Tuesday
Sep062022
September 7, 2022
From the Book of All the President*'s Crooks. Shayna Jacobs, et al., of the Washington Post: "Stephen K. Bannon is expected to surrender to state prosecutors on Thursday to face a new criminal indictment, people familiar with the matter said, weeks after he was convicted of contempt of Congress and nearly two years after he received a federal pardon from ... Donald Trump in a federal fraud case. The precise details of the state case could not be confirmed Tuesday evening. But people familiar with the situation, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sealed indictment, suggested the prosecution will likely mirror aspects of the federal case in which Bannon was pardoned. In that indictment, prosecutors alleged that Bannon and several others defrauded contributors to a private, $25 million fundraising effort, called 'We Build the Wall,' taking funds that donors were told would support construction of a barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border." A CBS News story is here.
Devlin Barrett & Carol Leonnig of the Washington Post: "A document describing a foreign government's military defenses, including its nuclear capabilities, was found by FBI agents who searched ... Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence and private club last month, according to people familiar with the matter, underscoring concerns among U.S. intelligence officials about classified material stashed in the Florida property. Some of the seized documents detail top-secret U.S. operations so closely guarded that many senior national security officials are kept in the dark about them. Only the president, some members of his Cabinet or a near-Cabinet-level official could authorize other government officials to know details of these special-access programs, according to people familiar with the search.... Records that deal with such programs are kept under lock and key, almost always in a secure compartmented information facility, with a designated control officer to keep careful tabs on their location.... ~~~
~~~ "The Washington Post previously reported that FBI agents who searched Trump's home were looking, in part, for any classified documents relating to nuclear weapons. After that story published, Trump compared it on social media to a host of previous government investigations into his conduct. 'Nuclear weapons issue is a Hoax, just like Russia, Russia, Russia was a Hoax, two Impeachments were a Hoax, the Mueller investigation was a Hoax, and much more. Same sleazy people involved,' he wrote, going on to suggest that FBI agents might have planted evidence against him." A Guardian report on the report is here. ~~~
~~~ Marie: IOW, this super-duper classified document was one of those Trump not only refused to turn over to the National Archives, he hid it from the FBI. And the DOJ can't use it or refer to it or question witnesses about finding it until Judge Cannon's special master -- or somebody -- declares it is not subject to executive privilege. ~~~
~~~ Everybody Thinks Judge Cannon Is Ridiculous. David Knowles of Yahoo! News: "Former Attorney General William Barr decried the decision by a federal judge to appoint a special master to review government documents discovered in an FBI raid of ... Donald Trump's Florida home and country club.... 'The opinion, I think, was wrong, and I think the government should appeal it,' Barr said during a Tuesday interview on Fox News. 'It's deeply flawed in a number of ways.' Numerous legal experts have taken issue with Cannon's ruling, calling it 'unprecedented,' especially in that it prohibits federal prosecutors from further examining seized documents for an ongoing Department of Justice investigation of Trump until the yet-to-be-chosen special master finishes a full review.... He added, 'But I think the fundamental dynamics of the case are set, which is the government has very strong evidence of what it needs to determine whether charges [are] appropriate, which is government documents were taken, classified information was taken and not handled appropriately, and they are looking into, and there's some evidence to suggest, that they were deceived. And none of that really relates to the content of documents; it relates to the fact that there were documents there and the fact that they were classified, and the fact that they were subpoenaed and were never delivered.'" ~~~
~~~ Andrew Weissman has a column in the Atlantic articulating what-all is wrong with the Cannon/Trump ruling. No link. ~~~
~~~ Ian Millhiser of Vox: "Judge Aileen Cannon's order suspending one of the Justice Department's criminal investigations into ... Donald Trump, at least until a court-appointed official can review documents the FBI seized from Trump, is a trainwreck of judicial reasoning. Cannon mangles the law so completely that it's hard to know where to even begin in criticizing her opinion in Trump v. United States. For starters, Cannon, who was appointed to the federal bench by Trump days after he lost the 2020 election, argues fairly explicitly that Trump is entitled to special rules that apply to virtually no other criminal defendant, because he used to be a powerful person.... On a practical level, [the ruling] could also allow Cannon or other judges to delay this criminal investigation into Trump indefinitely. Cannon's opinion ... plays with legal concepts, such as executive privilege, which she seems to barely understand.... Cannon ordered the United States to halt its criminal investigation into the documents seized from Trump -- something she decidedly does not have the power to do -- until after the process she set up to review those documents is complete." ~~~
~~~ Marie: This is a ruling that should have begun, "Well, it seems to me...." OR, perhaps, "In order to best protect our noble President* from another hoax perpetrated upon him by the Democrat Department of Justice, it is ORDERED:..."
Zachary Cohen & Jason Morris of CNN: "A Republican county official in Georgia escorted two operatives working with an attorney for ... Donald Trump into the county's election offices on the same day a voting system there was breached, newly obtained video shows. The breach is now under investigation by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and is of interest to the Fulton County District Attorney, who is conducting a wider criminal probe of interference in the 2020 election. The video sheds more light on how an effort spearheaded by lawyers and others around Trump to seek evidence of voter fraud was executed on the ground from Georgia to Michigan to Colorado, often with the assistance of sympathetic local officials. In the surveillance video, which was obtained by CNN, Cathy Latham, a former GOP chairwoman of Coffee County who is under criminal investigation for posing as a fake elector in 2020, escorts a team of pro-Trump operatives to the county's elections office on January 7, 2021, the same day a voting system there is known to have been breached. The two men seen in the video with Latham, Scott Hall and Paul Maggio, have acknowledged that they successfully gained access to a voting machine in Coffee County at the behest of Trump lawyer Sidney Powell." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Richard Fausset & Sean Keenan of the New York Times: "The video footage reflects just how many pro-Trump activists descended on the county, roughly 200 miles southeast of Atlanta, in an effort to find anomalies that would help them challenge Mr. Trump's narrow loss in Georgia. And it raises new questions about how many individuals and groups gained access to the county's voting software, a data breach that is under investigation by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and is one of a number of similar incidents coordinated by Trump allies in various swing states. Legal experts say that state investigators are most likely exploring whether Georgia laws were violated, including laws specifically barring access to voting equipment. More broadly, the breaching of numerous election systems around the country raises questions about their vulnerability to being hacked in future elections."
Who's the Moron Now? From the Book of All the President*'s Dupes. Ryan Reilly of NBC News: "A Jan. 6 rioter turned in by his ex after he called her a 'moron' because she didn't believe Donald Trump's lies about the 2020 election was sentenced to nine months in federal prison Tuesday. Richard Michetti of Pennsylvania pleaded guilty to a felony count of obstruction of an official proceeding in May. He admitted that he went inside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.... 'If you can't see the election was stolen you're a moron,' Michetti [texted his ex-girlfriend as he stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021]."
Oath Keepers Membership Roster Leaked; Includes Many Elected Officials, Law Enforcement Officers & Military Members. Alanna Richer & Michael Kunzelman of the AP: "The names of hundreds of U.S. law enforcement officers, elected officials and military members appear on the leaked membership rolls of a far-right extremist group that's accused of playing a key role in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, according to a report released Wednesday. The Anti-Defamation League Center on Extremism pored over more than 38,000 names on leaked Oath Keepers membership lists and identified more than 370 people it believes currently work in law enforcement agencies -- including as police chiefs and sheriffs -- and more than 100 people who are currently members of the military. It also identified more than 80 people who were running for or served in public office as of early August. The membership information was compiled into a database published by the transparency collective Distributed Denial of Secrets.... It's especially problematic for public servants to be associated with extremists at a time when lies about the 2020 election are fueling threats of violence against lawmakers and institutions."
Helene Cooper of the New York Times: "The challenge to a peaceful transfer of power after ... Donald J. Trump lost the 2020 election has worsened 'an extremely adverse environment' for the U.S. military, according to an open letter signed by several top generals and former defense secretaries. The letter does not mention Mr. Trump by name. But in 16 points on the principles that are supposed to define civil-military relations, the signatories issued a thinly veiled indictment of Mr. Trump and the legions of his followers who called on the military to support his false claim that the election was stolen from him.... Two former defense secretaries who served under Mr. Trump, Jim Mattis and Mark T. Esper, were among those who signed the letter, which was published Tuesday on War on the Rocks, an online platform for analysis of national security and foreign affairs issues."
Annals of "Journalism," Ha Ha. Ha. David Folkenflik of NPR: In November 2020, a Fox "News" "producer warned: Fox cannot let host Jeanine Pirro back on the air. She is pulling conspiracy theories from dark corners of the Web to justify ... Donald Trump's lies that the election had been stolen from him.... Pirro was far from alone in broadcasting such false claims. In the weeks that followed Election Day 2020, other prominent Fox stars, commentators and their guests heavily promoted them. A repeat target was Dominion Voting Systems, the election machine and technology company. Trump and his allies alleged on Fox that Dominion was engaged in a conscious effort to throw the 2020 race to Joe Biden.... The producer's email is among the voluminous correspondence acquired by Dominion's attorneys as part of its discovery of evidence in a $1.6 billion defamation suit it filed against Fox News and its parent company." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: I'll bet the paralegal who pulled that email from the piles of papers got the rest of the day off.
Anna Merlan of Vice: "On September 1st, Evie Magazine -- which strives to be the conservative answer to Cosmo, and which promotes COVID denialism and vaccine misinformation, soft-focus transphobia, and a weird obsession with organ meats -- announced a new venture: 28, a 'femtech' company offering workouts and nutritional tips based on users' menstrual cycles, and which requires those users to enter information about the first day of their last period. The week prior, TechCrunch announced the new venture's biggest funder: the investment firm Thiel Capital, which led the latest $3.2 million funding round, and whose founder Peter Thiel has a variety of other interests. (Those include, of late, funding the MAGA movement to the tune of tens of millions of dollars.)" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Beyond the Beltway
Colorado. Colleen Slevin of the AP: "A judge on Tuesday threw out a lawsuit challenging a primary election recount lost by an indicted Colorado county clerk who alleged voting fraud in her failed bid to become the state's top election official. Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters filed a lawsuit objecting to the methods used to recount ballots on Aug. 3 but did not ask for the recount to be stopped until the following day, after the recount was completed and several hours after the recount results had been certified by Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold. Judge Andrew P. McCallin ruled that election law only gives him the authority to consider recount challenges while a recount is underway and his jurisdiction stops once it is over and is certified. The recount barely changed the results of the primary election to choose a Republican candidate to challenge Griswold in November's election...."
Massachusetts. The New York Times is liveblogging the state's primary election results. ~~~
"Maura Healey, the barrier-breaking attorney general of Massachusetts, secured the Democratic nomination for governor on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press, putting her on track to become the first woman to be elected governor in the state." ~~~
~~~ Steve LeBlanc of the AP: "Geoff Diehl, a former state representative endorsed by ... Donald Trump, has won the Republican nomination for Massachusetts governor over businessman Chris Doughty, who was considered the more moderate candidate in the race. The victory for Diehl sets up a general election contest against Democratic Attorney General Maura Healey, who would be the first openly gay person and the first woman elected governor of Massachusetts if she wins in November. The state's current governor, Republican Charlie Baker, decided against seeking a third term."
New Mexico. From the Book of All the President*'s Dupes. Hannah Rabinowitz, et al., of CNN: "A New Mexico judge on Tuesday removed January 6 rioter and Cowboys for Trump founder Couy Griffin from his elected position as a county commissioner for his role in the US Capitol attack. The ruling was the result of a lawsuit seeking Griffin's removal, which alleged that he violated a clause in 14th Amendment of the Constitution by participating in an 'insurrection' against the US government. He had been convicted of trespassing earlier this year. The historic ruling represents the first time an elected official has been removed from office for their participation or support of the US Capitol riot. It also marks the first time a judge has formally ruled that the events of January 6, 2021, were an 'insurrection.'... Griffin, one of three commissioners in Otero County, is also barred from holding any state or federal elected position in the future, state Judge Francis Mathew ruled Tuesday." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) The New York Times story is here.
Way Beyond
Ukraine, et al.
The New York Times' live updates of developments Wednesday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here. The Guardian's live updates for Wednesday are here. The Guardian's summary report is here. ~~~
~~~ The Washington Post's live briefings for Wednesday are here: "Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky echoed calls from the United Nations' nuclear watchdog for a protected zone to be established around the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant.... Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in Uzbekistan, Russian state news agencies reported.... Putin will discuss the possibility of limiting grain and food exports from Ukraine to Europe with Turkey's leader. The Russian president announced his intention to talk with Recep Tayyip Erdogan about the structure of the grain deal that eased Russian blockades.... Russian energy giant Gazprom released a video showing Europe freezing this winter. The video comes as Russia has cut off supplies, sending prices soaring and governments into a frenzy as they attempt to circumnavigate the crisis.... Britain's new prime minister, Liz Truss, pledged 'steadfast support' to Ukraine."
Eric Nagourney & Matthew Bigg of the New York Times: "The United Nations' nuclear watchdog on Tuesday called for a no-fire zone around an embattled Ukrainian nuclear generator, but like the plant itself, the agency was quickly caught up in the war between Russia and Ukraine. In a highly anticipated report, nuclear inspectors who had to wend their way through the battlefield to get to the plant said they were 'gravely concerned' about conditions there. 'We are playing with fire, and something very very catastrophic could take place,' Rafael Mariano Grossi, the U.N. official who led the inspectors, said in an address to the Security Council on Tuesday afternoon."
News Ledes
New York Times: "The second of two brothers sought by the police after a stabbing rampage in western Canada that killed 10 people died on Wednesday after he was taken into police custody, the authorities said. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police initially announced that the man, Myles Sanderson, had been captured on a highway near the town of Rosthern, Saskatchewan, at about 3:30 p.m. But at a news conference about four and a half hours later, Assistant Commissioner Rhonda Blackmore of the mounted police in Saskatchewan said that Mr. Sanderson had gone into 'medical distress' shortly after his arrest and was taken to a hospital in the nearby city of Saskatoon, where he was pronounced dead. An independent investigation will review the death and the police's conduct, Assistant Commissioner Blackmore said."
New York Times: "A string of shootings in Memphis and a feverish police manhunt for a 19-year-old suspect that effectively closed down Tennessee's second largest city for five hours ended on Wednesday night when the police announced that they had captured the man. The manhunt, which began after the first shootings at about 4:30 p.m., prompted the authorities to encourage residents to stay inside. The police said that the man was responsible for multiple shootings, some of which that he might have filmed on Facebook Live. The Memphis Police Department identified the man as Ezekiel Kelly. It was unclear what charges he will face, but as the police searched, they described him as 'armed and dangerous.' It was not immediately clear how many people had been shot and whether the shootings were random." An AP report is here.
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Secrets From Bad Log
A Post article linked above points out that “some of the seized documents [stolen by Trump] detail top-secret U.S. operations so closely guarded that many senior national security officials are kept in the dark about them.”
Quite. But those top secret documents were easily accessible by fat guy donors and their winger girlfriends on the way to the pool at Marred a Lago*. “Hey baby, check this out. Stuff about nukes in Europe. Take a selfie of us holding this up! The guys at the office won’t believe it.”
So senior national security people couldn’t see these docs, but idiot Trump pals whose clearance level wouldn’t rate a peek at the take out order of a congressional staffer could ogle the whole schmear. Nice.
But the Justice Department has to stop their investigation, cuz Trumpy judge Cannon sez so.
*Al Franken posits that according to his admittedly limited seventh grade Spanish, “mar a lago” could mean “bad log”. I’ve read that it means “sea to lake”, which sounds stupid. I’m going with “bad log”.
One wonders what exactly is the oath supposedly being kept by the Oaf Keepers? Sorry, “OATH keepers”. It sure ain’t abiding by the laws of the land or defending against domestic enemies.
Oh, wait. Must be the one about being a violent terrorist who will kill if necessary to support a lie designed to destroy American democracy.. Well hey, good job keeping that oath, guys. Success.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_Keepers
You can read the whole list of participants. I stopped at #3,
Samuel Alito.
Will check again after coffee.
Akhilleus,
The irony underlying "The Oath Keepers" is the obvious one. They take an oath to defend their (conveniently interpreted ) version of the Constitution but feel free--they do feel free; that's the entire point-- to descend on the Capitol in an attempt to overturn the results of an election that met all the Constitutional standards...except the ones they didn't like. Presumably they liked the standards Eastman was busily concocting better.
A pathetic bunch of yokels, in short, who are BTW deliberately recruited from the ranks of the military, law enforcement and all those under the umbrella of first responders, which constitute--couldn't help myself-- another fundamental irony: lawbreakers drawn from the ranks of those who have already taken an oath to defend and enforce the law.
A pathetic bunch, who obviously have no sense of humor whatsoever.
So I read this: ..."according to people familiar with the matter, underscoring concerns among U.S. intelligence officials about classified material stashed in the Florida property. Some of the seized documents detail top-secret U.S. operations so closely guarded that many senior national security officials are kept in the dark about them. Only the president, some members of his Cabinet or a near-Cabinet-level official could authorize other government officials to know details of these special-access programs, according to people familiar with the search.... Records that deal with such programs are kept under lock and key, almost always in a secure compartmented information facility, with a designated control officer to keep careful tabs on their location."
And I ask : Who was that "designated" control officer ? Obviously this keeper of the secure facility fucked up or–––was complicit?
And those other "members of his cabinet" or NEAR cabinet level––-eyes closed–-looks to me a bit of the Silence of the Lambs.
Last night on PBS Frontline took us once again through the ruins of the Trump presidency starting with his bout with Hillary going into the campaign. I had forgotten that Ted Cruz refused to nominate Trump ( because of the horrific things he had said about Cruz's wife and father and Cruz himself) that had a severe backlash from voters who were already enthralled with Trump. But as the film showed, Cruz, like so many others, became lapdogs–-spewed the lies, put on their festive disguise and obeyed . Those that couldn't, left or/ and did not seek reelection.
We know this story backwards and forwards but to travel backwards and hear Trump do his theatrics at those rallies, seeing crowds enthralled with this sick, demented man still makes my skin crawl. And when you watch him say "Fine people on both sides" you know it was the end of something and the beginning of the kind of horror show we have been experiencing. When can we open the windows––let in fresh air–-breathe deeply–-secure in the fact that this country is still filled with enough souls to move forward.
The dogs take the rats and the cheese stands alone–--Hi Ho the derry--O.
Echoes of Peterloo*
This morning, reading about yet another voter fraud scheme put in motion by Republicans, and taking note of the phalanx of military and (supposed) law enforcement types in the ranks of violent terrorists who support treason, I dug out a collection of Shelley poems, looking specifically for his “Masque of Anarchy”.
Shelley wrote this poem in response to a rally held at St. Peter’s Field in Manchester in 1819. The rally was a peaceful protest arranged to effect parliamentary reforms, especially an attempt to expand voting rights. The powers that be were not amused. Local politicians called in the military. A crowd of 60,000 was charged by saber wielding British cavalry. The attack killed 19 unarmed men, women, and at least one baby, and severely injured 700.
Remember, Trump often considered calling in the military to back his schemes.
It’s hard not to see echoes of this attempt by a small number of armed thugs to throw down the democratic rights of a much larger group in the Jan. 6 Trump Riot. But Shelley reminds us that violent attacks like these are not the end of it. A few lines:
“Rise like lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number—
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you—
Ye are many—they are few.”
We ARE many. They know that they are outnumbered by rapidly evolving demographics and penned in by undeniable truths, so they resort to violence, murder, and threats of more to come.
Dennis Aftergut, in a column for the Bulwark (a mostly Republican anti-Trump site), examined actual voter fraud in service of Trumpen tyranny and decided…
“…there’s enough of a pattern to draw a conclusion: A breakdown of the constraints of law occurred under the bombarding messages of Donald Trump and his enablers. Among Trump’s followers, the end—one party under Trump—apparently justifies the means of breaking the law to vote for him twice [Aftergut recounts multiple examples of Rs voting once for themselves and again for dead relatives, many of these violations incurred by officials!].
When legal boundaries lose their meaning for substantial portions of a country’s population, the consequences are dire, as we saw on January 6. Public order can be easily lost. That puts all of us at risk…”
I would edit that line about “one party under Trump”. Their goal is one nation under Trump, or under some other anti-Democratic, authoritarian demagogue.
We are still the many, but if we don’t rise in “unvanquishable number” in every election henceforth, democracy will be cut down as under a cavalry charge of the deplorables, “Oath Keepers”, Trump judges, and opportunistic, treason-loving politicians.
* The name Peterloo is a portmanteau, coined in the wake of the carnage, as a melding of St. Peter’s Field with the blood soaked plains at Waterloo, a battle fresh in everyone’s memory in 1819.
Forrest,
Number 3, Alito?
Jesus. Check again after three fingers of Jack.
(But sadly, I ain’t surprised. Not one little bit.)
Steve (Burn it all down) Bannon is clearly no fan of Tennessee Ernie Ford. He thought his escape of the federal charges was it? Ha. Take it away, Ernie:
“If you see me comin' better step aside
A lot of men didn't, a lot of men died
One fist of iron, the other of steel
If the right one don't getcha then the left one will”
Here comes the left, Stevie…
"... people familiar with the matter ..." told the WaPo that MAL cache docs contained information on another country's nuclear weapons and defense posture.
This sounds like a Defense Intelligence Agency Force Posture Analysis, which DIA creates for every country in which the US has any defense planning interest.
Further, it is probably North Korea, just because DiJiT likes NK stuff.
But ... who are those familiar people? I imagine that DOJ and FBI case managers know that if they leak anything about the MAL cache, they'll be working the night desk at Yuma while their discharge papers are being processed. Ditto most of the Intelligence Community agencies' people working the impact analysis.
But DIA has always had leaky problems, given some of their employees (cursory Background Investigations and LOTS of contract support employees) and their customers (military commanders), some of whom have recently displayed unseemly willingness to pursue their personal interests using tools provided by their professional access.
Or DHS, whose Intelligence component has been very iffy and unprofessional since DHS was set up.
CIA, FBI, NSA, Energy, State, NSC (THIS NSC, not DiJiT's) are professionally good at controlling this kind of informatio.
So ... my guess is:
1. Someone in DiJiT's orbit
2. DHS/IA
3. DIA
Wait and see. All that is hidden is eventually seen.
AK: Loved your bits from Percy & Tennessee–––they be mighty right as rain in their refrains. Nothing has changed much, has it?
Alito is in really good company. Just a few familiar names:
Bannon, Cheneys, Coulter, Cruz, DeSantis, Falwell, Gingrich, Hannity,
Huckabee, Limbaugh, McCain. O'Reilly, Paul, Rehnquist, Romney,
Ryan, Rubio, Santorum, Scalia, Thomas, Thurmond.
And dozens more of the same ilk.
PD,
Some years ago, playing a trivia game into the wee hours, I mixed up two Tennessees. The question called for a famous playwright. My answer, Tennessee Williams, came out Tennessee Ernie Ford. When the laughter subsided I said “Whadaya mean? You’ve never heard of “Streetcar Named Sixteen Tons”? Not the best recovery, but a funny brain fart nonetheless.
Forrest,
I think you mean more if the same ick.
@P.D. Pepe: I agreed with you about that "designated control officer." The feds should find out why s/he apparently didn't have any control over what Trump took and kept. It is possible, of course, that one reason the FBI believed there were still top-classified docs at Mar-a-Lardo is that the designated control officer tipped them off. Maybe she looked at the log book & said, "Reince Priebus checked this one out for President* Trump on April 5 2017, and we still don't have it back." And so forth. But the government does need to find out what the breakdown was there, and it could start with that so-called control officer. That person must know quite a bit.
And look for some of those listed to suddenly disavow their membership or call it some kind of trick. “Who, me? Nevah!”
But it says something that these people (Supreme Court justices?!?) felt strongly enough about a far right extremist group to join up. Perhaps some felt that membership was/is politically expedient. I mean, let’s face it, joining the Oath Keepers ain’t like joining the Rotary Club. Not sure which is worse “Yes, I’m a Nazi” or “It’s good for my career to look like a Nazi”.
Marie,
I’ve read that control officers or those tasked with delivering and retrieving sensitive documents, were, in many cases (most cases?), cowed by Trump and/or his bullying staff. “I’m the president! Now fuck off!” And it’s a certainty that those people went back to the Pentagon or wherever, informed their boss(es) who were also bullied. Screaming, yelling, name calling, lying and bullying have been Trump specialties probably since he was in short pants. One reason he attracts other bullies and liars.
The problem probably was that these people never had to deal with such a loudmouth asshole. They were used to presidents who mostly played by the rules. Rules don’t apply to Trump. Maybe he can test that approach in a federal lockup.
I think the government should allot millions of $ to find a cure for
that disease of the last 6 years: MAGAPOX.
Marie: over the course of DiJiT's term, there would have been several control officers for TS and for the Intelligence Community products. Typically, such materials should be brought in by a CO and recovered by them the same day, and stored and accounted for in the organization producing the document (resident in the WH complex). Not in the front office suite. Based on the markings we have seen this week, the military liaison and the staff assistants to the Oval would move such paper in and out of the reading area.
The details of all that don't matter much. You have identified the key. The COs must keep logs, which identify docs by control numbers, and show who had them last. Those logs, and the recollections of the COs, should be the target of the FBI effort to identify any missing docs.
Also ... I don't know about the WH, but in most places the TS control officer is fairly junior, and the IC material is controlled out of an agency's intelligence liaison offices. That means that if you work in say the State Department's Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, one of your bureau's officers is TS Control, but the IC products come to you from, and daily return to, the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR). You have to go there to read them --- or your INR liaison has to bring them to you. Those people are responsible for logging your access ... it's not self-serve.
Most of the laws and regulations on handling such material were made before high-speed copiers and printers became standard in every office and desk. So the only ways you can avoid a breach is if (1) the CO stands in the reading room while the customer reads the paper, and then recovers it immediately. Which almost no CO has the time to do except when serving very senior customers; or
(2) make the customer come to the intel liaison Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF), and the customer takes nothing in or out.
In the WH around DiJiT, I can't imagine that kind of control lasting very long. It doesn't fit with the chaotic style everyone thinks operated in DiJiT's time.
But the logs would still be there.