Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2

[Rick Plant]

The Trump cult supports civil unrest and violence to push their extreme right wing agenda. The RNC calls that "legitimate public discourse". No surprise certain hacks at Faux Propaganda endorses it but at least Geraldo is speaking out against these thugs illegally shutting down a major city in Canada. 

'What the hell is that?' Fox News' Geraldo buries Tomi Lahren for defending 'thuggish' trucker protests

Fox News' Geraldo Rivera on Wednesday called out Tomi Lahren for supporting the "Freedom Convoy" in Canada that is disrupting life for residents in the city of Ottawa.

During a discussion about the anti-vaccine protests taking place in Canada, Rivera accused Lahren of whitewashing their behavior.

"Their behavior has been nothing short of thuggish in Ottawa," he said. "They kept people in the neighborhood awake all night revving their engines, blowing their horns. They've deprived Ottawa of business, of tens of millions of dollars, now they're blockading the international bridges."

Rivera concluded by telling Lahren that "to give these guys the mantle of freedom fights is appallingly naïve."

Lahren responded by comparing the truckers to America's founders and said that Rivera would have called George Washington and Thomas Jefferson "thugs" and "degenerates" were he alive during the Revolutionary War.

Rivera, however, was not having it, and he was offended that Lahren would compare people carrying swastikas and Confederate flags to America's founders.

"What the hell is that about?" he asked incredulously. "They have been very destructive! 40 percent of Canada's trade goes over the bridge they have blocked!"

Watch the video below:

[Rick Plant]

Lock Him Up! What are the odds that Donnie destroyed the most sensitive and incriminating documents in his "burn bags"?

National Archives found possible classified material in boxes returned by Trump



By Michael S. Schmidt and Reid J. Epstein
The New York Times

The National Archives and Records Administration discovered what it believed was classified information in documents Donald Trump had taken with him from the White House as he left office, according to a person briefed on the matter.

The discovery, which occurred after Trump returned 15 boxes of documents to the government last month, prompted the National Archives to reach out to the Justice Department for guidance, the person said. The department told the National Archives to have its inspector general examine the matter, the person said.

It is unclear what the inspector general has done since then, in particular, whether the inspector general has referred the matter to the Justice Department.

An inspector general is required to alert the Justice Department to the discovery of any classified materials that were found outside authorized government channels.

Making a referral to the Justice Department would put senior officials in the position of having to decide whether to open an investigation, a scenario that would thrust the department into a highly contentious political matter.

The Washington Post reported Wednesday that the National Archives had asked the Justice Department to examine Trump’s handling of White House records.

Officials with the National Archives did not respond to messages seeking comment.

In January, after a lengthy back and forth between Trump’s lawyers and the National Archives, Trump handed over more than a dozen boxes of materials, including documents, mementos, gifts and letters. Among the documents were the original versions of a letter that former President Barack Obama had left for Trump when he was first sworn in and letters written to Trump by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Also included in the boxes was a map Trump famously drew on with a black Sharpie to demonstrate the track of Hurricane Dorian heading toward Alabama in 2019 to back up a declaration he had made on Twitter that contradicted weather forecasts.

The boxes had originally been sent to Mar-a-Lago from the White House residence, where a range of items — including clothes — were hastily packed up in Trump’s final days in office. Legally, Trump was required to leave the documents, letters and gifts in the custody of the federal government so the National Archives could store them.

After the FBI, during the 2016 presidential campaign, investigated Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified material while she was secretary of state, Trump assailed her, helping make the issue pivotal in the outcome of that race. In that case, the intelligence community’s inspector general had made a national security referral to the FBI, prompting the investigation of Clinton.

But during Trump’s administration, top White House officials were deeply concerned about how little regard Trump showed for sensitive national security materials. John Kelly, the White House chief of staff, tried to stop classified documents from being taken out of the Oval Office and brought up to the residence because he was concerned about what Trump may do with them and how that may jeopardize national security.

Similar to Clinton, Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and daughter Ivanka used personal email accounts for work purposes. And even after being warned by aides, Trump repeatedly ripped up government documents that had to be taped back together to prevent him from being accused of destroying federal property.

Now Trump faces questions about his handling of classified information — a question that is complicated because as president he had the authority to declassify any government information. It is unclear whether Trump had declassified materials that the National Archives discovered in the boxes before he left office. Under federal law, he no longer maintains the ability to declassify documents after leaving office.

He invoked the power to declassify information several times as his administration publicly released materials that helped him politically, particularly on issues like the investigation into his campaign’s ties to Russia.

Toward the end of the administration, Trump ripped pictures that intrigued him out of the President’s Daily Brief — a compendium of often classified information about potential national security threats — but it is unclear whether he took them to the residence with him. In one prominent example of how he dealt with classified material, Trump in 2019 took a highly classified spy satellite image of an Iranian missile launch site, declassified it and then released the photo on Twitter.

If Trump was found to have taken materials with him that were still classified at the time he left the White House, prosecuting him would be extremely difficult and it would pit the Justice Department against Trump at a time when Attorney General Merrick Garland is trying to depoliticize the department.

The department and the FBI also still have significant scars from the investigation into whether Clinton mishandled classified information, as the bureau was accused of unfairly tarnishing her and interfering in the 2016 election.

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/nation-politics/national-archives-found-possible-classified-material-in-boxes-returned-by-trump/

[Rick Plant]

Read the emails showing Trump allies’ connections to voting machine seizure push
The conversations shed light on the visibility that Washington lawyer Katherine Friess and Texas entrepreneur Russell Ramsland had into the election subversion push.

Leaked emails obtained by POLITICO reveal the connection of two outside Trump allies — Washington lawyer Katherine Friess and Texas entrepreneur Russell Ramsland — to the failed push to seize voting machines as part of a desperate bid to overturn the 2020 election.

The emails show then-President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, and another former military officer workshopping the draft of a Trump executive order to seize voting machines. The emails between Flynn, retired Army Col. Phil Waldron and others provide new details about the events that preceded the assault on the Capitol last Jan. 6.

It is unclear if the Capitol riot select committee has obtained the emails. POLITICO is publishing them here, solely redacting the senders’ and recipients’ email addresses. We are also publishing two draft versions of the executive order that would have directed authorities to seize voting equipment. CBS News previously reported on the contents of the emails and published one of the drafts.

All three emails were sent to multiple people, including Friess, who appears to have lobbied for a variety of clients, including groups linked to Puerto Rico and the telecommunications industry. Friess’ visibility into the efforts to overturn the election results on Trump’s behalf has drawn comparatively little scrutiny. She did not respond to requests for comment. Ramsland, Waldron, Flynn and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani — also a central player in the election subversion effort — also did not respond to requests for comment.





Inside the emails

Waldron — who has said he worked on secret projects in Afghanistan and Iraq with Flynn — sent the first email on Dec. 16, 2020, at 5:14 p.m. to Friess, Flynn and former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik. Waldron’s email included a draft executive order directing the Pentagon to seize voting machines.

“Per conversation,” Waldron wrote. “This is the final draft document. For discussion and coordination”

“PRE-DECISIONAL,” he added.

That document is nearly identical to a draft executive order the National Archives has shared with the Jan. 6 committee, and that POLITICO published last month. Metadata on the document says it was created by a user named Christina Bobb, and later updated by an unnamed person. A One America News anchor by that name was involved in Giuliani’s work for Trump, and previously worked in the Department of Homeland Security during the Trump administration.

The Washington Post reported that Bobb was on at least one conference call about setting up alternate slates of electors for the Jan. 6 certification vote, and that she was at the Willard hotel “command center” that Trump’s allies used as a home base to coordinate efforts to overturn the election. The emails did not cast light on Bobb’s ties to the draft executive order beyond her name’s appearance in the metadata, and she did not respond to requests for comment.

Flynn noticed a problem with the document Waldron had sent: Its title misspelled the word “analyze.”

“I reviewed,” Flynn replied half an hour later to Waldron, Kerik, and Friess. “Fix the spelling error in the title. Ensure it gets a legal review, but this is ready to go from my standpoint. Thanks for getting the key points in.”

It’s not clear if the order got the legal review Flynn referred to. But the email traffic came at a sensitive moment for Trump allies’ push to keep him in office despite his loss to President Joe Biden. Two days after the first email, dated Dec. 16, 2020, Flynn and others held an Oval Office meeting with Trump to press for drastic action to keep his baseless election challenges alive. The New York Times reported that voting machine seizures were discussed at that meeting.

Another email appears to be a forward of a message from Ramsland, a Texas businessman who — according to The Washington Post — pushed a company called Allied Security Operations Group into “a quixotic attempt” to find proof of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election. State-level officials as well as Trump’s own former attorney general have said no fraud occurred that could have changed the outcome.

Ramsland’s forwarded message included three attachments: a draft of an executive order to have the Department of Homeland Security seize voting machines, a draft document that appears to be intended to justify law enforcement officers obtaining warrants to seize those machines, and Ramsland’s public key — in other words, his digital fingerprint used in encrypting ProtonMail messages.

Ramsland’s message was sent on Dec. 17 at 8:44 a.m.

Two minutes later, Waldron forwarded it to Kerik, Friess, and Giuliani.

“Final draft finding - includes DHS switch language as well as Foreign interference expansion and warrant issuance language,” Waldron wrote.

The first two pages of the DHS version of the executive order are virtually identical to those of the Pentagon document. But its final page details a plan for DHS to seize voting machines.

That draft says the Homeland Security secretary “shall seize, collect, preserve, protect, retain and analyze all machines, equipment, electronically stored information, and material records” required under a federal statute that governs the preservation of election records.

It also says the Homeland Security secretary can “determine the interdiction” of other election materials, “including hardware, software, documentation, ballots, key cards and any other physical items to include security badges, polling official rosters, and related items.”

It adds that the DHS secretary and subordinates shall have the power to immediately seek “the issuance of any and all search warrants” they need.

And it says the DHS secretary can ask the secretary of Defense “to provide select personnel/capabilities (federalization of appropriate National Guard assets authorized)” to support “a Defense Support of Civil Authorities mission.” Those missions have previously included support to civilian agencies handling natural disasters, presidential inaugurations, and oil spills, according to the Congressional Research Service.

It’s not clear what expectations the order’s authors had for the National Guard. CNN first reported the existence of a draft order that would have had DHS seize voting machines.

‘Half-baked nonsense’

Chris Krebs, a former top DHS official who defended the election’s integrity and was subsequently fired by Trump, told POLITICO that the draft order was a mess.

“This draft executive order is more of the same sloppy, half-baked nonsense written by someone with only a Facebook Groups-level understanding of government authorities, capabilities, and responsibilities,” he said. “That it may have made its way to the Resolute Desk is hard to comprehend, and we should all be thankful that some sane person somewhere near the Oval Office killed this thing.”

A second document attached to the Ramsland email contained a variety of outlandish allegations involving Saddam Hussein, the Saudi Binladin Group, and Pakistan’s intelligence service. POLITICO has chosen not to publish the document.

Tim Parlatore, a lawyer for Kerik, provided the following statement: “Members of the legal team were exploring various options to preserve evidence to ensure that the vote count was accurate. As with any legal team, various theories are considered and ultimately not followed.”

The draft executive orders cite an Antrim County, Mich., “forensic report” as evidence of significant voter fraud, but allegations from that report have been thoroughly rebutted. Ramsland wrote that report and co-founded a company called Allied Security Operations Group, according to The Washington Examiner.

Friess, who is listed as a recipient on all three emails, sought access to Michigan voting machines in November 2020 and told election officials in Antrim County that she worked on a forensics team for ASOG, the Traverse City Record-Eagle reported at the time. That paper said she flew in by chartered jet on Nov. 27, and told officials that she had dined with Trump and Giuliani the night before. Former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne told The Washington Post that he paid for the travel.

Friess’ group “made calls to township people on Thanksgiving Day to set all this up, they were strong-arming local clerks to get in and see those machines,” said Antrim County Clerk Sheryl Guy, according to the paper.

The Washington Post previously detailed how Ramsland pushed conspiracy theories about voting machines for years before the 2020 election. Friess and Ramsland were both on an email first reported by Rolling Stone that Waldron sent to a Arizona state lawmaker on Dec. 8, 2020, including what he called a “research document.”

Read all emails in link below:

 https://www.politico.com/news/2022/02/09/trump-emails-voting-machines-election-00007449

[Rick Plant]

NYT's Maggie Haberman reports Trump flushed printouts down White House toilet in 'book he fears most'



Donald Trump's staffers found printouts clogging a White House toilet and believed the former president had flushed the paper, according to a new book by an insider reporter.

Maggie Haberman, a New York Times reporter with close ties to the former president and his family, revealed the odd document disposal scheme in her forthcoming book, "Confidence Man," reported Axios.

"This is the book Trump fears most," reported Axios co-founder Mike Allen. "Among Trump aides, Haberman's book has been the most discussed of the bookshelf of books from reporters who covered Trump's campaigns and White House. Several advisers were unhappy about his decision to talk to her as part of his marathon conversations with book authors at Mar-a-Lago. But they concluded he couldn’t help himself and couldn't be stopped."

Trump has a long history in his business life of ripping up documents, but that poses a potential legal problem because presidential records must be preserved and turned over to the National Archives, which has reportedly asked the Biden Justice Department to lookin into his handling of White House records.

National Archives officials suspected Trump had possibly violated laws regarding the handling of government documents, and 15 boxes of presidential records were retrieved from Mar-A-Lago after a court ordered them turned over to congressional investigators who had subpoenaed them.

"While in office, the former president blithely flouted the Presidential Records Act, which required him to preserve written communications concerning his official duties," Allen reported. "Trump routinely tore up documents and after leaving office brought substantial written materials back to Mar-a-Lago. A Trump spokesman didn't respond to a request for comment about the plumbing matter."

https://www.axios.com/maggie-haberman-book-trump-papers-2d59d593-8b89-4edd-8623-8ef709af524f.html


‘This story is fairly shocking’: WaPo reporter breaks down latest 'bonkers' reports on Trump's final days as president



A Michigan prosecutor revealed that Rudy Giuliani and other Donald Trump allies asked him to seize his county's voting machines and hand them over, and a Washington Post reporter explained how the new revelation fits into the final days of his presidency.

Antrim County prosecutor James Rossiter told the newspaper that Giuliani and others called him around Nov. 20, 2020, and pressed him to hand over the voting machines so they could be examined for fraud, as part of an ongoing scheme to undo Trump's loss in Michigan, and journalist Jackie Alemany explained the significance of her colleagues' findings to MSNBC's "Morning Joe."

"Well, it's amazing, first of all, we are continuing to find so much new information that has yet to be uncovered, which is exactly what the Jan. 6 committee is doing," Alemany said. "But this story especially is just fairly shocking because it shows them actually trying to implement some of their plans that we've seen sketched out in executive orders to seize voting machines. Here is a situation where they dialed in on a specific county and found a reason to do so despite it being obviously quite unconstitutional."

"Even in the conversations I've had just in the past few months there are still a lot of people involved with this effort who believed that these voting machines needed to be seized to be protected so they could prove fraud," she added. "These people are true believers."

That revelation came the same day the New York Times revealed that some of the presidential records found stashed at Mar-A-Lago may have contained classified documents, in possible violations of the law, and Alemany said a series of remarks Trump made about Hillary Clinton's handling of classified material were particularly damning.

"That's why those clips that were just played are so important for everyone to remember, especially when this investigation might potentially lead to whether or not this was negligence or actually intentional behavior," Alemany said. "But it is clear that the former president knew exactly what was wrong with doing these things. He called up Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton on ripping up documents, taking classified information, accepting gifts, mischaracterizations because he knew it was politically damaging and gave the appearance of being corrupt. That's what I think ultimately the DOJ is going to have to do if they decide ultimately to investigate the 15 boxes taken from Mar-A-Lago, which is what the archives has asked them to do according to our reporting yesterday."

Watch video:

[Rick Plant]

Lock Him Up!

Trump's White House TOILET was 'repeatedly clogged with official documents': Staff say he 'flushed' files and Congress now investigates amid claims he 'swiped classified documents' from office

Follows revelations National Archives officials seized 15 boxes of materials and documents from Trump's Florida Mar-a-Lago club

House Oversight Committee is now probing the contents of those boxes and whether Trump's adhered to the Presidential Records Act

Official documents must be handed to the Archives at the end of their tenure

Mini Air Force One replica and infamous 'sharpie' map among objects found

Also included Trump's 'love letters' with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un 

Documents were handed over to the panel probing the January 6 Capitol riot after the Supreme Court denies Trump's attempt to block their release

Trump had a habit of ripping up official documents, causing his staff to have to tape them together or be turned over to the National Archives in pieces

A weekend report revealed Trump also had documents put in burn bags to be incinerated at the Pentagon rather than preserved 



White House staff repeatedly discovered wads of printer paper clogging a toilet in the residence when Donald Trump was in office and they believed he was the culprit, a new book claims.

The revelation comes as the House Oversight Committee opened a probe into Trump's improperly removing or destroying White House documents after the National Archives retrieved 15 boxes from Mar-a-Lago and reports revealed of potential concealment.

'Removing or concealing government records is a criminal offense punishable by up to three years in prison,' the congressional letter to National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) Archivist David Ferriero notes.

In her forthcoming book Confidence Man, New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman claims that White House staff believed Trump was tearing up papers and flushing them down the toilet, according to a Thursday Axios report.

The latest news comes after the disclosure by the National Archives that officials recovered 15 boxes of White House materials that were being held at Trump's Florida residence – in apparent contravention of federal records acts.

Meanwhile, the National Archives and Records Administration has asked the Justice Department to look into the former president's removal of White House records as he left office – opening up a new area of potential legal exposure for Trump.

Charging a former president with violating the Presidential Records Act if any misconduct were ever established would be new territory, and Trump has already survived two impeachments while fighting off probes of his business in Manhattan and contending facing an election probe in Georgia. 

The House January 6th Committee's probe, which recently received a trove of Trump White House records, has also brought to light Trump's penchant for tearing up documents while in office.

Archival officials have been required to tape together documents in an effort to preserve materials that under law are the property of the U.S. government, not the president who creates or receives them.





The House Oversight panel, chaired by New York Representative Carolyn Maloney, is asking NARA to provide clarification on what it found in the 15 boxes it seized from Trump in Mar-a-Lago.

'Please provide a detailed description of the contents of the recovered boxes,' one of the points insists in the letter to Ferriero.

Another asks: 'Is NARA aware of presidential records that President Trump destroyed or attempted to destroy without the approval of NARA?'

'If so, please provide a detailed description of such records, the actions taken by President Trump to destroy or attempt to destroy them, and any actions NARA has taken to recover or preserve these documents.'

The government watchdog group Citizens for Responsible Ethics in Washington and the National Security Archive on Tuesday called for the DOJ to investigate, saying Trump 'likely violated criminal laws barring the destruction of government records.

'Donald Trump's repeated and apparently willful destruction of his presidential records threatens to deny the American people a full historical record of his presidency and an opportunity to hold him and his administration fully accountable for their actions while in power,' said CREW President Noah Bookbinder. 'There is no excuse for hiding important information from the public. The Department of Justice must act to investigate and to hold Trump accountable for his reckless behavior '

Among the items items the National Archives retrieved from Mar-a-Lago is the infamous hurricane map that the president allegedly scrawled on with a Sharpie pen to expand its possible path.

Another keepsake that a source told the Post had been removed was a mini replica of Air Force One that Trump proudly displayed in the Oval Office, after involving himself in details of a redesign all the way down to a paint job.

A former aide said Trump displayed at Mar-a-Lago a 'mini replica of one of the black border-wall slats' that Trump helped design for his border wall.

The former president's aides continue to look for material that belongs to the U.S. government.

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

Amid the heightened scrutiny, Trump is now calling the relationship with the National Archives 'collaborative and respectful,' and boasting some of the material will end up in a presidential library bearing his name – although there are no plans for a site for such a library a year after Trump left office.

'Much of this material will someday be displayed in the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library for the public to view my Administration's incredible accomplishments for the American People,' he said in a statement.

'Former President Trump's representatives have informed NARA that they are continuing to search for additional Presidential records that belong to the National Archives,' the National Archives and Records Administration said in a statement Monday.

The trove of information Trump failed to hand over when he left the White House in January, 2021 includes his 'love letters' with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un.

It also included original versions of the letter former President Obama left for Trump in the top drawer of the Resolute Desk, where he told his successor: 'We are just temporary occupants of this office. That makes us guardians of those democratic institutions and traditions – like rule of law, separation of powers, equal protection and civil liberties.'

Federal record-keeping laws establish jail time and possible forfeiture of office for those convicted of serious crimes.

Congress enacted the Presidential Record Act after Watergate, and after Congress stepped in and 'seizing Richard Nixon's papers as if they were in a crime scene,' former head of the Nixon Library Dr. Timothy Naftali told DailyMail.com.

The New York University professor said record-keeping laws are not just designed to help historians and researchers, but to constrain behavior.

'And it's the knowledge, I would think, that people with power have that in the future we will know what they did, which has a I think useful and healthy constraining effect on them. That there will ultimately be accountability,' he said.

'They also understand that the actions that they might take for an authoritarian president could hurt them in the future that is healthy for constitutional republic.'

The retrieval follows reports the National Archives had to tape Trump documents back together after he ripped them office, routinely destroyed documents and had files put in 'burn bags' and sent to the Pentagon to be incinerated.


The National Archives retrieved 15 boxes of documents from Mar-a-Lago, where former President Donald Trump has offices and where he resides. Included was an infamous 'sharpie' map with the track of approaching Hurricane Dorian in 2019

The president also often had White House staffer put documents in 'burn bags' to be destroyed via incineration at the Pentagon rather than preserved, a senior Trump White House official told the Washington Post.

So-called burn bags look similar to a paper grocery bag and are widely available throughout the White House complex, as well as at organizations who deal with top-secret information like the CIA and NSA.

Burn bags are a superior alternative to shredding.

The New York Times reported that the trove of information includes the infamous map, which was printed on a poster to show the storm track of Hurricane Dorian in 2019 during a live televised briefing.

Trump had tweeted earlier that 'in addition to Florida — South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama, will most likely be hit (much) harder than anticipated.'

The black lines hastily added to the map appeared to justify Trump's statement, even though Alabama's national weather office had contradicted Trump's claim by writing: 'Alabama will NOT see any impacts from #Dorian.' Trump said afterwards that under projections, Alabama was going to be hit 'very hard.'

'The Presidential Records Act mandates that all Presidential records must be properly preserved by each Administration so that a complete set of Presidential records is transferred to the National Archives at the end of the Administration,' Archivist David S. Ferriero said in the statement.

He said the agency 'pursues the return of records whenever we learn that records have been improperly removed or have not been appropriately transferred to official accounts.' He called the records act 'critical to our democracy,' and defended its purpose, without rebuking Trump directly.


The U.S. Code establishes fines and jail time, and even forfeiture of office, as possible penalties for violating federal document laws

Ferriero further stressed the importance of adherence to the PRA by all Presidents.

'Whether through the creation of adequate and proper documentation, sound records management practices, the preservation of records, or the timely transfer of them to the National Archives at the end of an Administration, there should be no question as to need for both diligence and vigilance. Records matter,' he concluded.

House Oversight Committee Chair Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) said she plans to 'fully investigate' the matter to make sure the records are with the Archives, 'rather than stashed away in Trump's golf resorts.'

The Washington Post, which broke the story of the transfer, reported that Trump's records stash also included unidentified 'gifts.' 

The post-Watergate records statute resulted in a section of the U.S. Code on concealment or mutilation of documents.

It states that: 'Whoever willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, or destroys, or attempts to do so, or, with intent to do so takes and carries away any record, proceeding, map, book, paper, document, or other thing, filed or deposited with any clerk or officer of any court of the United States, or in any public office, or with any judicial or public officer of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.'

It continues: 'Whoever, having the custody of any such record, proceeding, map, book, document, paper, or other thing, willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies, or destroys the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both; and shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States. As used in this subsection, the term 'office' does not include the office held by any person as a retired officer of the Armed Forces of the United States.'

The 15 boxes of information included letters from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that had been improperly removed by the ex commander-in-chief.

The documents and gifts, which should have been turned over to The National Archives and Records Administration at the end of Trump's presidency, were retrieved by the agency last month, the Archives confirmed in a statement Monday. 

Under the Presidential Records Act, memos, notes, letters, emails, faxes and other written correspondence related to the president's official duties must be handed to the National Archives for preservation.   

Trump once said of his friendly correspondence with Kim that they 'fell in love' after meeting in person. Some describe the back-and-forth with the U.S. president and North Korean dictator as 'love letters'.

One former Trump aide said they don't think the ex-president acted with criminal intent, adding that the boxes of papers contained letters from world leaders as well as gifts and mementos.

'I don't think he did this out of malicious intent to avoid complying with the Presidential Records Act,' the individual told the The Washington Post.

'As long as he's been in business, he's been very transactional and it was probably his longtime practice and I don't think his habits changed when he got to the White House.'

A Trump spokesperson did not respond to DailyMail.com's request for comment on the document seizure.

While law requires presidents preserve records related to administration activity, the National Archives has limited enforcement over this. One Archives official said that the Act operates through more of a 'gentlemen's agreement.'

Trump lost his bid last month to block the release of presidential documents from the National Archives to the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot.

The House panel received the documents in January 2022.

The Supreme Court had ruled that the archives could turn over the documents, which include presidential diaries, visitor logs, speech drafts and handwritten notes dealing with Jan. 6 from the files of former chief of staff Mark Meadows. 

Trump's lawyers had hoped to prolong the court fight and keep the documents on hold.

The documents, which the panel first requested in August, will add to the tens of thousands the committee has already gathered as it investigates the attack by a violent mob of Trump's supporters and what the former president and his aides were doing while it unfolded.


The documents and gifts, which should have been turned over to The National Archives and Records Administration at the end of Trump's presidency, were retrieved by the agency last month

'The only way that a president can really be held accountable long term is to preserve a record about who said what, who did what, what policies were encouraged or adopted, and that is such an important part of the long-term scope of accountability — beyond just elections and campaigns,' presidential historian Lindsay Chervinsky told the Washington Post.

Chervinksy added that it would also affect U.S. national security if records and documents are not disclosed. 'That could pose a real concern if the next administration is flying blind without that information,' she said.

Representative Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.), a member of the January 6 House panel, said that the overall records situation reflected the 'unconventional nature of how this White House operated'. She added that she did not have knowledge of the transfer of documents from Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate.     

'That they didn't follow rules is not a shock,' Murphy said. 'As for how this development relates to the committee's work, we have different sources and methods for obtaining documents and information that we are seeking.'

While recent administrations have in some way violated the Presidential Records Act, sources told the newspaper that Trump's administration is different due to the scale of the records retrieved from Mar-a-Lago.

One person said it is 'out of the ordinary. The National Archives and Records Administration has never had that kind of volume transfer after the fact like this'.

A lawyer who worked in the White House Counsel's Office under President Obama questioned why it took a year for the boxes to get to the archives.

'Things that are national security sensitive or very clearly government documents should have been a part of a first sweep - so the fact that it's been this long doesn't reflect well on Trump,' the lawyer said. 'Why has it taken a year for these boxes to get there? And are there more boxes?'

Some of the papers handed over to the select committee were taped together by National Archives staff because they had been ripped up, the agency revealed in a statement.

'Some of the Trump presidential records received by the National Archives and Records Administration included paper records that had been torn up by former President Trump,' the Archives told CNN without explaining how it was known that Trump was the individual who defaced the records.

'These were turned over to the National Archives at the end of the Trump Administration, along with a number of torn-up records that had not been reconstructed by the White House,' the Archives said.

'The Presidential Records Act requires that all records created by presidents be turned over to the National Archives at the end of their administrations.' 

The Archives has struggled with Trump's lack of retention of documents and his habit of ripping papers when he was done with them.

The ex-president frequently ripped up official documents so hundreds of pages that arrived at the Archives were taped back together while others came to them still in pieces.

Charles Tiefer, former counsel to the House of Representatives, said if there is 'willful and unlawful intent' to violate the Act by people concealing or destroying public records, they would face up to three years in prison.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10498207/Staff-paper-toilets-White-House-residence-Trump-office-new-book-claims.html

[Richard Smith]

A new 40-year record for inflation!  Old Joe is breaking them all.  Crime, inflation, illegal immigration, virus cases.  And he has only been in office one year!  Imagine what the future holds.

[Rick Plant]

Even criminal Trump stooge Steve Bannon has thrown Donnie under the bus! Can't believe I'm agreeing with him. And like I always have said, Donnie was always losing and was never going to win because he was extremely unpopular. Bannon just confirmed it.   

Steve Bannon thinks Donald Trump will be among the three worst presidents in American history

Among the vignettes in Jeremy Peters' new book Insurgency is a story about Steve Bannon's revelation that former President Donald Trump didn't actually want to be president.

According to Bannon, it was COVID and George Floyd that convinced him Trump only really wanted the Oval Office when it was fun. Up until 2020, Trump was able to largely let the country run on auto-pilot. Racking up deaths was depressing.

"But Trump’s inattentiveness to the pandemic alarmed Bannon. And his response to George Floyd’s death had him increasingly convinced that Trump had lost his mind," Peters wrote. "He complained to colleagues that Trump didn’t seem interested in his job."

"Being president and doing the job of president are two different things,” Bannon claimed. “He doesn’t want to do the job of president of the United States.”

There was no way that Trump was going to rise to acclaim as Lincoln or Roosevelt did.

"Instead, Bannon said, Trump would end up going down in history as one of the two or three worst presidents ever: 'It’ll be James Buchanan, Donald Trump, and Millard Fillmore.' Having run Trump’s successful underdog bid four years earlier during its final weeks, Bannon was openly critical of how the new team was running the reelection campaign. 'Trump did not win in 2016. That’s the one thing they never embraced and understood. Hillary Clinton lost. Trump did not win,' he said."

He was annoyed with top Trump aides showing the president fake poll numbers just to make him happy.

"It’s like showing Hitler fake armor divisions when the Reichstag is burning down," Bannon scoffed. And he was correct, that's exactly what they were doing. All of the post-mortem books about Trump's final year convey that the staff was so desperate to get the president to stop falling into a fit of rage.

"They’d tell him he was improving in the Reno media market and with seniors in Phoenix," Peters reported. One aide, “They’d tell him he’s up seventeen points with left-handed redheads in Pennsylvania.”

So, when it became clear that he'd lost, it's no surprise that he didn't believe it. Why would he if he spent the past six months being told they were winning?

When it came to the president's advisers, Bannon didn't think much of them either.

“Corey’s the guy who wears the hats and buys the books,” he said of Trump’s first campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski. He was like a cult follower.

Roger Stone, Bannon called “a f***ing flake.”

And none of the men were beneficial to what Trump needed to win, Bannon thought.

https://www.rawstory.com/bannon-thinks-trump-worst-president/

[Rick Plant]

A new 40-year record for inflation!  Old Joe is breaking them all.  Crime, inflation, illegal immigration, virus cases.  And he has only been in office one year!  Imagine what the future holds.

The global inflation is due to the global pandemic. Inflation in the United States started in 2020 under Criminal Donald due to his failure to combat COVID-19 leaving President Biden with the worst economic crisis since The Great Depression. And right wingers are against life saving vaccine and mask mandates which will end this pandemic. They continue to cause the damage we face today. 

Poland Set for Fifth Hike as Inflation Quickens
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-08/poland-set-for-fifth-hike-as-inflation-quickens-decision-guide


More Groceries, Less Gas: The Pandemic Is Shaking Up The Cost Of Living

September 11, 2020

Gwen Mickens was startled by the prices in the butcher case during her last trip to the supermarket.

"Short ribs are like twice as much as they used to be. And of course the bacon is more expensive as well," said Mickens, a Florida data analyst who was shopping for her husband and adult son. "You kind of close your eyes and just pick it up and throw it in the grocery cart."

Her checkout receipt topped $250.

Mickens' experience comes as no surprise to some economists. These analysts said that official inflation measures understate the toll that price hikes are taking on people's pocketbooks, because the pandemic has altered both what and how we buy.

Grocery prices rose sharply during the spring, and while they've come down somewhat in recent months, the price of food eaten at home is still 4.6% higher than this time last year. And that's especially tough for low-income families who tend to spend more of their limited budgets on food.

"During the pandemic, people are consuming a lot more food, particularly at home, and a lot less transportation and recreation goods," Harvard University economist Alberto Cavallo said. "When you take into account these changes in consumption patterns, it turns out inflation levels are significantly higher."

Data out on Friday showed consumer prices rose 0.4% in August compared with the previous month after a sharp drop early in the pandemic. But according to the Labor Department, overall inflation remains tepid, with prices up just 1.3% from a year ago.

The Labor Department tracks inflation by comparing prices on a big basket of goods and services that consumers regularly buy. Prices go up or down each month, but the basket is updated only about once a year.

Ordinarily, that's a good system, Cavallo said, because consumer shopping habits don't change that much. But during the pandemic, it can be misleading. Higher grocery prices have an outsize impact on people's wallets, because they're buying more groceries right now, while a drop in the price of air travel or movie tickets goes unnoticed because almost no one is buying those.

The pandemic has also made it harder for people to hunt for bargains.

"I used to go to two and sometimes three different stores in the course of a week," said Nancy Gaston, a semiretired resident of Vancouver, Wash.

Her grocery shopping is much more focused now.

"I just want to limit social contacts and so I go to one store a week, usually on Sunday morning because nobody else is there," she said.

As a result, Gaston is paying more for groceries. But she is spending less on other things, including haircuts, manicures and gasoline.

"I went 2 1/2 months between fill-ups with the gas tank on my car because we're simply not going anywhere," Gaston said.

Cavallo has constructed a special COVID-19 inflation measure that tries to account for such changes. He uses the Labor Department's prices but weights the basket according to what people are actually buying, using records from credit and debit cards.

In May, Cavallo's yardstick said prices had risen 0.95% over the last year, while the official government measure of inflation was 0.13%. The gap has since narrowed, but Cavallo's yardstick still shows higher inflation.

It is an experience familiar to many families in this economy.

Michelle Ellerhoff, a kitchen and bath designer in Iowa, said feeding her 10- and 12-year-old kids is costing her more.

"They eat so much," Ellerhoff said. "So just to trying to keep up with them and not having school lunches did increase my budget."

Making it worse, Ellerhoff lost a freezer full of food last month when a windstorm ripped through eastern Iowa and knocked out power for a week. She's still trying to restock.

"I'm going slowly with that," she said. "It's just too overwhelming to do it all at once."

https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/09/11/911880715/more-groceries-less-gas-the-pandemic-is-shaking-up-the-cost-of-living