myqPhrChLZh6Dxem-9KDeahTqtcHu7IiQMa6k/rs:fit:460:460:1/g:ce/aHR0cDovL21lZGlh/LWNhY2hlLWVjMC5w/aW5pbWcuY29tLzcz/NngvNGIvZWMvZDMv/NGJlY2QzNjljMDI1/ZTllNTU4MjIwZDNh/ZTBkNzdkOTYuanBn
There is another facet to this issue. If these documents contain such sensitive information, putting it in the hands of at least 30 technically unqualified FBI agents is opening the stable door.
Edgar, I highly recomment the following:
https://rumble.com/v1fvgop-episode-2076-the-great-reset-and-the-war-for-the-world-cont..html
It’s an interview with Alex Jones by Stephen K. Bannon. Alex gives his bio (His dad set him off and equipped him from his childhood), and talks about the roots of the current Transhumanism program – from the evil social engineer Rameses III (who killed the Jewish children), to Zbigniew Brzezinski (the architect of the New World Order) to the present, a program that would, as Alex says, “make Hitler blush”.
It’s only 49 minutes long, a lot shorter than a book.
“Bad” publicity and potential wrongdoing, spread around at this “delicate” time are the Dems usual modus operandi.
Any publicity is “good”…. in this case, only for the Dems, UNLESS the Repubs and MAGA can clearly explain that it’s just another denigrating hoax. At the same time, it uses energy and funds that can better be devoted to ensure positive results.
As may be noticed, I differentiate between the Repubs (establishment) and MAGA ( the REAL People).
Well, blow me down with a feather!