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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32183 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 23, 2023

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Mike Pence joins the File Why? Club

The former VP has turned in "a small number of documents bearing classified markings" after his lawyer found them in a sealed moving box. He's taking the Biden approach of denying all knowledge while cooperating with NARA, which I would describe as "begging forgiveness." The coverage looks relatively soft; CNN offers an innocuous explanation for how they'd have gotten from his former SCIF at the Naval Observatory. It is definitely being used for comparison with the similar Biden situation and contrast with Trump's approach of screaming bloody murder.

Points to anyone who claimed classified document messes were common among officials. I do wonder if this triggers a mass search among Congressmen's residences. Or if it already has. I don't think other findings would have been kept quiet, but I guess it could be possible.

I suspect the practices of handling some documents marked classified by top politicians has been very lax forever (maybe not raiding SCIF but not turning in some stuff that should be turned it, for sure). Outgoing Senators and Presidents probably kept some documents they technically shouldn't be keeping, and nobody made a fuss about it. Just as with many other things (e.g. FARA or Logan Act, etc.), everybody knew and nobody cared. Until it became necessary to use it to get Trump - because everything must be used to get Trump. Now there's a silly dance of trying to explain why our guy doing the same as their guy is totally different. I wonder if they dare to inspect the Lightbringer's archives - I bet there are classified docs there too, though nobody would dare to have FBI raid his residence, of course.

I would bet against this.

Not the general mishandling, but specifically the “nobody cares.” I’m not exactly clear on how the Pence story was broken, but for Trump it was quiet until the FBI got publicly involved. If NARA went after Cheney or Quayle back in the day, the process was resolved before it could become news.

I am convinced that Trump made his bed via his response rather than any scope and scale differences. We saw the end step of months of escalation without having heard a whisper of earlier proceedings.

but for Trump it was quiet until the FBI got publicly involved

And the FBI has lied to courts to get warrants against Trump's people. And the FBI has lied to Twitter to get them to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story.

So I'm not just going to believe that the FBI acted impartially and professionally here.

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