Tag Archives: classified documents

national news

Classified docs … are everywhere?

When in the world is this going to end, or will it ever end?

First we had Donald J. Trump pilfering classified documents — some of them top-secret docs — out of the White House and stashing them in his glitzy Florida mansion.

Then we learn that President Biden had a few documents in a think tank and then at his home in Delaware.

Now this … news that former Vice President Mike Pence had some classified documents in his house in Indiana.

What the hell?

The Biden docs were from his years as vice president and a few of them date back to his time in the Senate. Trump’s documents were solely from his single term as POTUS.

The find at the Pence house? Who knows their source or their contents?

This is beginning to feel like the tip of the proverbial iceberg. How many other top-flight pols who have left office are there to be discovered? I won’t name names. You know who I mean.

We have several living former presidents and vice presidents out there. We also have a number of former House speakers, Senate presidents pro tempore, key committee chairs and who knows who else possibly with documents that should have been turned in to the National Archives.

Let’s set aside the Trump matter. He has all but acknowledged publicly that he took the documents knowingly and with knowledge of their contents. The rest of ’em? That well might be the work of careless staffers who scarfed up the documents after senior officials had left office.

This is all beginning to have the feel and the appearance of an absurd bit of dark comedy. It’s damn near laughable … except that no one should be laughing.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

No similarity … seriously!

A friend posted this on social media, which I am sharing here: I believe it’s possible Biden doesn’t know how they got there … that staffers packed everything up carelessly. 

OK, let’s parse this for a brief moment.

The FBI keeps finding classified documents in President Biden’s home. They were put there after Biden served as vice president. Some of them date back to his time in the U.S. Senate.

Did the president knowingly stash them away? Did he do so with the expressed purpose of doing harm to our national security? C’mon!

Now we have the case of Donald John Trump. He took classified documents from the White House as he was leaving the place for the final time. He took them to Mar-a-Lago, Fla.

Trump has all but admitted taking the documents with full knowledge of their sensitivity. He has admitted to breaking the Presidential Papers Protection Act. He has said “they are mine.” He also has said he “declassified” the documents by “thinking about” declassifying them.

Is there an admission of wrongdoing in Trump’s response? Yep. I believe so. Has Joe Biden made any such admission? Has he said he knew he had those documents squirreled away? Nope.

Thus, my friend is onto something. A VP staffer was careless in handling the documents.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Biden plays into GOP attack strategy

What does one say about President Biden’s squirreling away of classified documents? Well, here’s what I have so far.

Joe Biden is playing directly into the Republicans’ strategy of attacking the president for anything at any time or for any political purpose.

It is particularly unsettling for those of us who continue to support Joe Biden to see this tempest erupt as Justice Department officials are examining a much-worse situation involving documents taken from the White House by Biden’s immediate presidential predecessor.

The Biden team is making a hash out of this story, giving their foes ammunition to fire at him. They are attempting to attach moral equivalence to the men’s actions. They aren’t remotely similar, other than they represent the presence of classified documents in unsecure places.

The White House communications outfit has to get a handle on this matter, in a major hurry. Any further bumbling by the White House “commo team” only heightens the political peril that Biden faces.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Get a grip, Mr. POTUS!

My head is likely to explode the next time I hear anyone equate two cases of classified documents showing up in private residences of men who hold high public office.

Still, I am about to pull my hair out over the revelations that keep dripping out over the discovery of such documents in President Biden’s home.

Get a grip, will you, Mr. President?

Meanwhile, we have the document scandal that continues to swirl around Donald J. Trump. The ex-POTUS took those documents with him to Florida as he was leaving office in January 2021. Biden’s stash showed up at his home after he served as vice president, leaving that office in 2017.

Biden continues to insist he is cooperating with Justice Department officials … and I believe him; Trump, meanwhile, continues to stonewall as best he can.

Still, I just wish the current president would pull his sh** together and give us a full, complete and transparent explanation into how the hell those documents got into his garage.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

Does one ‘scandal’ affect the other?

Donald Trump’s classified document scandal is the real thing; a president leaves office and takes with him hundreds of pages of documents that do not belong to him.

Joe Biden’s classified document matter is different: he served as vice president, left that office, and squirreled away a few pages of classified documents.

Trump has challenged efforts to retrieve them; Biden has cooperated fully with the feds.

Attorney General Merrick Garland has appointed two special counsels to examine these matters. Question of the day: Should one scandal affect the investigation of the other? My answer: No.

More specifically, special counsel Jack Smith’s work on the Trump matter should proceed with all deliberate speed. Robert Hur’s work on the Biden matter also should proceed.

One investigation must not affect the other one. More to the point is that Smith’s probe into the Trump scandal — which differs, in my mind, greatly from what is occurring with the Biden matter — must continue to its conclusion.

In my view, that conclusion should include an indictment of the ex-POTUS on allegations that he has obstructed justice and committed an illegal theft of government property.

But … that call belongs to AG Garland and his team of legal eagles. He vows to proceed with meticulous caution, which is all right with me. Garland has to get it right, understanding as I am sure he does the gravity of indicting a former POTUS and charging with enough criminal behavior to put him behind bars — if he’s convicted — for the rest of his sorry-ass life.

The Biden matter might complicate the probe into Trump’s scandal, but it must not derail it.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

WH produces maddening blunders

That White House where President Biden now resides and where the center of the executive branch operates is being abused by the incompetence demonstrated by Biden’s staff.

The feds found classified documents at a D.C. think tank, then found more of them at Biden’s home in Delaware. The White House response? It has been to dissemble and fudge on the whole truth, creating a perception out there of serious wrongdoing.

Good grief! The man made a mistake when he took the documents after serving as vice president from 2001 to 2009. He has vowed to cooperate fully with the Justice Department.

However, we have the morons inside the White House communications office who, quite frankly, aren’t communicating very effectively.

Meanwhile, all this is giving Republicans ammo to fire at President Biden, drawing a direct comparison of Joe Biden’s document kerfuffle to the scandal that plagues Donald John Trump.

They ain’t the same, man!

Trump had to be ordered to turn over documents he took from the White House. He refused to follow the orders. The FBI got word that he had more documents stashed at Mar-a-Lago; it then sought a search warrant from a federal judge, who granted it to the FBI.

Then the G-men (and women) went to Mar-a-Lago to scoop up the documents.

Biden vows cooperation. Trump practices deception and obstruction.

Do you see the difference? Well, it’s clear to me!

The Biden White House, though, needs to get its act together … as in right now!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

Let’s see who is ‘weaponizing’ justice

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Republicans in Congress have adopted a goofy notion that Democrats — starting with President Biden — are “weaponizing” the Justice Department in an effort to bring down Donald J. Trump.

Well, let’s see how that plays out.

Attorney General Merrick Garland has named Robert Hur as special counsel in a probe into whether Biden broke the law when he held classified documents in a think tank and in his Wilmington, Del., garage. The documents come from his time as vice president.

Hur is a U.S. attorney endorsed by Trump. Hmm. Will the prosecutor follow the law, or will he back the Trump allies’ campaign to subvert and destroy Biden? If it’s the latter, then just who is “weaponizing” the Justice Department?

I believe Garland did the right thing by appointing a special counsel. He had no choice, given that he did the same thing when he appointed a special counsel to examine whether Trump broke the law when he took documents out of the White House and hid them in his Florida home.

One of many key differences in these cases lies in the principals’ response. Biden vows to “cooperate fully” with authorities; Trump has sought to block any effort to return the documents to the National Archives, where they belong, on the specious grounds that they are his property. That is pure crap!

Who is guilty of weaponization? It’s not AG Merrick Garland and President Joe Biden. If Robert Hur does his job dispassionately and without bias, then the whole weaponization mantra will be rendered moot.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

Not the same, folks

Joe Biden’s critics have begun their “aha!” bellowing over the discovery of classified documents stashed away in a Washington, D.C., think tank.

Why, shoot! This is no different than what Donald Trump did when he spirited classified documents away from the White House and hid them at Mar-a-Lago, the Biden critics are yammering.

Hold on. Yeah, it’s different. It’s not right and Biden’s document kerfuffle needs to be probed thoroughly. Attorney General Merrick Garland has handed the matter to a U.S. attorney — a Trump appointee, by the way — to investigate. Garland may yet decide whether to launch a full Justice Department investigation into the matter.

Why is this different than what Trump did? Because Biden reportedly didn’t know the documents were stored away from the National Archives. He returned them immediately upon learning of their existence. Trump, though, has lied — imagine that! — about what he turned over to the feds after the FBI seized the documents at his Florida mansion.

Biden is cooperating fully with the feds; Trump is stonewalling.

And … Trump has all but acknowledged publicly that he did something illegal.

None of this will stop President Biden’s critics from falling into full “gotcha!” mode.

Ridiculous.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

History to be made

No matter what transpires after this week, I believe you and I are about to witness a history-smashing event when the House select committee examining the 1/6 insurrection meets for its final public meeting.

All signs — every single one of them — tell us that the panel is going to recommend at least one criminal referral against Donald J. Trump.

Now, to be sure the House panel cannot indict Trump. That task rests with the Justice Department. History will be shattered, though, when the panel votes on the referral. It will be the first time in U.S. history that a congressional committee has made such a recommendation on a former president of the United States of America.

An even more critical question will arise when the committee takes its vote: Will the DOJ follow the recommendation handed it by the House? All the smart money in the land says “yes.” Why? Because Attorney General Merrick Garland hired a career prosecutor, Jack Smith, to serve as special counsel.

Smith hit the ground in a dead-on sprint. He has been working to finalize the evidence gathered by the House committee and by the probe that the DOJ had completed before Garland decided to recuse himself from the insurrection probe and the examination of the pilfering of classified documents from the White House as Trump was leaving office.

To be absolutely clear, the fecal matter is going to hit the fan when the committee casts its vote Monday. We can expect the MAGA cultists in Congress to yammer and yowl about “partisan witch hunts,” and “weaponizing the Justice Department” and, yes, there will be calls to impeach Merrick Garland.

It’s all BS. The committee was constituted correctly at the beginning of this saga right after the insurrection. It has collected damning testimony — most of it coming from Trump loyalists within the administration!

I believe there is sufficient evidence to indict the ex-POTUS on any number of charges. But … first things first. The House committee needs to make history for the rest of it to proceed. I also believe we should prepare for a monumental moment.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, Donald Trump, legal news, national news, national security

GOP senators break with Trump … woo hoo!

It’s not every day one gets to salute U.S. Senate Republicans for doing the right thing as it regards the former president of the United States, the former Liar in Chief.

Donald Trump declared on Fox News the other day that he could “declassify” documents taken from the White House and stored at his Florida home simply by “thinking” about it.

No can do … Mr. ex-POTUS. Declassification is a complicated process, Sens. John Thune, Mike Rounds and Thom Tillis told CNN.

They said:

SEN. THUNE: There’s a process for declassifying documents. And I think it ought to be adhered to and followed.

SEN. TILLIS: There’s a formal process that needs to be gone through and documented … As I understand, the executive branch requirements there is a process one must go through.

SEN. ROUNDS: I think anyone who takes the time to appropriately protect that information, and who has taken the time to see what’s in the information would have serious concerns about how items could be accessed, if they’re not stored properly.

GOP Sens. Tillis, Thune, Rounds Break With Trump: “There’s A Formal Process” For Declassifying Documents | Video | RealClearPolitics

Do you get what I mean here? Donald Trump, once again, is making things up in what passes for that brain in his thick skull.

It’s getting might cramped in that space surrounding The Donald as the walls keep closing in.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com