Trump’s Boxes and Clinton’s Sock Drawer

Jarod said:
So it looks as if President Clinton admitted he had the tapes, and felt he owned them. Did he hide them? Were they sensitive military documents? Did he lie to the government about their existence?
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The better question is, ... why do you know absolutely nothing about the Sock Drawer case?
 
Jarod said:
So it looks as if President Clinton admitted he had the tapes, and felt he owned them. Did he hide them? Were they sensitive military documents? Did he lie to the government about their existence?
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THE DOCUMENTS BELONG TO TRUMP HE CAN DO ANYTHING HE WANTS WITH THEM. Actually Clinton's tapes DID have sensitive military information.


The government’s position was that Congress had decided that the president and the president alone decides what is a presidential record and what isn’t. He may take with him whatever records he chooses at the end of his term.
:facepalm:
 
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ExpressLane said:
THE DOCUMENTS BELONG TO TRUMP HE CAN DZO ANYTHING HE WANTS WITH THEM. Actually Clinton's taped DID have sensitive military information.

:facepalm:
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Look at the law cited in my signature... How can you say they belong to him?

If they belong to him, why hide them? Why lie about having them?
 
Jarod said:
Look at the law cited in my signature... How can you say they belong to him?

If they belong to him, why hide them? Why lie about having them?
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The presidential records Act.

What are you alleging, specifically?
 
ExpressLane said:
THE DOCUMENTS BELONG TO TRUMP HE CAN DO ANYTHING HE WANTS WITH THEM. Actually Clinton's tapes DID have sensitive military information.



:facepalm:
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:facepalm::facepalm::facepalm::facepalm:

So these tapes that no one other than Clinton and the interviewer have heard have have some information that you know is on them? How do you know what is on the tapes? Did you get into Clinton's sock drawer?
 
ExpressLane said:
THE DOCUMENTS BELONG TO TRUMP HE CAN DO ANYTHING HE WANTS WITH THEM. Actually Clinton's tapes DID have sensitive military information.


The government’s position was that Congress had decided that the president and the president alone decides what is a presidential record and what isn’t. He may take with him whatever records he chooses at the end of his term.
:facepalm:
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Wrong!
 
ExpressLane said:
By Michael Bekesha
Although the indictment against Donald Trump doesn’t cite the Presidential Records Act, the charges are predicated on the law. The indictment came about only because the government thought Mr. Trump took records that didn’t belong to him, and the government raided his house to find any such records.

This should never have happened. The Presidential Records Act allows the president to decide what records to return and what records to keep at the end of his presidency. And the National Archives and Records Administration can’t do anything about it. I know because I’m the lawyer who lost the “Clinton sock drawer” case.

In 2009, historian Taylor Branch published “The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History With the President.” The book is based on recordings of Mr. Branch’s 79 meetings with Bill Clinton between Jan. 20, 1993, and Jan. 20, 2001. According to Mr. Branch, the audiotapes preserved not only Mr. Clinton’s thoughts on issues he faced while president, but also some actual events, such as phone conversations. Among them:

• Mr. Clinton calling several U.S. senators and trying to persuade them to vote against an amendment by Sen. John McCain requiring the immediate withdrawal of troops from Somalia

• Mr. Clinton’s side of a phone call with Rep. William Natcher (D., Ky.) in which the president explained that his reasoning for joining the North American Free Trade Agreement was based on technical forecasts in his presidential briefings.

• Mr. Clinton’s side of a phone conversation with Secretary of State Warren Christopher about a diplomatic impasse over Bosnia.

• Mr. Clinton seeking advice from Mr. Branch on pending foreign-policy decisions such as military involvement in Haiti and possibly easing the embargo of Cuba.

The White House made the audiotapes. Nancy Hernreich, then director of Oval Office operations, set up the meetings between Messrs. Clinton and Branch and was involved in the logistics of the recordings. Did that make them presidential records?......

The National Archives and Records Administration was never given the recordings. As Mr. Branch tells it, Mr. Clinton hid them in his sock drawer to keep them away from the public and took them with him when he left office.

In defending NARA, the Justice Department argued that NARA doesn’t have “a duty to engage in a never-ending search for potential presidential records” that weren’t provided to NARA by the president at the end of his term. Nor, the department asserted, does the Presidential Records Act require NARA to appropriate potential presidential records forcibly. The government’s position was that Congress had decided that the president and the president alone decides what is a presidential record and what isn’t. He may take with him whatever records he chooses at the end of his term.


Judge Amy Berman Jackson agreed: “Since the President is completely entrusted with the management and even the disposal of Presidential records during his time in office,” she held, “it would be difficult for this Court to conclude that Congress intended that he would have less authority to do what he pleases with what he considers to be his personal records.”

Judge Jackson added that “the PRA contains no provision obligating or even permitting the Archivist to assume control over records that the President ‘categorized’ and ‘filed separately’ as personal records. At the conclusion of the President’s term, the Archivist only ‘assumes responsibility for the Presidential records.’ . . . PRA does not confer any mandatory or even discretionary authority on the Archivist to classify records. Under the statute, this responsibility is left solely to the President.”


I lost because Judge Jackson concluded the government’s hands were tied. Mr. Clinton took the tapes, and no one could do anything about it.

The same is true with Mr. Trump. Although he didn’t keep records in his sock drawer, he gathered newspapers, press clippings, letters, notes, cards, photographs, documents and other materials in cardboard boxes. Then Mr. Trump, like Mr. Clinton, took those boxes with him when he left office. As of noon on Jan. 20, 2021, whatever remained at the White House was presidential records. Whatever was taken by Mr. Trump wasn’t. That was the position of the Justice Department in 2010 and the ruling by Judge Jackson in 2012......

https://www.wsj.com/articles/clinto...ictment-documents-pra-personal-files-13986b28
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NARA does not have the authority to decide what is or what is not Presidential records. Trump is going to win this case. Joe Biden is trying to knock out his number one political opponent.
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Excellent!

Thanks. .
 
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Poor Richard Saunders said:
Really? How were they work related? Which government agency produced them?
Oh... wait... these were audio tapes used to interview Clinton in order to write a book? Did the government write the book?
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The executive branch, Pres. Clinton produced them while he was in office.

"The president kept the tapes secret and hidden. The oral history sessions were conducted in parts of the White House where Clinton and Branch were unlikely to be seen by staff, often late at night. " ...

"we discussed how that would be done and mostly how it would be protected to give him the confidence that it would not be subpoenaed or discovered," ...

"And we were on pins and needles, that is the president and I and eventually Hillary, about whether those submissions that he made would tip off the special prosecutor's office that the disclosures that, the little items that he picked out that he said were responsive to the subpoenas, comments about Whitewater or whatever, were part of a larger project and that that would leak. But fortunately it didn't happen. And I don't really know very much about Kendall's interaction with the special prosecutor except to say that we never got a subpoena for them, and I never got a subpoena about this project. So we escaped somehow."

https://www.npr.org/transcripts/113269412

Clearly the recordings were related to statutory duties of the president.
 
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Bigdog said:
The executive branch, Pres. Clinton produced them while he was in office.

"The president kept the tapes secret and hidden. The oral history sessions were conducted in parts of the White House where Clinton and Branch were unlikely to be seen by staff, often late at night. " ...

"we discussed how that would be done and mostly how it would be protected to give him the confidence that it would not be subpoenaed or discovered," ...

"And we were on pins and needles, that is the president and I and eventually Hillary, about whether those submissions that he made would tip off the special prosecutor's office that the disclosures that, the little items that he picked out that he said were responsive to the subpoenas, comments about Whitewater or whatever, were part of a larger project and that that would leak. But fortunately it didn't happen. And I don't really know very much about Kendall's interaction with the special prosecutor except to say that we never got a subpoena for them, and I never got a subpoena about this project. So we escaped somehow."

https://www.npr.org/transcripts/113269412
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Items produced by a President can be personal. Items produced by another government agency are not personal since the President didn't personally produce them.
Not hard to understand if you have even half a brain.
The interviewer was not a government employee. Clinton can talk personally without it being a government document. In fact you seem to be arguing that a President has no first amendment rights.
 
Poor Richard Saunders said:
Items produced by a President can be personal. Items produced by another government agency are not personal since the President didn't personally produce them.
Not hard to understand if you have even half a brain.
The interviewer was not a government employee. Clinton can talk personally without it being a government document. In fact you seem to be arguing that a President has no first amendment rights.
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Clinton feared that they would be subpoenaed or discovered. Clearly the recordings were related to statutory duties of the president. Which means they are no longer just personal.

Reporters are not gov't employees either.
 
Bigdog said:
Clinton feared that they would be subpoenaed or discovered. Clearly the recordings were related to statutory duties of the president. Which means they are no longer just personal.

Reporters are not gov't employees either.
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Yes the tapes had classified briefing information on them. Clearly they had information that was classified on them and Clinton was trying to hide them in his sock drawer. The court ruled they were his and ONLY the President has the right to decide what record belongs to him and what does not.
 
Poor Richard Saunders said:
Items produced by a President can be personal. Items produced by another government agency are not personal since the President didn't personally produce them.
Not hard to understand if you have even half a brain.
The interviewer was not a government employee. Clinton can talk personally without it being a government document. In fact you seem to be arguing that a President has no first amendment rights.
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The President has the ultimate authority to decide what government document belongs to him and what does not. It is like the owner of a company he owns the work product of all the employees of the company.
 
ExpressLane said:
The President has the ultimate authority to decide what government document belongs to him and what does not. It is like the owner of a company he owns the work product of all the employees of the company.
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Yep. The National Archives has no authority or duty to seize presidential documents.
 
ExpressLane said:
Absolutely if Trump wins in 2024 it will be because the public sees how Democrats are abusing the system.
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Yes, and prosecutorial discretion was abused when it was used to dismiss cases against those who participated in the Floyd race hoax insurrection, Weiner's laptop, Hillary's secret gov't server, etc..
 
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