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naraburns  nihil supernum  3yr ago (text post)   34570 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 7, 2022

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I will also stick with my earlier claim that he will see no meaningful charges. No prison time, no barring from office. NARA got their documents back. The rest of the executive got their classified information secured. We have not seen evidence that he actually wanted to pass secrets on. As long as that continues to be true, I don’t expect much.

Any thoughts on what happens to future presidents with this having the appearance of setting a precedent?

How do you mean?

I don’t view this as setting much precedent. To get here,

  1. The POTUS had to have a truck of documents at his home office

  2. He/his staff had to partially comply when NARA requested all presidential records

  3. His filing system was sloppy enough that NARA could tell it was partial (intermingled documents)

  4. He had to stonewall follow-on requests for ~18 months

I figure most presidents probably get off this train at stop 2. Surely Obama or Bush brought work home—but with a party apparatus, transition team, and experience with security clearances at their backs, they didn’t try to hold on to half of it. Seriously, it remains a mystery why Trump’s team picked up this sort of liability. Without knowing why, any precedent is going to be fairly obvious.

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