Donald Trump’s Contemptuous Leaking

A month ago, I noted that several stories about Trump’s engagement of a firm to search for additional stolen documents were wildly inconsistent.

WaPo and CNN both have stories about searches by a professional firm on additional Trump properties, looking for stolen classified documents.

In addition to at least three paragraphs that are affirmatively misleading (one that does not push back on a bullshit quote about how cooperative Trump has been, one that described Trump’s outright obstruction as a “breakdown … in trust,” and one that claims Trump is trying to avoid another high profile search when the further search was ordered by Chief Judge Beryl Howell) WaPo describes only searches of Bedminster and, later, Trump Tower.

Trump’s legal team hired an outside firm to carry out the search of his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., and, more recently, Trump Tower in New York, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information.

In one paragraph, it describes that Trump’s lawyers told DOJ they did not turn up more documents, but in a follow-up, WaPo describes an attestation that may or may not apply to just Bedminster.

I did the post because of the inconsistency, but also because, in the past, when we’ve seen aggressive pitches from Trump like this (his cover story about putting a lock on the storage facility where he had stashed his stolen documents is another example), it has generally been an attempt to get ahead of something really damning.

Two days later, WaPo seemed to report that Trump had managed to get through whatever damning bit he was trying to hide. It stated as fact that Chief Judge Beryl Howell would not hold Trump in contempt.

A federal judge on Friday declined to hold former president Donald Trump’s office in contempt for not fully complying with a May subpoena to return all classified documents in his possession, according to people familiar with the proceedings.

U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell told Justice Department lawyers and Trump’s legal team to come to an agreement themselves over what actions or assurances by Trump’s office would satisfy the government, according to these people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sealed court proceedings.

“The President and his counsel will continue to be transparent and cooperative,” Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement to The Washington Post.

But a report from Alan Feuer yesterday describes that Howell has not yet made a decision about whether to hold Trump in contempt or not.

At a court hearing held behind closed doors last month, Judge Howell put off ruling on the government’s contempt request. The judge has still not issued a decision, according to the people familiar with the matter.

As Feuer describes it, on Wednesday, Howell ordered Trump to share the names of the people who did the search with DOJ. Trump had tried to shield those names — purportedly out of concern about leaks, which has consistently been a bullshit line Trump’s lawyers have used. But it’s more likely his team was concerned that the PIs would have to appear before the grand jury themselves.

A federal judge has ordered lawyers for former President Donald J. Trump to give the government the names of the private investigators who searched Mr. Trump’s properties late last year for any remaining classified documents, part of what appeared to be a step by the Justice Department toward questioning the investigators about their efforts, two people familiar with the matter said.

The order, issued on Wednesday by Beryl A. Howell, the chief judge of the Federal District Court in Washington,

[snip]

The more recent spat began when prosecutors asked Mr. Trump’s lawyers for the names of the investigators who searched the storage facility and other Trump properties — among them, Mar-a-Lago; Mr. Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, N.J.; and Trump Tower in New York.

According to the people familiar with the matter, the lawyers offered to make the investigators available for questioning but wanted their identities shielded by a protective order, out of concern that the government might leak the information to the news media.

It’s certainly possible Trump worries that allowing an independent interview of these people will disclose areas where they were not permitted to search (or other games like the others Trump already got caught playing).

Whatever it is, though, this suggests that Trump continued to bullshit the press after his first attempts to do so regarding the follow-on searches.

And the lies to the press aren’t going to keep Trump from being held in contempt (and then jailed until he complies with a subpoena).

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89 replies
  1. Cosmo Le Cat says:

    If those who searched for classified documents are questioned and reveal that they saw documents with agency markings that would indicate those were neither presidential nor personal documents, such as Dept of Defense, would a court issue a search warrant? What other value can be derived from questioning those who did the search?

  2. Rapier says:

    So these PI’s had clearance to view classified documents? Are Trump’s lawyers saying the so called PI’s did not find and handle classified documents, or did they? I don’t know or if it is known that additional documents have been produced after the Mar a Lago search. Well in both cases it sound like the FBI or other entities have good cause to identify them and question them.

    • Raven Eye says:

      If you were going to send in a search team to certify whether or not classified information was located at one or more locations, you would ensure that those individuals had clearances up to and including the highest classification of documents that could be encountered. Based on all kinds of information available at the execution of the search(s) — that would be TS/SCI.

      That means that those individuals would need to be individually sponsored by a federal agency with the authority of manage TS/SCI information and the ability to grant TS/SCI access. Individuals must be briefed, and there is a form they are required to fill out, sign, with that signature witnessed. Upon completion of the work the individuals are debriefed, followed by witnessed signatures on the same form. It is not unusual for the form itself to be classified.

      Further, the contracted firm must have procedures in place to correctly handle materials of different classifications. That would include proper markings and cover sheets, inventory, storage, transportation, chain of custody, and proper turnover.

      • DaveC2022 says:

        That sounds right, but its difficult to imagine those controls actually being put in place. If they were, presumably DoJ would know who the individuals are already, and presumably be free to subpoena those individuals. Feels like a hall of mirrors at this point. All we can see clearly is the that the story so far has many missing parts. I think Marcy’s take is about as far as you can go: Something embarassing to Trump is imminent, and the media remains gullible & easily manipulated by Trump.

      • Tech Support says:

        If you were going to send in a search team

        Well, sure. If we were. But unless the requirements you describe were mandated by the court explicitly, I doubt Trump’s people would have gone to that level of effort. Especially if they knew that the team wouldn’t find anything because they were only allowed to search places where there was nothing to find.

        • Raven Eye says:

          The requirements are those of the original classification authority, and are subject to the same civil and or criminal sanctions as the whole rest of this mess. I don’t think the court needs to mandate procedures that are already in documented (often in excruciating detail) within the Executive Branch.

          But, your comment about “…where there was nothing to find” is actually pretty interesting. If members of the search team had ever held a clearance they should know the drill. But if this was actually a snipe hunt, their attitude could have boiled down to “What, me worry?”

      • BruceF says:

        Based upon your expertise, what controls would be in place that indicate what documents remain unaccounted for and were last in possession of Trump?

        • Raven Eye says:

          That kinda speaks to the (apparent) lack of control in those parts of the White House were Trump was roaming around.

          For information sent to the White House (physical or electronic) the originator of the information should have a log of what was sent. The higher the classification, the more detailed the log entries.

          For the parts of the White House where there were professionals working, the information should be logged in. The WH itself might have had procedures for internal movement of the material. But that is where things probably broke down. Once stuff got into the Oval Office or the living quarters, who knows what happened (those are the kind of things that really piss off the professional folks who try and maintain good accounts/holdings).

          In perfect world, the WH would only retain what it felt was needed for the conduct of Executive Branch functions — sometimes short-term, sometimes long-term. When it was sent back to the originator, that transaction would be logged. In some cases two people would be required to sign for and accompany the material going back home.

          Those “out vs. in” logs at the various agencies have probably been reviewed by those agencies, DOJ, and also NARA. The agencies to try and figure out the potential damage to programs, sources, and methods; DOJ for their investigation(s); and NARA to try figure out what the heck happened. Any logs kept in the WH would also be examined — to the extent they were kept. (And, of course, we have no idea if stuff was copied “just to have it handy”.)

          It is amazing what a craptacular mess Trump made of everything he touched before, during, and after his presidency. The resources (time and money) spent on this YUGE paper chase could certainly have been better spent on the lines of effort they were originally appropriated for.

          • BruceF says:

            Thanks for your very thorough response. My suspicion is that chaos and incompetence covered up a lot more crime than media have exposed. Enjoyed your descriptive language…craptacular is hard to get by a spell checker!

    • Rugger_9 says:

      We (or DoJ) won’t know without the names, which is why Individual-1 is trying to hide them. As EW notes, it’s just another gambit in the game to delay and obstruct until the House can rescue him from further scrutiny (I see that there were calls to defund SC Smith, not sure that’s possible). Then the qualifications can be checked.

      Speaking of qualifications, would it be possible for SDNY feebs to look into the citizenship status of Rep. Santos, since by his own admission he was born in Brazil (until he wasn’t) and a citizenship prerequisite is needed to sit in the House? Even digging into the passport documents for proof of citizenship should go a long way to settle the question, since we know Santos was in Brazil long enough to have criminal charges filed against him. If he’s not qualified, would something like ConFraudUS charges be appropriate for false statements on eligibility?

      Let’s all remember how the birthers were ‘merely asking questions’ about Obama being born in Kenya even after the long form birth certificate was released, so the GOP set the precedent here.

      • Ginevra diBenci says:

        You do not need to have been born in USA to serve in House. You do have to be a citizen, whether born or naturalized (e.g., Ilhan Omar). Santos being born Brazil would not disqualify him for Congress.

        • Drew in Bronx says:

          It is true that you do not need to be born in the U.S., but you do have to be a citizen to be in Congress. If he was born in the U.S. it doesn’t matter how big a liar he is, he’s still a citizen. But if he was not born in the U.S. it is easy to imagine many ways that he could have lied and violated the law and pretended to be a citizen without ever having become one-“just a small oversight”.

          Some might seem far fetched, but he’s clearly the sort of liar who will do and say the most far fetched things for a short term advantage.

        • Rugger_9 says:

          I never said he had to be born here so please don’t assume I said things I did not say. I posted the relevant Constitutional requirements on an earlier thread, which includes being 25, resident in the state (not district) and a citizen for seven years.

          If Santos was born in the USA and never renounced his citizenship (though that event could be debated as a disqualifier) he satisfies the last item. If Santos was born overseas (I.e. Brazil) then his naturalization on or before 08 NOV 2015 would be sufficient (or even 03 JAN 2016) for the citizenship test.

          However, we do know he spent significant time in Brazil, which would require a passport to visit for any length of time. BTW, there is an extremely limited chance that the US would extradite a native-born US citizen to face bunco charges overseas so those hoping for a perp walk in Rio are kidding themselves. I’ve only seen ones like former Nazi guards handled this way, having been stripped of their naturalization because of fraudulent information in their application.

          However, as noted a couple of times before and following birther precedent, a long-form USA birth certificate of the full naturalization documentation would be fair to ask Santos to provide.

          • Kope a Pia says:

            If Santos is a Naturalized Citizen it is not too big a stretch to guess that he lied on his application.

  3. rattlemullet says:

    I haven’t seen it written or directly state that trump is a national security risk. Really, does anyone not think trump is not a national security risk. Top Secret at what ever level are missing from the classified folders. The man has been a grifter, cheat and liar his entire life. Hopefully and I think they are place his crimes in the same category as other who have violated national security protocols.

    • bmaz says:

      That is something you would not see. But when Biden refused him briefings, it was pretty clear what the Intel consensus was.

  4. Buzzkill Stickinthemud says:

    DOJ: So, what are the names of these investigators?
    Trump Lawyers: Umm, Dick and Tracy.
    DOJ: Riiight… And how did they gain access to the Trump properties? Did they have badges?
    Lawyers: Badges? They didn’t need no badges.
    DOJ: Ok. Is there an adult we can talk to?

  5. earlofhuntingdon says:

    There are a few fundamental problems. For one, I think there’s a less than zero chance that Trump made up the whole thing and that he did not hire independent investigators. He would not have wanted to document the fact of having such records, especially if it were on some property other than MAL, and his knowledge of them. Plus, he’s a cheap bastard, and legitimate searches of the kind he claims to have made would be pricey.

    More basically, if you’re in the business of conducting searches in connection with complex litigation, you know the rules regarding treatment of classified government information. You would have staff with adequate clearances and you and they would know the procedures to deal with classified information if you found any: recording date, time, location, apparent physical condition and conditions of storage, apparent volume of records, whether obviously intermixed with other records, etc. Having found one set of records, you would argue that further, more extensive searches be made, when reporting to the client.

    If such searches were made and unlawfully retained records were found, competent lawyers would have argued that Trump return the records in compliance with the subpoena and applicable laws. If the client refused, you would cease working for him, or put yourself in jeopardy of participating in possible ongoing felonies.

    If you conducted such searches with improperly trained personnel, and they found and examined classified records, you and they risk committing possible felonies.

    The identity of the investigators is essential in determining which, if any, of these facts apply and their consequences. It would disclose their backgrounds and training, who they worked for, what their track record was, etc. It would immediately signal whether the claimed searches were credible or a stunt.

    • Rugger_9 says:

      To buttress the point about Individual-1 being a cheapskate, high-level clearance ownership is expensive to hire, so my two cents says they aren’t cleared but that fact has to be kept hidden.

    • BobBobCon says:

      You would hope the press would remember how it went when he “hired” the “best” investigators to look into Obama’s citizenship.

      Reporters risk getting their reputations getting dragged into this stuff when they repeat it credulously. Some of them may get away with it, but is it really worth the risk? Will Carolyn Ryan or Chris Licht really go to bat for them?

    • Ewan Woods End says:

      …there’s a less than zero chance..

      The concept of less than zero chance goes beyond my mathematical knowledge.

    • Leu2500 says:

      Actually, Trump *did* hire a firm to search for documents responsive to the NY AG’s subpoena. I forget if this was b4 or after the judge found him in contempt & fined him.

      Anyhow, that search went so well that his lawyer (Habba) had to conduct a search & swear that she didn’t find anything responsive.

      Then the MAL search raised questions about the completeness of her search.

  6. GWPDA says:

    As I recall the original reference was to a ‘firm’ which was engaged to search. At the time, I questioned what kind of firm specialises in searching for government documents. Now we are told it is a private investigation firm, which is a whole nother ballgame. Private Investigators are licensed by the appropriate authority – sometimes states, sometimes cities or counties. What they are not are in possession by themselves of any kind of legal privilege, other than that received thru their employers, if the employers are lawyers. (L&O, Seasons 1-22, et al.) So the question is, where is this firm licensed, by what authority and by whom are they employed?

    • bmaz says:

      Oh, there are firms that have the people to do that. Trust me, they are out there. No, being a “PI” firm does not necessarily change anything. If you have the right one. And, yes, done properly, they can be brought under an attorney’s privilege.

    • earlofhuntingdon says:

      Given that he was under active criminal investigation, Trump would have been more than his self-destructive norm had he not obtained the services of any non-lawyer investigators through the auspices of one of his law firms.

  7. Silly but True says:

    Assuming at least the facade of good faith hiring of the PI’s to carry out the search, I imagine the PI’s are essentially in the same zero-risk boat as the GSA who actually moved documents with classification markings from the government’s possession within the White House to Mar-a-Lago. That is, they probably weren’t willing conspirators but may have been fed information that scoped their work with plausible deniability: “We want you to search for any records that have obsolete legacy classification markings. Don’t worry, Kash Money Patel assures everyone that all these documents were declassified, so you have no risk of espionage crimes if you were to come across such documents.”

    One might say an experienced document handling PI might find such a scenario fishy and turn it down, but Trump hasn’t been known to hire the most traditionally minded consultants.

    • giorgino says:

      I’m not confident clearing your cache will work, it may. But if you delete their cookies, you’ll be in pronto.

        • c-i-v-i-l says:

          Just go to the “Wayback Machine” main page — https://archive.org/web/ — and paste the article’s URL into the top search bar to check whether someone has saved it (and sometimes a page is saved more than once, and you may have to poke around the various saves to find one that saved it in its entirety), and if the search comes up empty, it will give you the option of taking a snapshot of the page yourself. This tool is often but not always helpful for paywalled pages, and it’s also useful for taking snapshots of webpages that may otherwise disappear due to link rot and purposeful removal, as well as seeing how a page’s text changes over time.

          • John Paul Jones says:

            Thank you so much. The internet is so vast, that one despairs sometimes of ever learning all the ways there are to find things. And I second Chirrut Imwe’s comment too.

            And OT: I really hate the changes Google has made to searching. It constantly tries to guess what I “really mean” when I enter search terms when what I really mean is precisely what I typed in. AI is a lot smarter than it used to be, sure, but it’s still like dealing with a half-deaf uncle a lot of the time.

    • Anathema Device says:

      Using incognito mode and/or turning off Javascript works for a surprising number of these paywalled sites, I find.

  8. David F. Snyder says:

    Re the Dec. 9 WaPo report that Howell had decided not to find the Trump team in contempt: at the bottom of that article are the damning words “Devlin Barrett contributed to this report.” I suspected at the time that the mere whiff of influence on the report by that inveterate Trump-whisperer cast doubt upon the factual basis of that portion of the article. How many times will Lucy pull the football away before the Charlie Brown editor wises up?!? Aargh!

    • bmaz says:

      Beryl Howard does not give a shit what Devlin Barrett says or does, and certainly not on a fleeting mention at the foot of a report.

      • David F. Snyder says:

        Yes, we can be grateful for that. Obama chose well.

        Still, I am astonished how corrupt journalism has become at times (when the spin is “coming from within the house”).

        • Ginevra diBenci says:

          It has been doing that relentlessly since the August search at Mar-a-Lago. WaPo has disappointed over and over by letting its stenographers hide behind usually solitary anonymous sources, who have leaked in ways intended to impugn DOJ and provide Trump a soft landing.

          Every time a TV host brings these stories (“Nuclear!”) up, foregrounding them for whatever shock value they might have, I lose more faith in journalism. For once the Times is not the worst offender, but that will change once Trump himself returns to focus and Haberman regains center stage.

  9. OldTulsaDude says:

    I’m beginning to think PI stands for Psychic Investigators, an 800 number from California.

        • cmarlowe says:

          Often the clearance is connected to a firm or company/contractor, that I know. Probably almost always, but I can’t cite a source for that, just my own experience. When you leave the company, your clearance ends. If you join a new company doing similar work, the clearance process may or may not have to be gone through again, it varies.

    • Raven Eye says:

      He would need a federal government sponsor. Your clearance stops when you change employer, such as leaving or retiring from the military or civilian government employment.

      However, your clearance history remains on file, and it is current for the clearance you are seeking for new employment, it may take a lot less time for it to be granted, and you might have an interim clearance pending your final. If Ornato’s current employer assigns him duties that require a clearance, he likely has one, but it might be a lower level clearance than the one he had at the White House.

      Even within the government, your clearance may go up or down depending on the requirements of the job. Many agencies tend not to want a bunch of higher clearances on their books.

      • P J Evans says:

        Some of them are definitely as-needed. My father worked under those kinds, along with more usual ones.

  10. dadidoc1 says:

    Isn’t the intelligence community concerned that some of the top secret compartmentalized documents in Donald Trump’s treasure trove contained information that identified assets who were targeted and are no longer with us?

        • Matt___B says:

          Hmph…the motion to adjourn until Monday failed and they had to have a 15th vote tonight – and McCarthy won this time: Andy Biggs voted “present” instead of for Jim Jordan and that’s all she wrote.

          And now the non-violent part of the ongoing insurrection will be performed by these con artists masquerading as politicians for the next 2 years…

          • LaMissy! says:

            A question, for those with far more insight than I have: If McCarthy can be tossed from the speakership by just one vote from the GQP, would it be possible for Jeffries or another Democrat to then win the seat?

            These folks are more interested in cutting off their noses to spite their faces than anything of consequence.

            • Marinela says:

              No way.

              The GOP is performing to make it look like they are not united and dems may have a chance, and that it is about some democracy at work, and “normal order”, blah, blah. But behind the scenes they want to weaken the speaker position, they want a GOP congressperson to hold that position, and they want to bring fascist agenda for vote on the house floor. This is performance politic to prep the country with fascism and make fascism mainstream for the immediate future. Rocky future for US, if democrats are not able to win majority of the house in 2024.

              One caveat. If some of the GOP house members get sick, die, resign, or get indicted, it is possible for anybody to ask for a new speaker vote, and possibly allow the house to have democratic speaker, but he will not be able to govern, just limit the bleeding. It goes both ways. Democrats could loose members for various reasons and allow some of the ugly proposals to pass. You blink you loose.

      • Rugger_9 says:

        McCarthy lost the adjournment vote too, so they went to Round 15, and McCarthy won 216-211 over Jeffries with the 5 voting ‘present’ to clear the way. 20-20 hindsight, the Ds needed to let McCarthy stew over the weekend and answer questions on the Sunday shows.

        On to the thousand-page or so Rules package to be done Monday (it was threatened for tonight) though it contains a rule that such a bill requires 72-hour notice. With the GQP, we’ll see if they stick to it.. We will also see how many alleged GOP moderates there are depending upon what McCarthy gave up to become Speaker for the moment. Break out the head of lettuce!

          • Matt___B says:

            Now accepting side-bets as to how long he’ll last before the first “challenge” against him comes along, whether he’ll survive that first challenge and if he does, how many more he can survive. I say the first challenge will come before Presidents Day…

        • Rugger_9 says:

          As part of the side shows to that main show, there was Rep Rogers (R-AL) who went after Gaetz during the 14th round and had to be pulled off. Tim Burchett (R-TN) told Kate Sullivan of CNN that Rogers had been drinking on the floor.

          Normally I would expect that from GOP congresscritters between their crass attitudes, phoniness and empty morals, but it made me wonder why Cammack made such a pointed reference to the Ds drinking earlier in the vote sequence while nominating McCarthy. “Do as I say, not as I do” and IOKIYAR still applies, as well as the tenet that with the GOP every accusation is an admission.

  11. Ryan says:

    Unrelated but maybe interesting. I followed a link to MT’s tweets about the Byrne deposition. She highlights a weird moment where he wants to use the name Allison for “Sidney’s sidekick”, Emily Newman. Describing her by relation to Powell may obscure the fact that she’d become pretty central and Byrne knew her well by the time of his deposition, since she was running the Byrne-funded America Project.

  12. harpie says:

    https://twitter.com/kyledcheney/status/1611710390546882560
    8:04 AM · Jan 7, 2023

    There are some eye-opening provisions in the text of the GOP’s proposed “select subcommittee on the weaponization of the federal government” that will get a vote next week. One explicitly authorizes the review of “ongoing criminal investigations.” [LINK] […]

    It appears some of these changes may have been part of the ongoing negotiation that occurred to get Speaker McCarthy the gavel. The metadata on the updated document shows it was last modified at 5:40pm yesterday, in the midst of final intense negotiations. [screentshot] / The earlier version was dated 1/2 [screenshot]

    Marcy notes:
    https://twitter.com/emptywheel/status/1611716825900802049
    8:30 AM · Jan 7, 2023

    A [harpie added: Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient] Jim Jordan drafted document allowing for the interference into ongoing criminal investigations is what got Scott Perry, Matt Gaetz, Paul Gosar, and Andy Biggs — ALL OF WHOM SOUGHT PARDONS [my emphasis] — to allow McCarthy to get a gavel.]

      • timbozone says:

        Clearly it does. However, the Executive may arrest and prosecute sitting Congress members. That issue has been settled for some time now. Congress also has some power in that area although given the weakness of the GQP in the Congress, it’s unlikely to resurrect that power effectively to stymie the current investigations by DOJ much. The rw nutters in the House will be a pain…but hopefully it results in significant blowback on their part when/if they try to gum up DOJ’s efforts of the Biden Administration.

  13. Tom-1812 says:

    If I lost my file folder full of, say, tax return information, I wouldn’t hire an outside party to search my home because I would be in a far better position to know where I might have mislaid the documents than anyone else. I highly doubt that Trump would have hired these investigators to search his properties if he thought there was the least chance they might actually find something incriminating. This is all for show and to portray Trump as the innocent victim doing his best to cooperate with the authorities. And even if, by some fluke of fate, the investigators did find some stolen documents, there’s nothing stopping Trump from falling back on his old “They must have planted it!” defense. Everybody knows you can’t get good help these days.

  14. Amicus says:

    Beyond the overriding importance of locating all of the classified – national defense information –Trump stole from the government, the documents case continues to be suffused with the question of venue. Underscoring the import of this issue, the Supreme Court is due to hear this term the question of whether a prosecution brought in the wrong federal court results in acquittal. The Court granted certiorari in Smith v. United States, No. 21-1576 (petition granted 12/13/22) and will consider the following issues:

    QUESTION PRESENTED

    Whether the proper remedy for the government’s failure to prove venue is an acquittal barring reprosecution of the offense, as the Fifth and Eighth Circuits have held, or whether instead the government may re-try the defendant for the same offense in a different venue, as the Sixth, Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Circuits have held.

    • earlofhuntingdon says:

      Holding that an error in venue justifies an acquittal – in civil terms, a mandated dismissal with prejudice – would be hitting a gnat with a sledge hammer. That support for it comes from the atrocious Fifth and Eighth Circuits would ordinarily ensure the dismissal of such an anarchic argument. With this Supreme Court majority, we’ll have to wait and see.

  15. Ewan Woodsend says:

    On the flip coin of Feuer’s coverage, there is Maggie Haberman fawning coverage of Trump, trying desperately to make him still relevant..

    Former President Donald J. Trump made a crucially timed call to Representative Matt Gaetz on Friday night after the Florida congressman voted “present” and sunk Kevin McCarthy’s 14th effort to be elected House speaker.

    It’s so blatant it is painful.

  16. earlofhuntingdon says:

    To borrow film jargon about a certain type of Californian beach-going male, Kevin McCarthy is a walking surfboard: he looks the part and has about the same IQ. He confuses Trumpian stubbornness with commitment to a legitimate purpose. His giveaways, if he’s made half as many as reported, will make the House an anarchic mess – intentionally so.

    Even more is now riding on Schumer’s thin majority in the Senate, and of course, on the guy in the White House. Hakeem Jeffries has quite a job, too, trying to limit the damage from a fascist GOP majority, driving as fast as it can toward a steep cliff.

  17. PostToaster says:

    Top Secret maybe… but I don’t think any private investigator could have a blanket clearance to handle SCI documents. Those are hugely more sensitive than TS. Each SCI case is different, and requires a “read-in” and “read-out”; possibly with a polygraph test. The FBI apparently has some agents who are or can be ultra-cleared to handle the exceptionally unusual case of finding one lying around.

    For this reason, I don’t think any knowledgeable PI would take a job that might involve encountering such documents.

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