The Era of rivalry, Biden vs. Trump and their respective parties

The Post reports, "The Justice Department on Monday asked a judge to keep sealed the sworn affidavit underpinning last week’s extraordinary FBI search of former president Donald Trump’s Florida residence, a document thought to hold key details about the government’s investigation into the potential mishandling of classified materials.

"Monday’s court filing was made in response to requests from multiple media outlets, including The Washington Post, seeking the affidavit’s public release."

Trump is alleged to have committed three possible crimes, removal or destruction of classified documents, obstruction of justice, and violation of the Espionage Act.

The affidavit contains evidence of such crimes that allowed the judge to sign off on the search warrant.

How does Trump feel about making the evidence of his alleged crimes public?

“I call for the immediate release of the completely Unredacted Affidavit pertaining to this horrible and shocking BREAK-IN,” he wrote on Truth Social, his social media platform.

Nobody can be that stupid!

It seems readily apparent that Trump has lost interest in his political future, and is far more interested in learning the evidence and witnesses against him in a possible criminal trial.

In the meantime, Trump is the leader of the Republican Party. Numerous Republicans running for office seek his endorsement by claiming Biden is a fake President, and Trump is the leading candidate for the Republican Presidential nomination in 2024.

Republicans are expected to win control of Congress in November.

How do Trump's followers feel about all this? We don't know. As is their custom, they remain totally silent on these issues. Some have responded by characterizing trivial issues or making baseless accusations.

 

I'm overjoyed that the Republicans are likely to retake control of Congress in November.

God willing they will be able to take it by such huge margins that it takes the Democrats decades to get it back

 

The Lincoln Project is a conservative group, which has long opposed Trump and his Republican allies. It issued a strongly worded statement late on Tuesday following the primary defeat of Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney.

Trump Republicans have largely abondoned conservative principles. The statement essentially said that the Republican Party is no longer a conservative party. It is something else entirely.

Tonight, the nation marks the end of the Republican Party. What remains shares the name and branding of the traditional GOP, but is in fact an authoritarian nationalist cult dedicated only to Donald Trump.

In 2016, Vladimir Putin helped Trump become our President.

"The [Republican] Senate Intelligence Committee reaffirmed its support for the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusion that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election with the goal of putting Donald Trump in the Oval Office." https://www.politico.com/news/2020/...rms-russia-aimed-to-help-trump-in-2016-198171

The cult members don't care. Most of the uninformed educationally challenged members don't know of Putin's role in 2016.

Putin is pleased with his choice because our nation is in turmoil as the former President is embroiled in a number of investigations. They would include White House documents, the Jan. 6 coup attempt to overthrow the elected government, civil and criminal business actions in New York, and Trump's tax returns.

The cult members don't care. Most of the uninformed educationally challenged members don't know of Trump's multiple criminal liabilities, and they don't know they are doing the bidding of the Russian dictator.

All the cult members have one thing in common. They don't know, and they don't want to know. They are not fans of reality, and, beyond the Farm Report, they rarely watch responsible news programming, believing it to be fake news because they report the difficulties faced by their cult leader, Donald Trump.

They believe. That's all they know, and that is all they want to know.

Proof is this thread. A number of reports involve Trump's many problems with the law. Trump Republicans are a no-show. They don't defend Trump. They don't support Trump.

Their support for their cult leader is based entirely on avoiding what Trump says and does.

The mystery is, why Trump? Why a man with inherited billions? Why an extreme narcissist who doesn't give a rat's ass about anyone except himself?

 

I personally have explained it to you more than once. But you won't listen and feign ignorance.

 

Because multi-billion dollar news corporations are involved, the judge decided to play Solomon ... cut the affidavit in half in an attempt to please everyone.

That never works.

In any case, the Times explains, "A federal judge ordered the government on Thursday to propose redactions to the highly sensitive affidavit that was used to justify a search warrant executed by the F.B.I. last week at former President Donald J. Trump’s private home and club, saying he was inclined to unseal parts of it.

"Ruling from the bench, the judge, Bruce E. Reinhart, said it was “very important” that the public have as “much information” as it can about the historic search at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s Florida residence, noting that there were portions of the affidavit that “could be presumptively unsealed.”

Meaning large portions of the affidavit will remain unsealed to protect the accused (Trump), witnesses, and vital investigative procedures.

Meaning, Trump won't get his hands on the witness list or what the DOJ has on him.

Speaking of Trump, the Times reports, "Although Mr. Trump himself has called on social media for the affidavit to be released — echoing similar demands made by congressional allies like Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina — his lawyers were conspicuously absent from the legal proceeding surrounding the unsealing process. At any time, Mr. Trump could have filed papers asking Judge Reinhart to make the affidavit public, but he chose not to."

Looks like Trump didn't want all that evidence against him to go public after all. He finally wised up. No doubt his lawyers had something to do with his new brain.

"Judge Reinhart’s decision appeared to strike a middle course between the Justice Department, which had wanted to keep the affidavit entirely under wraps as its investigation into Mr. Trump’s handling of classified documents continued, and a group of news organizations, which requested that it be released in full to the public," the Times.

 

Weisselberg is falling on his sword.

CNN reports, "Allen Weisselberg, the former chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, pleaded guilty Thursday to his role in a 15-year-long tax fraud scheme, and as part of the deal he has agreed to testify against former President Donald Trump’s real estate company at trial.

"In court Thursday, Weisselberg said, “Yes, your honor” when asked if he was pleading guilty of his own choice.

"Weisselberg pleaded guilty to 15 felonies and admitted he failed to pay taxes on $1.7 million in income, including luxury perks, such as rent and utilities for a Manhattan apartment, leases for a pair of Mercedes-Benz cars and private school tuition for his grandchildren.

"The plea puts him at odds with the Trump Organization, where he worked for 40 years, and his testimony could damage the company, if it goes to trial on related tax charges as scheduled in October."

Will this ever end with Trump? He is the leading candidate in the Republican Party for President?

 

No response from Trump's followers. Of course, that was expected.

"Their support for their cult leader is based entirely on avoiding what Trump says and does."

 

Because the former Republican President is dominating the news with his lies, fantasies, and several problems with the law, President Biden has a difficult time getting any media time.

A while back he had a great week with momentous bills sponsored by him being passed by Congress. In his spare time, he gave the order to hit the leader of Al Qaeda, but all that was in the past and Biden returns to being a no-frills President, very much unlike his colorful predecessor who couldn't get through the day without controversy or striking up a new conspiracy.

Our President quietly goes about doing his job. It is quite refreshing, and his low marks from Democrats and independents are a mystery. Perhaps they want a return to the chaos of the previous administration. Perhaps the Democrats and independents don't know what they want. Perhaps these Democrats want to yield control of Congress over to Republicans in November. That is, in fact, what they are doing.

We know their understanding of economic conditions is immature at best. President Biden inherited inflation problems caused by the pandemic, resulting supply problems, robust spending because of full employment, and exacerbated by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Biden did not cause the inflation, and he has very few tools to combat it.

Indeed, the President has very little control over the economy. Proof of that is FDR, the New Deal, and the Great Depression which began a few months before he took office. The New Deal was a decade-long massive government program to combat the depression.

FDR's New deal did not succeed. World War Two ended the Great Depression, not the President's monumental solution.

The vast majority of Democrats and independents do not know any of this. So, they blame Biden for their shopping ills.

That is too bad. Joe Biden is a kind and gentle man who just wants to do what is best for the American people.

 

The judge wants it both ways, playing off the DOJ and the corporate news moguls. The result is gibberish.

Sandy Shanks said:
“I cannot say at this point that partial redactions will be so extensive that they will result in a meaningless disclosure, but I may ultimately reach that conclusion after hearing further from the government.”

Then we have Donald and still another delaying tactic. He is a little late. The DOJ has had the documents from Donald's home for two whole weeks.

The court filing could -- and it is likely to -- backfire on Trump, but, then, he never was very bright. No doubt he had the final word on the filing.

The Post explains, "President Trump’s legal team on Monday asked a federal judge to appoint a special master to oversee review of classified documents and other materials the FBI seized from Mar-a-Lago this month and to force the Justice Department to provide a more thorough explanation of why the search was necessary.

"The motion was the Trump legal team’s first court filing since the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago — Trump’s Florida home and private club — on Aug. 8.

"Trump and his lawyers argued in the filing that the court-approved search warrant was overly broad and accused the Justice Department of for years treating the former president unfairly.

"They asked U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce E. Reinhart to order the FBI to return any information taken from Trump’s property that went beyond the scope of the search warrant. The filing said a special master could sift through the seized material and set aside any that could be shielded from government review because of legal privilege."

The FBI has already returned Trump's personal items like his passport. The DOJ is only interested in the classified documents Trump stole from the White House.

The DOJ is not new at this. The problem is, Trump has this habit of thinking everyone is as dimwitted as he is. There is little doubt the DOJ has already returned any items of a lawyer/client privilege nature. They don't need them, and they don't want them.

All Trump's lawyers want to do is delay the inevitable.

 

In January, National Archives officials retrieved 15 boxes of records that had been improperly taken to Mar-a-Lago when Trump left the White House last year -- then, two months ago, federal agents visited Mar-a-Lago to retrieve additional materials that they believed Trump had failed to turn over. Shortly after that visit, an attorney for Trump signed a statement saying that all classified documents at Mar-a-Lago had been turned over to federal investigators, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.

But authorities believed Trump continued to possess classified documents, leading to the August 8 raid.

 

I find it fascinating that the forum's Republicans are totally silent when it comes to the FBI's search of Donald Trump's home while at the same time cheering him on and making him the favorite in the Republican race for the Presidential nomination for 2024.

Trump's cultish followers support him by avoiding any discussion about him.

Trump's followers on this forum do not dare repeat what leading Republicans are saying about the DOJ and the search at Mar-a-Lago for fear of looking like idiots.

Trump-loyal sycophants like Sens. Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley have backed the former president with fresh attacks on the FBI. And Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has chosen a similar path with calls of a "weaponized" Department of Justice in his broader campaign messaging.

This is all a load of crap, and Trump's followers know it. That is why they remain silent. Their boy got caught red-handed, and silence is best.

Cruz, Hawley, DeSantis, and the like spew their lies on friendly forums where no one questions their ludicrous remarks. The forum's Republicans do not have that privilege.

 

As they say in golf, Trump has been put on the clock.

Trump already has made the mistake of making this filing too late. The DOJ has been working on the classified documents for two weeks. The damage has already been done insofar as Trump is concerned.

CNN reports, "A federal judge in Florida has given former President Donald Trump until Friday to refine the legal arguments in his request for a special master to oversee the review of evidence gathered in the Mar-a-Lago search.

"District Court Judge Aileen Cannon in the Southern District of Florida ordered Trump’s lawyers to elaborate on their arguments for why the court has the ability to step in at this time, explain what exactly Trump is asking for and whether the Justice Department has been served with Trump’s special master motion.

Judge Cannon is no fool. She knows this filing for what it is -- strictly a delaying tactic.

Moreover, it is a sure sign of desperation. Trump is in a heap of trouble. Even his devout followers know it.

More Jan. 6 committee hearings are scheduled along the committee's final report just in time for the November mid-terms.

Trump has that to look forward to.

 

Insider Reports, "Legal experts and former prosecutors are widely panning former President Donald Trump's team of lawyers as they continue grappling with the fallout from the FBI's unprecedented Mar-a-Lago raid.

"They appear to be either completely incompetent, or out of their depth," Renato Mariotti, a longtime former federal prosecutor, told Insider. "That's part of the reason why the former president has trouble finding lawyers: because he demands that they file documents and take positions that have no legal support whatsoever."

"This week's mockery of Trump's legal team comes after they filed a lawsuit Monday requesting the appointment of a special master to sift out potentially privileged materials seized in the FBI's Mar-a-Lago raid earlier this month.

"One attorney familiar with the Trump team's thought process expressed skepticism that the former president's lawyers are equipped to handle a case like this, adding that Trump's main focus (and that of his loyal followers in Congress) appears to be on waging a PR war against the Justice Department.

"He's a big believer of the public relations assault, which I've never seen work," the lawyer told Insider. "It says to me that they want to kill the messenger, which speaks to consciousness of guilt instead of dealing with the facts."

 

It has never been fully explained why Israel opposes U.S. attempts to stop Iran from making a nuclear weapon. The position appears to be at odds with Israeli interests.

Is it because Iran would get sanctions relief as part of the deal, the deal being limitations on her nuclear program? That does not make sense.

ABC reports, "Israel's prime minister urged President Joe Biden and Western powers to call off an emerging nuclear deal with Iran, saying that negotiators are letting Tehran manipulate the talks and that an agreement would reward Israel's enemies.

"Yair Lapid called the emerging agreement a “bad deal” and suggested that Biden has failed to honor red lines he had previously promised to set.

“The countries of the West draw a red line, the Iranians ignore it, and the red line moves,” Lapid told reporters at a press conference in Jerusalem. An emerging deal, Lapid said, “does not meet the standards set by President Biden himself: preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear state.” (The last is a lie, and what red line? Lapid does not explain.)

"Biden has been eager to revive the 2015 deal, which offered sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on Iran's nuclear program. The original deal unraveled after then-President Donald Trump withdrew from it in 2018 and reimposed sanctions, with strong encouragement from Israel.

"It remains unclear whether the United States and Iran will be able to reach a new agreement. But the Biden administration is expected to weigh in on Iran's latest offer in the coming days. With an agreement appearing close, Israel has stepped up its efforts to block it."

Because of Trump's horrible decision to destroy the Iran nuclear agreement, Iran has increased its uranium enrichment.

IAEA "experts warn Iran has enriched enough uranium up to 60% purity — a short technical step from weapons-grade levels of 90% — to make one nuclear weapon should it decide to do so. However, Iran still would need to design a bomb and a delivery system for it, likely a months-long project," ABC.

Iran is a Russian ally.

Perhaps Lapid was talking about the red line drawn by the Trump administration. Iran ignored Trump's red line, but there is a new sheriff in town.

 

Sandy Shanks said:
"The federal magistrate judge who authorized the warrant to search Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate emphasized Monday that he “carefully reviewed” the FBI’s sworn evidence before signing off and considers the facts contained in an accompanying affidavit to be “reliable.”

I knew the judge would not allow Trump and his lawyers to discover the witnesses and the investigation techniques aligned against him. It took all of four hours today for the judge to make his decision.

The Guardian reports, "A federal judge ordered on Thursday that the affidavit justifying the search warrant used to seize sensitive government documents from Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida earlier this month should be partly unsealed according to redactions proposed by the justice department.

The order from Judge Bruce Reinhart, who approved the FBI search warrant and is overseeing the case, instructed the justice department to release a redacted version of the affidavit that he had reviewed before noon on Friday.

"In a two-page ruling, the judge said the justice department’s proposed redactions were specifically restricted to keep secret grand jury material, the identities of uncharged individuals and sources and methods used in the criminal investigation – and the remainder could become public."

“The government has met its burden of showing that its proposed redactions are narrowly tailored to serve the government’s legitimate interest in the integrity of the ongoing investigation and are the least onerous alternative to sealing the entire Affidavit,” Reinhart wrote.

There is a great deal of talk on the media concerning the public's interest in this affidavit that reveals the nature of the documents Trump stole from our house, namely the White House. The documents Trump stole belong to the American people.

The public's interest is served by not revealing the critical factors contained in the affidavit.

 

I am from Minnesota. Minnesota is not known for its political fanatics. That said, in the Trump era, anything can happen.

To illustrate that point, my home state now has Kim Crockett. She is one of the GOP's finest.

She is quite strange.

CNN reports, "The Republican nominee to be the top elections official in Minnesota said changing the rules around voting following the 2020 “big rig” was “our 9/11,” invoking the terrorist attacks when discussing proposed changes to election laws in the aftermath of former President Donald Trump’s loss."

Only a Trump Republican could compare the 2020 election to 9/11. Obviously, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Crockett offers no evidence of a rigged election. Of course, no one, including Trump, has offered evidence of a rigged election.

They just say it. In Trump's MAGA world saying it makes it true. Crockett carries on that tradition.

CNN continued, "Crockett, an attorney and conservative activist, was appearing on a local Christian talk radio program to promote an upcoming event that month that she said would be discussing “the big rig” 2020 election.

"Crockett encouraged activists to sign up as election judges and poll watchers so they can exercise their “biblical citizenship,” an idea gaining traction in Christian nationalist circles which encourages Christians to accept that America was founded on Christian values and influence their government to adopt a “biblical worldview.”

Just what Minnesota needs. A Republican preacher for secretary of state.

Then we have Dr. Oz running for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, and endorsed by Trump.

Where is the GOP getting these people?

 

In the Trump era, there are two facts every voter should know to enable intelligent decisions.

One, when the powers-that-be granted the President all his powers, they never once considered a President like Donald Trump.

Two, Donald Trump is just plain stupid.

Take, for example, his incredibly stupid decision to take hundreds of pages of classified documents with him to Mar-a-Lago. He has never explained why he did that. It is quite likely he doesn't know. Just something to do? In any case, that remarkably incomprehensible decision has caused him nothing but grief, and he might be indicted.

The Wall Street Journal explains his folly. "Boxes retrieved from former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home early this year contained more than 184 classified documents, including some deemed top secret or derived from clandestine human-intelligence sources, according to a heavily redacted affidavit released Friday laying out the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s justification for its extraordinary search of the Florida estate in early August.

"The document spanning 38 pages, 24 of them fully or partially blacked out, said there was “probable cause to believe that additional documents” containing classified national defense information and presidential records remained on the premises and “also probable cause to believe that evidence of obstruction” would be found there. A separate document said investigators relied on accounts from “a significant number of civilian witnesses” before searching the home.

"The affidavit was released on court order almost three weeks after FBI agents searched Mar-a-Lago and carted away more than two dozen boxes including 11 sets of classified documents, some of which were meant to be accessible only in special high-security facilities, according to a search warrant made public by the Florida court that approved it. The search followed months of correspondence by the National Archives and Records Administration to secure Trump administration records."

The Republican Party has captured the minds of those who live in the rural counties of America. The voters are mostly farmers, ranch hands, and rural shopkeepers. They lack education and they are not well informed. Most of what they know about politics is by word of mouth.

"The former president has seen his standing in the GOP strengthen since the Aug. 8 search as he considers a 2024 challenge to President Biden," the WSJ.

As is their custom, the forum's Republicans will not respond to the issues contained in this report.

 

It is a mixed blessing, but things might be looking up for the Biden administration and American consumers.

ABC reports, "Inflation eased last month as energy prices tumbled, raising hopes that the surging costs of everything from gasoline to food may have peaked.

"According to a Commerce Department report Friday that is closely watched by the Federal Reserve, consumer prices rose 6.3% in July from a year earlier after posting an annual increase of 6.8% in June, the biggest jump since 1982. Energy prices made the difference in July: They dropped last month after surging in June.

"Yet on the same day at the Federal Reserve’s annual economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Chair Jerome Powell delivered a stark message: The Fed will likely impose more large interest rate hikes in coming months and is resolutely focused on taming inflation.

"So-called core inflation, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, rose 4.6% last month from a year earlier after rising 4.8% in June. The drop — along with a reduction in the Labor Department's consumer price index last month — suggests that inflationary pressures may be easing."

 

Fake news.

Prices were up an intolerable 12.9% in June, under Biden and the Dems and they were still up an intolerable 12.9% in July.



But, some of these Leftist Totalitarians are just fine with Americans struggling to buy fuel and food, because they want us energy starved and force to eat bugs.

YOU WILL EAT BUGS AND WORMS AND YOU WILL LIKE IT, PEASANTS: A new seasoning smells like meat thanks to sugar — and mealworms.



Just 73 days and yet another timely reminder to the Totalitarian Gentry that WE THE PEOPLE are only source of legitimate authority and we will damn well eat whatever we like, though they of course, are more than welcome to eat bugs if they should choose to do so.

 

Former President Donald Trump demanded on Monday that the 2020 presidential election be declared “irreparably compromised” and a do-over be held “immediately!”

Trump complained today that the FBI “BURIED THE HUNTER BIDEN LAPTOP STORY BEFORE THE ELECTION knowing that, if they didn’t, ‘Trump would have easily won the 2020 Presidential Election.’” He then wrote that he should be declared the winner of the election — which was decided two years ago — or “and this would be the minimal solution, declare the 2020 Election irreparably compromised and have a new Election, immediately! ”It's 2022 and Trump Is Demanding an 'Immediate' Redo of the 2020 Election

It is easy to see why Trump Republicans avoid talking about Trump.

 

We know that the director of national intelligence (DNI) is making an assessment into how much damage was done by the former Republican President when he stole hundreds of pages of classified documents and stored them in his home at Mar-a-Lago.

We know Trump has had classified documents for 20 months.

We know there is no control over the comings and goings at Mar-a-Lago except for Trump.

We know there was no control over the access to these documents other than Trump. We know that is a completely unreliable control.

We know Trump has never provided a reason as to why he stole the documents. This is the elephant in the room as the DOJ and the DNI try to assess the damage wrought by the former Republican President. Why did he take them? No one has a clue. The lack of an explanation -- even a lie -- is intriguing.

That said, there is a possible explanation.

We know Vladimir Putin helped Trump become our President in 2016.

"The [Republican] Senate Intelligence Committee reaffirmed its support for the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusion that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election with the goal of putting Donald Trump in the Oval Office." https://www.politico.com/news/2020/...rms-russia-aimed-to-help-trump-in-2016-198171

Has a Russian agent already been allowed to see and record relevant intelligence from the documents?

Is this why the DNI is assessing the damage done by Trump?

Intel officials will assess 'risk to national security ... - NBC News

 

Trump and his lawyers continue to make fools of themselves.

The Post explains, "Trump’s legal team filed the request two weeks after the Aug. 8 search, calling the court-approved law enforcement action a “shockingly aggressive,” politically motivated raid.

The stupidity speaks for itself.

The Post continued, "FBI agents have already finished their examination of possibly privileged documents seized in an Aug. 8 search of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, according to a Justice Department court filing Monday that could undercut the former president’s efforts to have a special master appointed to review the files.

"The “filter team” used by the Justice Department to sort through the documents and weed out any material that should not be reviewed by criminal investigators has completed its review, the brief filed by Justice Department prosecutors says. The filing came in response to a decision Saturday by U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon to hold a hearing this week on Trump’s motion seeking the appointment of a special master.

"The filing says prosecutors will provide more information later this week. But it notes that even before the judge’s weekend ruling, the filter team had “identified a limited set of materials that potentially contain attorney-client privileged information, completed its review of those materials, and is in the process of following the procedures” spelled out in the search warrant to handle any privilege disputes."

The DOJ is politely telling the judge appointed by Trump and confirmed after his election loss that her order is completely unnecessary.

Was the request by Trump's lawyers "politically motivated" in addition to being immaterial and far too late?

 

Trump isn't the only one who knows how to play games with the system.

CNN reports, "The Justice Department on Tuesday will file publicly in court its response to former President Donald Trump’s bid for a special master to oversee the FBI’s review of materials seized in the Mar-a-Lago search.

"The agency was granted permission by Judge Aileen Cannon of the Southern District of Florida to file up to 40 pages after it said the 20-page limit set by the local rules of the court wasn’t sufficient to “adequately address the legal and factual issues raised by” Trump’s filings.

"Trump must file his reply to the Justice Department by 8 p.m. ET Wednesday night, per Cannon’s order, and the judge has scheduled a hearing for Thursday to consider Trump’s request for a special master."

The Post reported, "FBI agents have already finished their examination of possibly privileged documents seized in an Aug. 8 search of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, according to a Justice Department court filing Monday that could undercut the former president’s efforts to have a special master appointed to review the files."

The DOJ has no need for privileged documents, and Trump can have them. The DOJ is only interested in classified documents. Is Cannon smart enough to figure that out? Has she figured out she is wasting everyone's time including her own?

Cannon is a late Trump appointee, and some are wondering why she got involved in what is clearly a DOJ responsibility. Since the DOJ has had its hands on the classified documents Trump stole for over three weeks, and the work has already been done, Cannon's decision to get involved appears to be a bad career move.

The smart play would be to get uninvolved after Thursday's hearing.

 

Guess what? Stop the presses! Donald Trump lied!

Also, the former Republican President is not very bright. He never should have had his lawyers demand a special master from a now very vulnerable judge career-wise.

Because of that court filing, the Justice Department was given the opportunity to file publicly a lengthy response to Trump’s bid for a special master.

CNN reports, "Former President Donald Trump has pushed an “incomplete and inaccurate narrative” in his recent court filings about the Mar-a-Lago search, the Justice Department said in a historic court filing late Tuesday night.

"Prosecutors fleshed out new details about the ongoing criminal investigation into Trump’s potential mishandling of classified documents, which he took from the White House to his resort and home in Florida. Trump and his allies have denied any wrongdoing.

"The Justice Department filing gave federal investigators the chance to rebut – on the record – many of the claims that Trump, his lawyers and his political allies have been making as they’ve harshly attacked the FBI’s unprecedented search of his residence."

Thank you, Mr. Trump, the DOJ.

CNN continued, "Documents were “likely concealed and removed” from a storage room at Mar-a-Lago as part of an effort to “obstruct” the FBI’s investigation, the Justice Department said in its filing Tuesday.

"What’s more, the DOJ said that the search “cast serious doubt” on his lawyers’ claims that there had been a “diligent search” to return classified material in response to a grand jury subpoena.

"A Trump lawyer signed a statement to the Justice Department in June attesting that all of the classified material at Mar-a-Lago had been returned."

“That the FBI, in a matter of hours, recovered twice as many documents with classification markings as the ‘diligent search’ that the former President’s counsel and other representatives had weeks to perform calls into serious question the representations made in the June 3 certification and casts doubt on the extent of cooperation in this matter,” DOJ wrote.

It goes without elaboration that Trump has made his lawyers extremely vulnerable because they passed on his lies to the DOJ.

It is never very smart to lie to the DOJ.

Donald Trump is the leader of the Republican Party and the leading candidate for the Republican nomination for President.

What is going on?

 

This hearing did not go well for Trump. The Trump-appointed judge demurred on making a decision on the special master.

One of Trump's lawyers characterized the stolen classified documents -- some of them above Top Secret -- as an "overdue library book." Then he declared that the ongoing dispute "has been transformed into a criminal investigation."

Just what Trump needed to hear from his own lawyer, an incomprehensible statement followed by a highly prejudicial statement.

ABC reported, "Cannon, a federal judge nominated by Trump, indicated that if she were to appoint a special master it would not have an impact on the current ongoing assessment by the intelligence community.

The DNI is looking into how much damage was done as a consequence of the stolen classified documents and whether any human intelligence sources were in danger, particularly those providing intell from our foreign adversaries.

That should tell Cannon something. Don't get involved in this.

NBC reported, "A federal judge in Florida said at a hearing Thursday that she will unseal a more detailed inventory of items FBI agents seized in the Aug. 8 raid of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence.

"Judge Aileen Cannon also will make public a status report by the investigation team probing the removal of documents from the White House when Trump left office in early 2021.

It sounds like Cannon is already backing out. These decisions will not be helpful to Trump.

Jay Bratt, the DOJ’s top counterintelligence official, at the hearing also argued that Trump is not entitled to a review by a special master of the documents because “he is no longer the president.”

“And because he’s no longer the president he had no right to those documents,” Brat said.