What do you think the legislated process for a president declassifying documents is? If Trump notified the Archivists that he was taking documents to Mar-o-lago and the FBI told him to put a lock on tne door to the storeroom, and he was only legally allowed to take unclassified and declassified documents to Mar-o-lago, is seems obvious thst tje Archivists and FBI understood those documents to be declassified. Otherwise, why would they have allowed them to be tsken (Archivists) and left (FBI) at Mar-o-Lago before the raid?
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Is there any evidence that Trump notified the Archivists?
I have not seen any.
And if they did not agree, then he broke the law.
Note that he went on national TV twice and admitted that he took the documents.
And then when the Archivists requested the documents be returned, it appears that Trump did not return all of them. And that is a violation of law.
And then Trump had Christina Bobb sign a document that said all of the documents were returned. Which was a lie and could be considered obstruction of justice. The only thing that might get her off the hook is that the documents had a line at the end that stated she was signing it saying that “to the best of my knowledge”. Did Trump lie to her? She has met with Federal Officials regarding this, but no statement has been issued. Now perhaps Trump can state that to the best of his knowledge all of the documents were returned. Yet government documents were found in his office desk when the search warrant was executed. Now I have to admit I have no idea what the federal law is when it comes to property possession. But does it sound reasonable that Trump did not know what papers were in his own desk?
And again, you mentioned the classification of the documents in your post. And again, I will say that the level of classification does not matter. What matters is that he had possession of government documents, which violated the law.
Which is a civil not criminal infraction.
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Because under the PRA of 1978 the NARA doesn’t assume custody and responsibility of documents until an administration ends unless the administration turns documents over early.
They are not responsible for documents during an administration.
WW
Instead of jumping to conclusions, we need to wait to find out just how many neglected stashes there are first.
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Yes, the democrats are not party for old white men. Ask Cuomo as Tucker pointed out!
If documentation retention policies are violated and/or a obstruction charge is made under USC Section 1503, it can be charged as a federal felony offense.
Pretty sure that applies to things created during their time in office like the infamous hurricane map that caused libs to have a meltdown.
Also pretty sure classified/top secret documents are known and what there is and what is in who’s possession.
Well, we found one next to the Turtle Wax in a box in a garage. Maybe they should check next to the Aqua Net in the bathroom next?
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Agreed.
Funny thing is it was the missing Hurricane Sharpie Map and the love letters missing from Kim Jung Un that first the NARA to initially contact the FPOTUS after he left office because they realized they were missing.
WW
I’d suggest the play room.
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Hey, the Rumpus Room! That’s a good idea. 
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I pretyy much agree with this entire post.
But, I’d point out:
“But does it sound reasonable that Trump did not know what papers were in his own desk?”
I would say that sounds about as reasonable as Biden not knowing there were classified documents laying next to his corvette.
And the knowledge of those documents laying next to his vette and doing nothing about it constitutes a violation of law.
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I like how being in a box in the garage, morphs into bring stored in the corvette, to now laying on the ground next to the corvette.
Not a comment on the documents mishap being acceptable, it wasn’t. It’s a comment on how what people believe evolves.
WW
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I like how being stored in a garage that any thief worth their salt knows is a piece of cake to get into is suddenly secure enough to warrant permanent storage of classified documents and should be considered no big deal.
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I agree. But again the federal government would have to prove intent. And that would be hard to prove since he never admitted knowledge. I have to believe that any competent Lawyer would tell Trump to feign any knowledge of what happened and return all of the documents. If that had been done all of this would be a moot point.
I have to think that the methods used by the National Archives not being in the loop of securing documents when a administration leaves office have to be questioned. I would not be surprised that there are past POTUS and VPOTUS and Cabinet Heads who have government documents in their possession.
They weren’t looking…with acceptation concerning Trump.
