Judge Aileen Cannon Treated a Public Letter about Trump’s Health as More Sensitive than America’s National Security
As I have shown, had Judge Aileen Cannon left well enough alone, the government would have handed all Category B documents identified by the filter team back to Trump on September 1. Instead, she deliberately inflicted what she herself deemed to be further harm on Trump to justify intervening in the search of Trump’s beach resort.
And now she may have caused even more harm. That’s because, by means that are not yet clear (but are likely due to a fuck-up by one of Cannon’s own staffers), the inventories from both Category A (government documents that deal with a legal issue) and Category B (more personal documents) were briefly posted on the docket. (h/t Zoe Tillman, who snagged a copy)
Those inventories not only show Cannon’s claims of injury to Trump were even more hackish than I imagined. But it creates the possibility that DOJ’s filter team will attempt to retain some of the documents included in Category B, notably records pertaining to the Georgia fraud attempts and January 6, they otherwise wouldn’t have.
Start with the hackishness. The harm that Cannon sustained to justify intervening consisted of preventing DOJ from returning, “medical documents, correspondence related to taxes, and accounting information” to Trump, “depriv[ing Trump]of potentially significant personal documents.” Cannon made DOJ withhold such documents from Trump for a least two additional weeks and then used it to argue that Trump had a personal interest in what DOJ claims are mostly government documents and press clippings.
The single solitary medical document pertaining to Trump (there’s a Blue Cross explanation of benefits that appears to pertain to someone else) is this letter from Trump’s then-personal physician released during the 2016 Presidential campaign.
Not only was it publicly released over six years ago, but details of medicines left off the report and Trump’s role in dictating an earlier version of the letter were widely reported in 2017.
Aileen Cannon held up a national security investigation into highly sensitive documents stored insecurely at a beach resort targeted by foreign intelligence services, in part, because the FBI seized a public letter than had been released as part of a political campaign six years ago.
She personally halted efforts to keep the United States safe, in part, to prevent leaks of a document that Trump released himself six years ago.
But that’s not all she did.
There are documents in both Category A and Category B that may be responsive to subpoenas from the January 6, the DOJ investigation, and Fani Willis’ Georgia investigation.
The December 31, 2020 email from Kurt Hilbert pertaining to Fulton County lawsuits is likely the one investigators turned over to the filter team on September 26 (which Trump’s lawyers claim is privileged).
For some unknown reason (probably that it was sent to the White House, which DOJ considers a waiver of privilege), DOJ put it in Category A.
There are several uninteresting Georgia-related documents included among Category B documents — the Civil Complaint in Trump v. Kemp, retainer agreements pertaining to various Fulton County lawsuits, a retention agreement with Veen, O’Neill, Hartshorn, and Levin, along with another folder with retention agreements pertaining to Fulton County. But this file, including a letter to Kurt Hilbert with a post-it note from Cleta Mitchell, might be more interesting.
There’s also a document pertaining to Joe DiGenova regarding appointing a Special Counsel (as well as might be an effort to get Pat Cipollone to complain about Saturday Night Live’s taunts of Trump).
The DiGenova document might pertain to any number of topics, but like Cleta Mitchell, he has been named in DOJ subpoenas on election fraud.
Similarly, there are documents that might be responsive to and of interest to Tish James in her investigation of Trump’s fraud. Those include:
- 5 copies of the same one-page letter from Morgan Lewis about taxes
- A document about a restrictive covenant agreement
- A confidential settlement between the PGA and Trump Golf
- Several IRS Form 872s, including one in a folder marked NYC 8/10 (the date of Trump’s deposition with Tish James)
- An IRS Form 2858 with Molly’s name on it (almost certainly Molly Michael)
- A signed tax return disclosure consent form
The desk drawer also includes details of Alina Habba’s retention agreements and payments, which she would have found when she searched the drawers to ensure there were not tax documents in there.
The tax documents are likely uninteresting. Some (especially the Hilbert documents) may already be in investigators hands. But the point remains: By preventing DOJ from turning over these Category B documents to Trump on September 1 like they requested permission to do, Cannon has now given DOJ an opportunity to argue these document are not privileged, possibly even that they’re responsive to various subpoenas that might be crime-fraud excepted.
With the exception of the Hilbert emails to the White House, DOJ may still return these — fighting over them may be more trouble than it’s worth. But because this inventory got released, it will now be clear what Trump’s lawyers are attempting to hide. It may even give James or Willis opportunity to subpoena the documents anew.
And it will be clear that Aileen Cannon endangered the United States, in part, based off a claim that a medical record that Trump himself released six years ago is more important than some of the government’s most sensitive documents.
As Tillman noted in her piece on the inventory, there are also details of some of the clemency packages Trump reviews. Those include pardons for Rod Blagojevich, what are probably two Border Patrol agents convicted for shooting a drug smuggler, Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, and Michael Behanna, a soldier courtmartialed for killing an Iraqi prisoner, as well as the commutation of Ted Suhl. There’s also one for an “RN” that might be Ronen Nahamani, whose clemency a bipartisan group of politicians supported, including Matt Gaetz. The inclusion of all these clemency packages makes it more likely that Roger Stone’s was among them — though by description, Stone’s pardon was in another drawer of a desk in Trump’s office.
One of the other main categories of Category A documents are letters to NARA, something likely covered by the part of the warrant authorizing the seizure of communications about classified records.
so…how does one go about getting a criminally corrupt judge removed from a life time appointment? It has been obvious from the beginning that trump was appointing judges, at the behest of a corrupt think tank, that both trump and mcconnell thought they would be able to get away with being able to shop judges that are corrupt enough to do their bidding…in my honest opinion, anyone appointed by a criminal, should not be able to remain in that office, until another investigation and another vote by the Senate is complete…and they are proven innocent beyond a doubt…
The vote by senate is the only constitutional remedy, so if we want another path we’re going to need a constitutional amendment first. Bit of a long shot.
Courts have the power to take away authority from one of their judges in extreme situations and reassign their cases. That happened to federal judge Mark Fuller, but he was arrested for domestic abuse, and nothing Cannon has done is criminal. Barring something coming out of left field, she will still be in the mix.
Also note, the judge could be sitting in jail, administratively removed from handling cases, and _still_ get paid full judge salary.
The administrative reassignment may be necessary to keep that judge’s cases going but it serves as vacation of sorts for the bad judge.
In a world where pride and honor coexist with shame and embarrassment, Judge Cannon would have resigned in disgrace or refined the fine Russian art of “self”-defenestration.
In the bizarro world which Trump has helped to create, shame and embarrassment are no longer recognized by his adherents.
I suspect we’re all stuck with her for a while.
Would be comedy gold if it weren’t so sadly defective
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testing…
BWAHAHAHA!
This roundabout scratching the surface of documents that trump hand-picked to steal from the US is providing hints why many of them were taken – various on-going investigations. His attempts to hide these documents is backfiring and drawing more attention to them, similar to his screams for transparency Re MAL and his self incriminating statements on Truth and reporter interviews.
If it urns out that there is additional stuff he hid, moved to other trump locs in anticipation of a FBI MAR search those documents are likely to be the most devastating.
Cannon valuing trump’s reputation over ongoing investigation of potential serious felonies by trump is indefensible and speaks for itself. We can’t rule out Clarence playing follow the leader and doing something unimaginable. He will have to be fed the idea(s) from outside wackos probably via Ginny. Desperate times require desperate measures and tfg with no legal defense is the epitome of desperate.
Could someone review Thomas’s options where the 11th circuit appeals are concerned? Can he overrule the 11th by himself or does he have to send the appeal up to the Supreme Court?
The circuit justice has options. An application to SCOTUS for an emergency stay of lower court goes, at least at first, to just one justice, known as the “circuit justice,” who handles emergency appeals from the geographic area where the case originated. In this case, it’s Thomas.
The circuit justice can grant or deny the application on their own; the “vote” (in this case) of just a single Justice.
Or they can refer it to the full court for all of the justices to vote on it.
The circuit justice also may order the other side in the case to file a brief responding to the request; depending on the case, that brief may be due within a few days (if not sooner).
In case a Circuit Justice accepts or denies the emergency application on their own without full court, that stay doesn’t moot the merits of any case that is proceeding, and all of the various parties can still continue to work their case up through the Courts. Also as any emergency stay request by the losing party back to SCOTUS would go to the same single Justice who just ruled against them, there is little reason for the losing party to try to submit their own emergency application to the opposing party’s emergency application and Justice’s decision; any time for that would be in briefs before the Justice’s decision _if_ the Justice happened to solicit them.
If Thomas did something the rest of the court disliked, the rest of the court could overrule him.
One thing that the inclusion of the 12/31/20 Hilbert email makes clear is that the lack of news clippings from later than November 2020 does NOT mean that there are no documents from later than November 2020. That suggests that there may well be documents relevant to the 1/6 investigations included, either in the classified documents or in the other government documents.
Yes, it does.
Tho those are probably from a desk drawer, possibly even an assistant’s. So we shouldn’t assume the same is true of the boxes.
True. But there are an awful lot of documents (well over a thousand) listed as U.S. Government documents/photographs that are listed as found in the office with no classification markings, without any press clippings, in addition to the one document with secret classification markings found in the office without any press clippings.
I don’t disagree in sentiment–the desk is different.
But Item 4, which (along with the leatherbound box) is the majority of the seizure from the office, has just 361 docs, plus no more than 64 in the potentially privileged stack. And it includes 26 clippings, dated January to November 2020.
Or elsewhere, perhaps Bedminster. They are definitely somewhere. Hopefully not in the sewer or ashes from a fireplace.
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What it seems to make plain (just my opinion) is that the records Trump retained were proactively weeded at some point, meaning that documents from that period, if they still exist, are in another location.
I’m a little confused about your argument about Cannon causing the harm then using that to justify etc.
Clearly for the 382 pages that is true-Cannon caused the harm preventing return of the documents that the Filter Team said were Trump’s.
But I think Cannon is stating that there is a question regarding the 11,000 documents and even the classified documents regarding some of these documents being personal documents as well, which goes towards the harm she uses to justify. So, excluding the 382 pages, Cannon is stating that there would be a potential harm, because some of the 11,000 documents may be personal. She is basing that on the fact that the DoJ’s filter team did the initial designations regarding whether something is personal (based on AC privilege) and Trump’s team did not have an opportunity to review the documents to concur.
Am I missing something on that? I think it is a somewhat reasonable argument to make or at least logical, though I am sure I am missing the legal subtleties here.
Your first two paragraphs were fine, and reflect some of Marcy’s post.
Cannon is inventing potential harm rather than responding to Trump’s arguments, which he hasn’t made or supported with affidavits of fact or legal argument.
She does that, in part, through the manipulations Marcy writes about, in part, by refusing to believe anything the government says. That is neither normal nor judicial. She is buying into Trump’s grossly exaggerated claims about his authority to characterize presidential records as “personal,” and the extent of his actual interest in the vast majority of these documents.
Fundamentally, Cannon is enabling Trump to make a collateral attack, via civil litigation, on a valid warrant and search. The document review process the government has conducted here is both routine and more stringent than normally applied. To date, any leaks – the black beast she is concerned might cause Trump some undefined and improbable harm – have come from either Cannon or Trump, not the DoJ.
Cannon makes arguments on Plaintiff Trump’s behalf that his lawyers have not, treating the initial motion as if it applied under Rule 41(g) when Jim Trusty told her in court they were *not* raising that.
Earl raises the main issue: “lawful search.” Trump’s lawyers, a category that seems to include Cannon, insist on overlooking the plain text of Rule 41, and playing hide-the-ball with Richey precedent, all of which (as 11th Circuit tried to remind them) kicks in only when the search’s legality can be questioned.
Cannon says at one point that Trump is harmed by having his personal documents taken from him and not returned. When DOJ offers to return documents that they have already identified as personal, Cannon turns around and says “No, I want to deal with all the documents at the same time, so you just hold on to those.”
*head meets desk*
She is inflicting the harm that she says is being done to Trump.
The point is the delay. Cannon is following “orders,” whether explicit or not. She is even more awful than we were warned about in the waning hours of trump’s disastrous term.
This.
In what scenario would classified documents also be personal documents?
None. Trump might claim he first declassified a document before somehow making it personal, though that’s also impossible, because the document would remain a presidential or federal record.
Only within the scenario of Trump’s mind.
Whenever I see DeGenova’s name, I recall that he was actually a Special Counsel back in the Clinton years and he managed to completely exonerate the Bush Sr. folks over the leaking of Bill Clinton’s passport.
Funny how he was treated as an independent fact-finder by a credulous media. A sign of things to come.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-12-01-mn-9260-story.html
And the odious Ken Starr used to help trump. And who was a part of Starr’s team? Kavanaugh.
IIRC DiGenova’s wife is Victoria Toensing who is not an improvement.
Post-it note from Chris Kise former partner in law Cleta Mitchell
“Judge Aileen Cannon… deliberately inflicted what she herself deemed to be further harm on Trump to justify intervening in the search of Trump’s beach resort.”
Anybody else flashing back to the year 2000, when the Supreme Court delayed the Florida vote count and then found themselves forced to award the presidency to George Bush because there wasn’t time to count all the votes?
Who says conservative don’t respect precedent?
There are going to be and likely are legitimate privileged Presidential Records in the 11,000 documents. Their premature distribution through leaking, careless distribution, or even copying and distribution through legal means such as FOIA, court proceedings, et. al. and even if “leaked” information relative to them are also just summaries, constitutes a damage for someone whether it’s to either/both NARA/US Government as well as the former President whose privileged information is being seen by people before it’s supposed to in accordance with records act statutory privileged record timelines.
This is why I recommend presidents deposit their records with NARA posthaste, as demanded by the PRA. The dutiful archivists have done a wonderful job protecting the papers of the presidents who availed themselves of that storage.
I’ll also suggest a novel damage that it also may be the American People, themselves, separately from NARA/US & the privileging POTUS, with the fouling of statutory timelines.
The entire point of records act, and privileged provisions of it, is to serve People and ensure We the People get access to the information at appropriate time.
And getting access to legitimately privileged documents before the appropriate time might also serve as a damage to Us the People.
Improbable. And what privilege are you referring to? The normal process is working fine. That’s what Cannon and Trump don’t like, so they are trying to fuck it up.
Presidential Records Act includes provision for privileged Presidential Records, with their own statutory timelines governing their privilege release.
If the law is fouled, and the legal timelines artificially expedited contrary to the PRA statutory privilege regime, then we lose: “we” being the parties holding interest in the privileged records, at least including US Government through NARA, the privileging former POTUS, and I would also add: the People.
We already have examples, probably.
One example is the Filter team’s document summarized as: “Draft 2019 immigration initiative | For POTUS Review | Executive Action to Curb Illegal Immigration.”
First, the Draft 2019 is most likely _not_ a government record; the bona fide government record would be the (Final) 2019 immigration initiative that was executed, if it any were indeed executed. If no federal act or policy was effected, then no government record need be retained on the matter; that is, if the deliberations yielded no act or policy, then the draft deliberations aren’t necessarily government records falling under NARA. However, in this case, there probably _was_ some government act or policy that does in fact implicate presence of at least a NARA government record to be retained: by all appearances, this summary would point to this policy: https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/articles/president-trumps-bold-immigration-plan-21st-century/
The documentation associated with these policies are almost certainly retained by the US government; the policy portal itself references the US Government’s POTUS Twitter as documentary support. These are all the government documents. Trump’s copy of the draft is not anything required to be archived by NARA. It can only then be a Presidential Record, or a private record; either can be true. If it is a Presidential Record, then it may absolutely be privileged because it may legitimately include necessary advise and consent to the POTUS in the formulation of the associated immigration policy legitimately considered by the privilege provisions of the Presidential Records Act; there’s no telling if the “For President’s Review” version of the document is a straight up exact copy of whatever agency or White House document it originated from, or if it includes any special cover or instructions specific to POTUS. Any review by POTUS, review comments, notes, etc. could comprise a Presidential Record, and so might also possibly make that entire document a Presidential Record depending on practicality of filing separate; and this Presidential Record at this draft policy-making stage might bona fide be privileged under the statutory intent and provisions of the Presidential Records Act. If the document is a straight-up copy for reference, then it’s neither considered a government record under Government Records Act or a Presidential record under the Presidential Records Act. This leaves possibility it may be a personal copy and so could possibly be considered a Private Record under the Presidential Records Act; it wouldn’t have any POTUS doodles that would implicate them.
Another example of a government document that could be Trump’s private record; if he happened to order a government document from a government agency; his address being the White House doesn’t limit his ability as a private individual; in his case, he has more avenues to expedite getting a personal copy that would be a private record than nearly anyone else.
Generally, any reference copies of government documents conceivably handed to Trump while he was POTUS where he didn’t doodle on in his POTUS capacity, and where the original or suitable copy is retained within the US government at NARA or originating agency, etc. does not constitute any property of US government or implicate any theft, or any document that anyone had to “give back.” Same goes for documentary works-in-progress where it falls to the final version being retained as the government record; working drafts are not necessarily government records, nor are documentary activities where no government act or policy is implicated, this generally covers deliberations about the possibility of performing a government act or effecting government policy that is ultimately abandoned as part of that process.
I too like to keep important communications with my lawyers in boxes of decades old mementos.
Don’t we all? Especially with the public mulling around.
There are no legitimate privileged documents by definition of being a Presidential Record. Biden (the President) has already waived any claims of privilege. Trump, being the ex-President, doesn’t have any claim on Presidential Records. They are the property of the US government and for use by the Executive Branch.
The PRA includes a whole statutory system and process of the law’s “privilege” that vests a role and interest to former not incumbent President for years after leaving office.
Any idea on the 6/23/17 letter to Robert Mueller?
** = New
** ?DATE? Letter from Balch & Bingham to Kurt HILBERT; post-it note “from Cleta Mitchel”
** 12/31/20 Kurt HILBERT emails WHITE HOUSE email account [MEADOWS?] regarding signed verifications for Fulton County lawsuit and federal complaint and three verifications.
** 12/31/20 Kurt HILBERT sends email to WHITE HOUSE email account [MEADOWS?] sharing 10 files regarding federal lawsuit
https://www.emptywheel.net/2021/06/11/the-hybrid-hatchet-conspiracy-a-premeditated-plan-to-surround-the-capitol/#comment-894645
See this comment for a 12/30/20 EMAIL exchange between participants in TRUMP’s 1/2/21 call to Raffensberger, Cleta Mitchell and Mark Meadows [p219/232 House Oversight Committee Docs]:
1] 9:07 AM MITCHELL to MEADOWS
2] 9:28 AM MEADOWS to “Meadows, Mark R. EOP/WHO”
3] 9:31 AM MEADOWS to ROSEN
1/1/21
1] MEADOWS to ROSEN emails
2] ROSEN suggests that CLARK reach out to U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia Pak for an explanation of how the allegations of ballot destruction in Atlanta had been discredited.
3] CLARK meets with ROSEN and DONOGHUE, confirms that his classified briefing produced no evidence of ballot or data tampering, but continues to press that DOJ should send his “Proof of Concept” letter. Clark attempts to get Rosen to reconsider sending the letter by offering to turn down Trump’s offer to install him in Rosen’s place. Clark also confirms that he has not reached out to Pak to discuss why the Georgia election fraud claims he continues to press are false, and reveals that he has instead spoken to witnesses about those claims.
4] Scott PERRY to MEADOWS: “Please call me the instant you get off the phone with Jeff [CLARK]”
1/2/21
1] TRUMP [with MEADOWS, Cleta MITCHELL and Kurt HILBERT] calls GA’s SoS RAFFENSPERGER and counsel GERMANY, pressuring them to “find 11,780 votes”
Marcy [w/ screenshot of WaPo call transcript]:
https://twitter.com/emptywheel/status/1345856825200144389
5:17 PM · Jan 3, 2021
harpie, this is great! Thank you. At a critical point in this, January 4, 2021, BJ Pak submitted his resignation, effective immediately. They were leaning on him and he refused to go along.
Moderators, I am changing my user name to icarustpenguin
First reply as icarustpenguin
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The RWNM is doubtless ready to screech about the DoJ leaking this inventory (if they haven’t started already) but Garland’s DoJ is remarkably good at holding their cards to the point where even members of this community get into a tizzy speculating what they’re up to. It’s likely what EW said, a clerk at Cannon’s court (or maybe at the District admin level) putting it out there.
With that said, I do not see any particular benefit to DoJ having the inventory in the public discussion, since their audience is the Article III structure and future trials. Individual-1 and his minions OTOH would be able to play the victim card loudly for more clickbait opportunities and fundraising (which TFG is already doing using his SCOTUS appeal as the hook). Cannon isn’t going to be removed by public pressure and IMHO she is too far gone to rescue what remains of her legal reputation. I’m not sure how a release by DoJ would change the already existing calculus.
Does the Presiding Judge have the ability to boot Cannon off this case? As a point to consider, Individual-1 paid special attention to the 11th Circuit appointments (expected if he lives at M-a-L) so it looks like a crap shoot that the judge after Cannon wouldn’t be just as biased.
Of course they will scream it’s a DOJ leak. It’s clearly from the incompetent staff of the incompetent judge. But facts don’t matter.
Cannon is not ignorant or incompetent. She is acting corruptly.
Cannon is the presiding judge. The only judge in the Southern District who has power over here is the Chief Judge. The CJ could probably remove her from the case for misconduct, but not for bad rulings.
One might argue that docketing the inventories publicly is misconduct. But so far, all we know is (1) that one medical record which was already publicly released is in the inventory, and (2) that other documents were described in the inventory, but not actually posted on the docket. That doesn’t amount to much.
In other words, the most likely outcome is that Cannon keeps the case and just continues to embarrass herself.
Cannon is why they invented appellate courts to deal with bad rulings.
Cannon needs to be removed from this case. Full stop. That’s the only logical remedy here. And I am pretty confident that it will happen.
In my perfect world, 11th Circuit would expedite the appeal (with no interference from Thomas,) vacate all her orders because she has no jurisdiction, return the issue to Reinhart as the judge who approved the warrant. Then DOJ indicts trump immediately.
My world hasn’t been perfect in a very long time….
Let us take a moment to scornfully laugh at Judge Cannon, and to mock her.
Trump:
1) Is on video confessing to sexual assault;
2) Is the first president impeached twice, and the first to have a Senator of his own party vote to convict. The second impeachment had 7 Republican Senators voting to convict Trump.
3) The Trump Foundation was legally compelled to close after investigation found “a shocking pattern of criminality” in Trump’s abuses of the foundation:
4) Trump has vouched for the character and uprightness of his associates — like Manafort — after they were convicted of slews of felonies;;
5) Trump thinks criminals who attacked Capitol police, leaving some with permanent disabilities, should not be prosecuted, and/or that they should receive a U.S. government apology for having been prosecuted.
6) Etc.
But Judge Cannon thinks the threat to Trump’s reputation comes from the possibility of his being indicted in this matter.
When Judge Cannon, writing in this matter talks about “fairness,” she has adopted Trump’s own notion that holding Trump accountable for anything is unfair. She doesn’t bother her rectal-cranially inverted head one second to consider the FAIRNESS to the public of blocking the FBI from investigating the fates of top secret U.S. government documents that Trump stole.
I think that’s right.
Yup, this is just taking it one step beyond…
Nixon: “if the President does it, it is not illegal”
Trump: “if the ex-President does it, it is not illegal” (or, in Trump’s mind, the sitting President is illegitimate, so I’m still the President, and therefore, it is not illegal.)
Let us not forget that Trump mocked a disabled person, while on stage in front of MANY people. That is all you need to know about his character.
Of the thousands of endless awful things coming out of the Trump this- to me- was the most grotesque.
Kyle Cheney: “Appeals court *grants* DOJ motion to expedite appeal of Judge Cannon’s order appointing special master to oversee seized Mar-a-Lago docs.”
From the order:
I’m looking forward to Thanksgiving with a timeline like that.
Here’s Politico’s copy of the order: https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000183-a919-d581-a98f-a9dd618a0000
and their article on it: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/10/05/appeals-court-expedites-doj-challenge-to-mar-a-lago-special-master-00060492
edit: hoping all those numbers/letters at the end of the first link are all okay; so far politico’s links have been fine?
You are right to look askance at links of that form.
OTOH that one can’t be fixed in any direct way.
On the third hand, here is a different source for the same document. Once you know the contents it is easy to find other copies by googling.
https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23119195/order-granting-expedited-appeal.pdf
SF 258-95 (https://www.gsa.gov/cdnstatic/SF258-95.pdf?forceDownload=1)
AGREEMENT TO TRANSFER RECORDS TO THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF THE UNITED STATES
TERMS OF AGREEMENT
The records described below and on the attached AGREEMENT TO TRANSFER RECORDS TO THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF THE UNITED STATES RECORDS INFORMATION pages are deposited in the National Archives of the United States in accordance with 44 U.S.C. 2107. The transferring agency certifies that any restrictions on the use of
these records are in conformance with the requirements of 5 U.S.C. 552. In accordance with 44 U.S.C. 2108, custody of these records becomes the responsibility of the Archivist of the United States at the time of transfer of the records. It is agreed that these records will be administered in accordance with the provisions of 44 U.S.C. Chapter 21, 36 CFR XII, 36
CFR Part 1256 and such other rules and regulations as may be prescribed by the Archivist of the United States (the Archivist). Unless specified and justified below, no restrictions of the use of these records will be imposed other than the general and specific restrictions on the use of records in the National Archives of the United States that have been published in 36 CFR Part 1256 or in the Guide to the National Archives of the United States. The Archivist may destroy, donate, or otherwise dispose of any containers, duplicate copies, unused forms, blank stationary, non-archival printed or processes material, or other non-record material in any manner authorized by law or regulation. Without further consent, the Archivist may destroy deteriorating or damaged documents after they have been copied in a form that retains all of the information in the original document. The Archivist will use the General Records Schedule and any applicable records disposition schedule (SF 115) of the transferring agency to dispose of non-archival materials contained in this deposit”
Gee – I thought that sounded familiar. “3 signing sheets”? Looks like Trump not only had the formal request for documents from NARA, he was provided with the relevant GSA Special Form to account for each record – and specifically refused to either return the material or the forms. Not neglect. Intent.
“But it creates the possibility that DOJ’s filter team will attempt to retain some of the documents included in Category B, notably records pertaining to the Georgia fraud attempts and January 6, they otherwise wouldn’t have.”
Another own-goal by Team TFG. Brilliant!
Mods: I’ll be changing to the 8-character moniker ExRacerX after this post.
The plot thickens: Leopold just pried loose GSA FOIA: it was GSA that shipped everything to MAL. GSA also apparently executed agreement with Meadows on behalf of outgoing transition that MAL serve as staging area to facilitate archiving (for 6 months) for both Trump & Pence.
It was the US government who brought everything in MAL to MAL.
Mods this is my new handle from Ddub.
OT – a sobering watch as Dr. Kathleen Belew talks with Ken Harbaugh about the current state of play in the white power movement. The TLDW version is that these movements grow in the aftermath of war, more than any other correlate. Our 20 year war is uncharted ground.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhj-laz8yYs
[Thanks for updating your username to meet the 8 letter minimum. /~Rayne]
The letter that Dr. Bornstein wrote (ahem, that Donald Trump dictated) is a real knee-slapper. Bornstein was interviewed by CNN in 2018 and called the letter “black humor”, comparing it to a famous movie. “I just made it up as I went along,” he told CNN. “It’s like the movie ‘Fargo’: It takes the truth and moves it in a different direction.” Hilarious! Too bad the American people were the butt of the joke!
Judge Cannon’s attempts to keep this ludicrous document under wraps makes this incident even more farcical and her actions corrosive to the rule of law.
Correction: The IRS Form should be 2848, “Power of Attorney and Declaration of Representative”, not 2858.
I’m not sure if it matters, but form 872 is “Consent to Extend the Time to Assess Tax”