The last paragraph of this very fine letter reminds me that Nixon should not have been pardoned. His "escape" from justice did nothing to "heal the nation". And Reagan should have been held accountable for "Iran Contra" - regardless of dementia and possible ignorance of the crime.
If TFG is not held accountable and dealt a serious sentence, every law in America will become a joke and our entire system of justice will be mocked around the world.
We will have no standing, no credibility and our leadership on everything from human rights to the sovereignty of nations will be undermined.
Supporters of Trump know only two rules: a. The leader is always right and b. In doubt rule a. immediately takes effect. Releasing this letter is propaganda. Followers register only two things, it is against their leader and favors the stealing opponent, Biden. The person who signed, is not safe. Of course you are right that above all we must protect the rule of law. At the same time we must fight like hell against fake news, in earlier times called propaganda. Thank you for helping with that, Robert.
100% Correct Elisabeth, as long as they win, they don't care. They argue in bad faith and just want to muddy the waters. They don't really believe that anyone on their team, specifically Trump should be held accountable for anything. When you start from the position that you are morally right, and everyone else is either with you or against you, then you aren't being objective. It is a mistake to believe that they are actually interested in the values that we share in equality, democracy, and finally the law should bind all people equally.
Aug 24, 2022·edited Aug 24, 2022Liked by Robert B. Hubbell
I read the Archivist's letter. Embedded in all the formality was the simple truth that trump has yet to accept the fact he is no longer President. The Archivist made it clear that the United States Government owned the documents and President Biden needed the documents. trump seems incapable of grasping that concept. Using the Presidential Seal, constantly using the term 45th President of the United States, making declarations, anointing candidates all lead me to think that trump really believes he is the rightful President. The Mad Hatter of Mar A Largo.
Yes; I was annoyed that the Archivist had to use the term "the incumbent president" to distinguish Biden from Trump. Biden is the president, Trump is not.
The Archivist isn't the only one who uses incorrect terminology in reference to former Presidents. Most of the press does the same thing whenever Obama, the Bushes, Clinton or the failed insurrectionist are mentioned.
I like the way Nicole Wallace refers to him: the twice-impeached disgraced former president. I don't think she ever calls him by name, but she always uses these adjectives.
Great tag, The Mad Hatter of MarA Largo. Chump has never been forced to grasp any concept except “me” and “mine.” That such a narcissist bastard attracted so many republicans is an indictment in itself.
Aug 24, 2022·edited Aug 24, 2022Liked by Robert B. Hubbell
Thank you Robert for another information-packed newsletter. Holy moly! This man has been granted such leniency regarding the return of these documents, it’s like cajoling a two year old to eat his oatmeal ! Anyone else caught doing this same thing would have been locked up long ago.
Regarding your statement “And Bouie rejects the notion that inaction—not prosecuting Trump—will preserve the status quo and maintain the peace.“. I do not wish to preserve the status quo. as a nation, we have not been at peace since at least 2016. This country deserves better than this place trump has led us to. He must be tried for these crimes.
Aug 24, 2022·edited Aug 24, 2022Liked by Robert B. Hubbell
Corcoran and other Trump attorney’s in this need to be disbarred based on Acting Archivist Wall’s letter. Corcoran and other attorneys, if they could not convince Trump to obey the “Order Letter” from Ms Wall, had the option to resign from representation of Trump, at least in this matter. That they evidently sided as evidenced by non-compliance or resignation. Theirs and/or his recalcitrance means they should be disbarred and even charged with conspiracy to commit espionage with Trump.
Robert- I also believe that Ryan’s victory was assisted by large numbers of Manhattanites and Brooklynites who moved upstate and permanently changed their primary residences in the last year or two. WFH has boosted Democratic voting in upstate NY and Long Island in recent years. Many second homes are now primary residences.
Interesting to know, but do those transplants favor Democrats? Many affluent Americans vote R because of taxes. But if they do favor Democrats, won't that help other NY districts -- like NY 18?
These are upper middle class Mahattanites making “only” 150,000 -500,000 per year. I personally know quite a few. Many have told me when switching “ they NEED my vote there”. And note that rich Manhattan is solidly Democratic. They vote more than their pocketbooks! Anyone who puts up with what NYC dishes out does it for love, not money.
My favorite recently-seen graffiti: " Trump deserves his day in court. Let's hear his evidence!"
But seriously, folks, "a jury of his peers"? Does he have any peers? Maybe we can define the jury cohort down to plump older men with strange blond hairs, fans of Frederick Douglass, lovers of golf carts, people who have sold steaks, etc. How will they decide these things ?
Finding a jury will be challenging but not impossible. In most polls, 30% of respondents are unaware of the topic being surveyed. Sadly, about a third of Americans "haven't made up their minds" about Donald Trump.
Robert is right, and there are many reasons. I know that the undereducated don't keep up unless they are angry and fearful and need to find blame. Overworked parents often don't keep up. And, because its "politics" others refuse to keep abreast of current events. There are other reasons.
The recurrent 35%-65% split is like the 80-20 rule.
In Presidential politics, it is a 40%-40%-20% split. So the battle is to get over half of the 20%, i.e., 11% of the voters will determine if we have a dictator or not. And with the inequities of the Electoral College, that number is lower because the margins in swing states is razor thin.
It will likely be difficult to find a jury of "very stable geniuses", who are "professionals at technology" and also "know more about ISIS than the generals". Lol
And what would Jim Jordan, Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, and Marjorie Taylor Greene have done if Obama had taken just one presidential document with him? --even if it were unclassified? They would have chanted "Lock him up!"
Republicans attacked Hillary and Bill Clinton for keeping $200,000 in gifts they disclosed, as required. The gifts were "domestic" gifts and therefore the Clintons to keep. But they returned some of the gifts because they were received when Hillary was a Senator-elect and would have been improper if received while she was a Senator. See https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/hillary-clinton-stole-white-house-furniture/ There is, of course, no comparison between keeping a gift to which you are legally entitled and keeping plans for US nuclear deterrence in case of a nuclear attack.
Fox personalities are belittling the items seized included napkins and menus. Of course, Trump famously scribbled on everything, including napkins and menus. Thus, those items are properly presidential records.
My question is not what DT might do with these sensitive materials, it is what has he already done with them. Copied them? Monetized them? Is MBS going to give him $2B like he gave to Jared? Is Putin going to give him sanctuary in return for the juicy bits of these materials? My other question is were these top secret documents just laying around in the Oval Office or the Lincoln Bedroom? Wasn't there any controls in place? How could they just put them in boxes and let them go out the door!!
I have been wondering this too. How did those documents move from one room to another, one building to another, one department to another? They were PAPER documents, stamped classified and top secret, etc. Some apparently contained DEFENSE secrets. Did they travel from the Pentagon to the Oval? And if so, how? Who? Who signed for them? Who had the required security clearance? I also wonder if the $2B was payment for secrets ALREADY shared? What was Kushner's role in all of this?
What a genius! In that single verse are more memorable phrases than most of us will write in a lifetime.
As a complete aside (most everyone will want to stop reading here) I have been reading a book on physics by Carlo Rovelli. He notes that Shakespeare uses the phrase, "Drawn with a team of little atomies" in Mercutio's speech about Queen Mab. The word "atomies" is a reference to the "atomic thesis" of the Greek philosophers Democritus and Anaximander. Their theory had been lost to history because the Catholic Church burned their works (that's another story). Their atomic theory was recovered when the great first century CE poem "On the Nature of Things" by Lucretius was rediscovered in 1417. Less than 200 years later, Shakespeare could use the term "atomies" knowing that his audience understood that the world was composed of irreducibly small particles. As I said, what a genius!
The rule of law is what has always distinguished our country from the ‘ others’! If we fail to follow it now at this critical juncture in our democratic journey, I fear we are doomed! I agree wholeheartedly with your conclusions. All steps are perilous at this point, but we must follow the rule of law and fight like hell.
Apart from the hard fact that attempting to discern the actual short or long-term political effect of prosecuting anyone, especially Trump or any of his minions, is virtually impossible, whatever the political effects of any potential prosecution turn out to be is and ought to be totally irrelevant, not just immaterial, to a determination to prosecute anyone. Only the court provable facts in the context of the text of a statute and reasonable (excluding consideration of necessarily uncertain political effects) prosecutorial judgment are and should be relevant to the decision to prosecute or not. I am confident that the current DOJ administration is doing its job competently and faithfully with respect to critically important prosecutorial decisions.
The Feds should have raided MAGA-land on May 11. It scares me that the wheels of justice surrounding national secrets turned (and are still turning) so slowly. AND, trump's specialty is tying things up in our judicial system - which is ridiculous when national secrets were/are at stake.
Who knows what people had access to read and copy said documents? I am furious over this.
Alex Jones says Ivana's coffin was filled with Top Secret/SCI thumb drives, gold bullion paid to Trump by Putin, and 10,000 viagra pills that Melania Trump secretly put in.
I suspect someone in the family pushed her down the stairs because she was about to make money on what she knew. But filling her coffin when she was cremated? Honestly, I think it should be dug up by the government before Trump’s people dig it up during the dead of night.
Mr. Hubble, Help me resolve a contradiction. If I steal a pack of gum or a bag of groceries, I'm in trouble with the law. If I hack into AT&T's main frame and steal names and addresses, I'm in serious trouble with the law. If I steal a car from a dealership, I'm probably going to jail. If I hold up a bank, I am definitely going to jail. If I yell "Fire" in a movie theater and create a panic and someone dies trying to get out, I'm going to be accused of involuntary manslaughter. But why does ANYONE, much less the former "Mafia Don", get away with stealing confidential WH documents and not face the same consequences that I might? Maybe he has dirt on EVERY GOP member and each is petrified he will expose them for the "criminals" they have become. OR maybe he knows his testicles are in a "legally driven" vice the torque of which will NOT lessen. Either the rule of law applies to all or it doesn't particularly when hundreds of millions of dollars have bought and paid for political pledges of allegiance to our flag.
I did some GOTV calling for Pat Ryan on Monday and yesterday. The last minute calls must have been to a list of reliable Democratic voters, but still I was encouraged by the reaction of people I spoke to. They were quite engaged. A couple who could not vote, because of medical issues, were very regretful. And Ryan is one of a significant number of Democratic candidates with experience in the military. He is a West Point graduate and former intelligence officer. I find it curious that more attention is not paid to the number of veterans who are military-academy graduates and were highly-skilled officers (some of them high-ranking) who are Democrats. It used to be that such people were typically Republicans. What does the change say about the nation? (Yes, that is a rhetorical question, at least to this audience.)
The last paragraph of this very fine letter reminds me that Nixon should not have been pardoned. His "escape" from justice did nothing to "heal the nation". And Reagan should have been held accountable for "Iran Contra" - regardless of dementia and possible ignorance of the crime.
If TFG is not held accountable and dealt a serious sentence, every law in America will become a joke and our entire system of justice will be mocked around the world.
We will have no standing, no credibility and our leadership on everything from human rights to the sovereignty of nations will be undermined.
Well said, Bill.
Biden makes the pardon decision and he will make the right call.
Couldn’t agree more, but republicans are used to their bullying tactics working. No more…
Totally agree, Bill.
Supporters of Trump know only two rules: a. The leader is always right and b. In doubt rule a. immediately takes effect. Releasing this letter is propaganda. Followers register only two things, it is against their leader and favors the stealing opponent, Biden. The person who signed, is not safe. Of course you are right that above all we must protect the rule of law. At the same time we must fight like hell against fake news, in earlier times called propaganda. Thank you for helping with that, Robert.
100% Correct Elisabeth, as long as they win, they don't care. They argue in bad faith and just want to muddy the waters. They don't really believe that anyone on their team, specifically Trump should be held accountable for anything. When you start from the position that you are morally right, and everyone else is either with you or against you, then you aren't being objective. It is a mistake to believe that they are actually interested in the values that we share in equality, democracy, and finally the law should bind all people equally.
Fighting like hell against fake news includes holding Rupert accountable first and foremost. Way past time…
I read the Archivist's letter. Embedded in all the formality was the simple truth that trump has yet to accept the fact he is no longer President. The Archivist made it clear that the United States Government owned the documents and President Biden needed the documents. trump seems incapable of grasping that concept. Using the Presidential Seal, constantly using the term 45th President of the United States, making declarations, anointing candidates all lead me to think that trump really believes he is the rightful President. The Mad Hatter of Mar A Largo.
Yes; I was annoyed that the Archivist had to use the term "the incumbent president" to distinguish Biden from Trump. Biden is the president, Trump is not.
The Archivist isn't the only one who uses incorrect terminology in reference to former Presidents. Most of the press does the same thing whenever Obama, the Bushes, Clinton or the failed insurrectionist are mentioned.
I like the way Nicole Wallace refers to him: the twice-impeached disgraced former president. I don't think she ever calls him by name, but she always uses these adjectives.
I like that too, it's accurate and he can't argue with it.
Yes, I appreciate those three adjectives, as well.
Heck, a 1-term Congressional Rep is called “Congressman/woman” for life. The US peerage
Agreed
Or he thinks he has nothing to lose by pretending he believes.
Great tag, The Mad Hatter of MarA Largo. Chump has never been forced to grasp any concept except “me” and “mine.” That such a narcissist bastard attracted so many republicans is an indictment in itself.
I often think about how Trump must have been as a child. Egads! I want, I want, I want...
No, I got, I got, I got
I have read that when he threw rocks at a toddler in a playpen, the parents decided he would be sent to military school.
Thank you Robert for another information-packed newsletter. Holy moly! This man has been granted such leniency regarding the return of these documents, it’s like cajoling a two year old to eat his oatmeal ! Anyone else caught doing this same thing would have been locked up long ago.
Regarding your statement “And Bouie rejects the notion that inaction—not prosecuting Trump—will preserve the status quo and maintain the peace.“. I do not wish to preserve the status quo. as a nation, we have not been at peace since at least 2016. This country deserves better than this place trump has led us to. He must be tried for these crimes.
Corcoran and other Trump attorney’s in this need to be disbarred based on Acting Archivist Wall’s letter. Corcoran and other attorneys, if they could not convince Trump to obey the “Order Letter” from Ms Wall, had the option to resign from representation of Trump, at least in this matter. That they evidently sided as evidenced by non-compliance or resignation. Theirs and/or his recalcitrance means they should be disbarred and even charged with conspiracy to commit espionage with Trump.
Criminals must be prosecuted. Absolutely. Without exception.
Especially one that says, "nah, nah, nah, nah" to everyone each time the GOP allows him a pass for his criminal mistakes.
Robert- I also believe that Ryan’s victory was assisted by large numbers of Manhattanites and Brooklynites who moved upstate and permanently changed their primary residences in the last year or two. WFH has boosted Democratic voting in upstate NY and Long Island in recent years. Many second homes are now primary residences.
Interesting to know, but do those transplants favor Democrats? Many affluent Americans vote R because of taxes. But if they do favor Democrats, won't that help other NY districts -- like NY 18?
These are upper middle class Mahattanites making “only” 150,000 -500,000 per year. I personally know quite a few. Many have told me when switching “ they NEED my vote there”. And note that rich Manhattan is solidly Democratic. They vote more than their pocketbooks! Anyone who puts up with what NYC dishes out does it for love, not money.
My favorite recently-seen graffiti: " Trump deserves his day in court. Let's hear his evidence!"
But seriously, folks, "a jury of his peers"? Does he have any peers? Maybe we can define the jury cohort down to plump older men with strange blond hairs, fans of Frederick Douglass, lovers of golf carts, people who have sold steaks, etc. How will they decide these things ?
Finding a jury will be challenging but not impossible. In most polls, 30% of respondents are unaware of the topic being surveyed. Sadly, about a third of Americans "haven't made up their minds" about Donald Trump.
To limit the pool to the 30% who are unaware gives me pause...to think jurors would need to be oblivious to the astonishing times we are in...yikes!
Robert is right, and there are many reasons. I know that the undereducated don't keep up unless they are angry and fearful and need to find blame. Overworked parents often don't keep up. And, because its "politics" others refuse to keep abreast of current events. There are other reasons.
It is painful to keep up. Never more so than now. But one must if you care about the future…
It is my humble observation, that on any topic, 35% of Americans are steadfast. Any Republican issue or candidate can count on 35% of respondents or voters supporting them. Same for Democrats. E.g., a recent polls says 65% think extraterrestrials exist, and 34% think otherwise. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/ufo-aliens-belief-poll-americans-b1879321.html
The recurrent 35%-65% split is like the 80-20 rule.
In Presidential politics, it is a 40%-40%-20% split. So the battle is to get over half of the 20%, i.e., 11% of the voters will determine if we have a dictator or not. And with the inequities of the Electoral College, that number is lower because the margins in swing states is razor thin.
An interesting argument but, as we all know, 73% of all statistical arguments are incorrect and based on made up data. Much like this one.
a man with one foot in a campfire and the other foot in an ice bucket said, "On average, my feet feel fine."
I shake my head because who would do that!! LOL
Well done.
❤️
I thought 30% made up the MAGAt cult. Who have definitely made up their sick minds…
30% is a frequently used number for the MAGAs
It will likely be difficult to find a jury of "very stable geniuses", who are "professionals at technology" and also "know more about ISIS than the generals". Lol
The jury should be composed of BIPOC women and gay men. How else will there ever be justice?
No MAGAts, how to exclude the cult nuts, it is imperative
And what would Jim Jordan, Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, and Marjorie Taylor Greene have done if Obama had taken just one presidential document with him? --even if it were unclassified? They would have chanted "Lock him up!"
The Insurrectionists are such hypocrites!
Republicans attacked Hillary and Bill Clinton for keeping $200,000 in gifts they disclosed, as required. The gifts were "domestic" gifts and therefore the Clintons to keep. But they returned some of the gifts because they were received when Hillary was a Senator-elect and would have been improper if received while she was a Senator. See https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/hillary-clinton-stole-white-house-furniture/ There is, of course, no comparison between keeping a gift to which you are legally entitled and keeping plans for US nuclear deterrence in case of a nuclear attack.
Fox personalities are belittling the items seized included napkins and menus. Of course, Trump famously scribbled on everything, including napkins and menus. Thus, those items are properly presidential records.
My question is not what DT might do with these sensitive materials, it is what has he already done with them. Copied them? Monetized them? Is MBS going to give him $2B like he gave to Jared? Is Putin going to give him sanctuary in return for the juicy bits of these materials? My other question is were these top secret documents just laying around in the Oval Office or the Lincoln Bedroom? Wasn't there any controls in place? How could they just put them in boxes and let them go out the door!!
Very good questions, and the right ones.
I have been wondering this too. How did those documents move from one room to another, one building to another, one department to another? They were PAPER documents, stamped classified and top secret, etc. Some apparently contained DEFENSE secrets. Did they travel from the Pentagon to the Oval? And if so, how? Who? Who signed for them? Who had the required security clearance? I also wonder if the $2B was payment for secrets ALREADY shared? What was Kushner's role in all of this?
"He is cornered and flailing." Like Macbeth. If the DOJ is Macduff, I hope they lay on:
"Then yield thee, coward,
And live to be the show and gaze o' the time:
We'll have thee, as our rarer monsters are,
Painted on a pole, and underwrit,
'Here may you see the tyrant.'
What a genius! In that single verse are more memorable phrases than most of us will write in a lifetime.
As a complete aside (most everyone will want to stop reading here) I have been reading a book on physics by Carlo Rovelli. He notes that Shakespeare uses the phrase, "Drawn with a team of little atomies" in Mercutio's speech about Queen Mab. The word "atomies" is a reference to the "atomic thesis" of the Greek philosophers Democritus and Anaximander. Their theory had been lost to history because the Catholic Church burned their works (that's another story). Their atomic theory was recovered when the great first century CE poem "On the Nature of Things" by Lucretius was rediscovered in 1417. Less than 200 years later, Shakespeare could use the term "atomies" knowing that his audience understood that the world was composed of irreducibly small particles. As I said, what a genius!
Did you ever read Stephen Greenblatt's 'Swerve' about the discovery of Lucretius's 'De Rerum Natura'? Here is a review: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/dec/23/the-swerve-stephen-greenblatt-review
Wow, thank you. “The Catholic Church burned their works”. The evil that men have made of Christianity goes back eons.
Have you ever read "The Grand Inquisitor" by Dostoevsky? Explains it all...
Attempted like.
The rule of law is what has always distinguished our country from the ‘ others’! If we fail to follow it now at this critical juncture in our democratic journey, I fear we are doomed! I agree wholeheartedly with your conclusions. All steps are perilous at this point, but we must follow the rule of law and fight like hell.
Apart from the hard fact that attempting to discern the actual short or long-term political effect of prosecuting anyone, especially Trump or any of his minions, is virtually impossible, whatever the political effects of any potential prosecution turn out to be is and ought to be totally irrelevant, not just immaterial, to a determination to prosecute anyone. Only the court provable facts in the context of the text of a statute and reasonable (excluding consideration of necessarily uncertain political effects) prosecutorial judgment are and should be relevant to the decision to prosecute or not. I am confident that the current DOJ administration is doing its job competently and faithfully with respect to critically important prosecutorial decisions.
The Feds should have raided MAGA-land on May 11. It scares me that the wheels of justice surrounding national secrets turned (and are still turning) so slowly. AND, trump's specialty is tying things up in our judicial system - which is ridiculous when national secrets were/are at stake.
Who knows what people had access to read and copy said documents? I am furious over this.
we should re-name it "MAG-A-Lago" and henceforth refer to it as such.
Who knows what’s in Ivana’s coffin that took 10 men to carry when she was cremated? That’s all over the Gen Y and Z media. And it’s a good question
Alex Jones says Ivana's coffin was filled with Top Secret/SCI thumb drives, gold bullion paid to Trump by Putin, and 10,000 viagra pills that Melania Trump secretly put in.
Well, if Alex Jones says it, it must be true…
I suspect someone in the family pushed her down the stairs because she was about to make money on what she knew. But filling her coffin when she was cremated? Honestly, I think it should be dug up by the government before Trump’s people dig it up during the dead of night.
Mr. Hubble, Help me resolve a contradiction. If I steal a pack of gum or a bag of groceries, I'm in trouble with the law. If I hack into AT&T's main frame and steal names and addresses, I'm in serious trouble with the law. If I steal a car from a dealership, I'm probably going to jail. If I hold up a bank, I am definitely going to jail. If I yell "Fire" in a movie theater and create a panic and someone dies trying to get out, I'm going to be accused of involuntary manslaughter. But why does ANYONE, much less the former "Mafia Don", get away with stealing confidential WH documents and not face the same consequences that I might? Maybe he has dirt on EVERY GOP member and each is petrified he will expose them for the "criminals" they have become. OR maybe he knows his testicles are in a "legally driven" vice the torque of which will NOT lessen. Either the rule of law applies to all or it doesn't particularly when hundreds of millions of dollars have bought and paid for political pledges of allegiance to our flag.
There is nothing wrong with your television set. You have described the unacceptable contradiction perfectly.
We are, indeed, in The Twilight Zone
I did some GOTV calling for Pat Ryan on Monday and yesterday. The last minute calls must have been to a list of reliable Democratic voters, but still I was encouraged by the reaction of people I spoke to. They were quite engaged. A couple who could not vote, because of medical issues, were very regretful. And Ryan is one of a significant number of Democratic candidates with experience in the military. He is a West Point graduate and former intelligence officer. I find it curious that more attention is not paid to the number of veterans who are military-academy graduates and were highly-skilled officers (some of them high-ranking) who are Democrats. It used to be that such people were typically Republicans. What does the change say about the nation? (Yes, that is a rhetorical question, at least to this audience.)
thanks for doing your part to help Pat Ryan! And good point about his military background.