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ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   35169 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 19, 2022

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Been a hell of a day in Trump world for legal developments.

Yesterday we discussed some aspects of the case in progress in the Southern District of Florida where Trump is seeking to get some of the documents back from the government that were seized in the Mar-a-Lago raid. While proceedings have been in progress there the United States filed an interlocutory appeal to the 11th Circuit. They specifically wanted a stay of the portion of Judge Cannon's order that enjoined them from using the 100-ish documents with classification markings in any criminal investigation. Today the 11th Circuit granted the stay requested by the United States. Frankly I think the logic in the Court's order goes farther and would probably stay all of Judge Cannon's ruling but the United States only asked for those documents with classification markings and so that's what they got. Trump could appeal this to the Supreme Court or (possibly?) the full 11th Circuit but I doubt either would grant relief.

In other news, New York Attorney General Letitia James has filed a 200-some page civil complaint detailing extensive fraud perpetrated by Trump, his family members, businesses, and agents. Over 100 pages of the complaint (pages 33 to 154 in the pdf) are dedicated to detailing in substantial detail how they committed fraud in the course of representing the value of various assets they owned. Another 40 or so pages details how they used these fraudulent valuations to secure loans and insurance for the properties in question. The relief requested is quite extensive. It includes an approximately $250million disgorgement penalty, a ban on certain Trump organization officers from serving in a financial director capacity for any New York company and a ban on the Trumps themselves serving as a director or officer for any New York corporation.

So he wasn't selling nuclear secrets, or outing a bunch of US spies? This is what I remember a bunch of news agencies hinting at when this whole thing started.

I don't think the answer to that question is known yet. The NYAG investigation is different and has been going on for years. Apparently some of the documents the government retrieved had Formerly Restricted Data markings which means:

information which has been removed from the Restricted Data category after the DOE and the DOD have jointly determined that the information relates primarily to the military utilization of atomic weapons and can be adequately safeguarded as National Security Information in the United States. Such data may not be given to any other nation except under specially approved agreements and with the authorization of DOE. FRD is identified and handled as Restricted Data when sent outside the United States.

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