Winning - Lawfare Silliness Falling Apart

[freeloader]

The President has the legal authority to declassify documents at their discretion, but they still have to follow the law, including existing procedures. Among these are clearly marking that the documents have been declassified and reporting the declassification to the National Archives in their capacity as the federal records holder. There is no indication Trump did these things.

The President also does not own these documents. They are federal records material and are the property of the United States. Even if he had declassified them, Trump still committed a crime by retaining government documents which were not his property.

The inquiry into Trump’s handling of documents took months before his Florida compound was raided. If Trump’s intent was to comply with the laws, he/his people should have located and collected any federal record materials and turned them over to the correct depository. They didn’t. Instead, they obstructed the Department of Justice at every turn.

Trump broke the law. Period. He broke laws to which every federal employee is subject, including the President.

You may believe that he should not have been tried for these violations, as that is a matter of opinion. What is not a matter of opinion is that he violated federal law EVEN if he did declassify the documents.

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Judge Cannon’s reasoning for dismissing had nothing to do with the merits of the case, but was because Congress did not authorize the funds for the special counsel as the special counsel STATUTE allows for funds to be drawn directly from the treasury without congressional authorization.

Congress chose to specifically waive its authority to authorize funding for special counsels.  The Supreme Court recently ruled that the CFPB funding structure, which does not rely on congressional authorizations, was constitutional in large part because Congress had the authority to dictate spending but created an alternative funding path. They had the power of the purse but abdicated it for the CFPB.

Any normal Supreme Court would probably overturn Cannon, but who knows with the current Court. Precedent and consistency seem to hold no weigh with them.

If Cannon’s decision is allowed to stand and Congress has to specifically authorize special counsel funding, that means it is subject to presidential veto. Thus, no special counsel will ever have teeth regarding a President as they can simply veto the funding. It also places the Special Counsel clearly under the authority of the President, so what Nixon did—trying to fire his special counsel—would be perfectly fine.

Given its recent decisions on presidential immunity, if the SC sides with Cannon and does so before the election, Biden would pretty clearly be within his authority to have Trump and the conservative members of the Supreme Court killed by federal agents.

"Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?"