#presidential records

[libraryjournal]

Never mess with an archivist.

[deadpresidents]

Is it a requirement for ex-presidents to make a library or is it a tradition?

Presidents are not required to build a library or a museum, but they are required to preserve all papers and records from their Presidency for the National Archives and Records Administration.

That's actually one of the issues at the heart of Trump's indictment. He viewed these official records and materials as his personal property, despite exceedingly clear guidelines by the NARA that Presidential records, gifts, briefing materials, etc belong to the nation, not to the person temporarily holding the office of President. Trump was not only given clear guidelines (as every President and their Administrations are) about who gets custody of Presidential materials, but after leaving office he was apparently asked and reminded and warned and subpoenaed to return things he shouldn't have kept (and possibly never should have taken with him as he left office).

[nodynasty4us]

Unlike the complicated issues involved in the attempted coup and the insurrection, where Trump did his very best to keep his fingerprints off of the actual manipulation of the electoral slates and all the rest, here, not only his fingerprints, but his distinctive handwriting is on the top-secret documents.

Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe, interviewed on CNN

[santo-ileso-archives]

ID IDENTIFICATION CONFIRMED : ᴀꜱʜᴀ ᴏᴅᴇᴋᴀʀ : ᴍɪ6 ᴀɢᴇɴᴛ, and ꜱᴘᴇᴄɪᴀʟ ᴄ.ɪ.ᴀ ʟɪᴀɪꜱᴏɴ ᴏꜰ ᴛʜᴇ 3ʀᴅ ꜱᴛʀᴇᴇᴛ ꜱᴀɪɴᴛꜱ. ⚜️🪬

[mossadegh]

President Dwight D. Eisenhower | Letters, Speeches, Etc.

[fishbonedotcom]

I think people need more faith in the d20 gang to tell a interesting story. Yah the bad kids are having a rough time rn, thats how conflict works. Like yes absolutely Fabian could pay for Riz to go to college. And he would. But thats not a story that takes 2 months to develop, its not interesting

[stirdrawsandreblaws]

screaming crying coughing up blood every time i have to fucking defend genocide joe bc ppl wanna lie and say he isn't responsible for most of the best domestic policy we've seen in decades

his foreign policy is dogshit, yes, and he should rightly be called on it and primaried out, but we can criticize the shit he's actually done wrong instead of making shit up about him ~not doing anything good~

[tomorrowusa]

The climate-denying governor of the state most susceptible to climate change is neglecting Florida for his ailing presidential bid as we enter the most active part of the Atlantic Basin hurricane season.

I haven't seen this many disturbances at the same time in the Atlantic since 2020 – the year they ran out of hurricane names and burned through half of the Greek alphabet.

Probably 1 of the 5 will fizzle out. 2 of them could follow in the footsteps of low energy Hurricane Don and harmlessly buzz around the mid Atlantic.

But the disturbance near the Windward Islands about to enter the Caribbean needs to be watched. And the one north of Cuba heading into the Gulf of Mexico has the potential to get nasty under the right conditions.

Warm seas act like jet fuel for tropical cyclones. The Gulf of Mexico is HOT.

Temps in parts of the Gulf are at the top of the scale shown on the right (32° C/89.6° F).

Some water temperatures along the southern Gulf coast of Florida have been over 100° F earlier this summer.

There should be no place for active climate deniers in public office.

[sheepie-self-ships]

Me when the f/o…

[mezimraky]

So what on earth is happening with the Czech election right now? Who is this general? Do people actually want Babiš? How does this vote work?

it's complicated! essentially, what is happening in czech rep right now is the third ever direct presidential election. meaning, every citizen over the age of 18 gets a vote. the last two elections ended with miloš zeman as the winner. miloš zeman is a bitter old man who is a rude drunk but people felt represented by him, and so elected him twice.

the second time around there was a big wave of dislike for zeman but the voters did not manage to pool in to one other candidate but instead spread to at least three fractions, making it impossible to beat zeman. this is not the case this year, with this election.

the first round of the election ended with two favourites. generál petr pavel and andrej babiš. they both had around 30something% of votes and ended within less than a percent to each other.

andrej babiš, the poplusist oligarch, is the head of the biggest political party in the country, ANO. andrej babiš is also a businessman who first went into politics in cca 2011 and his main positive was that "as a rich businessman he would not need to steal from the people as a politician." and "as a successful businessman he can run the country like he runs his company". they essentially built their popularity on populist policies that range the whole political spectrum without much of a system or reliability. they would form alliance with anyone who allowed them to be in the position of power.

the prominence of ANO has indirectly caused a crisis in democracy. the two sides of the political spectrum are out of balance. ANO's populist policies have replaced the political left almost entirely. if you'd watched the last government election last year, you'd see that the fight was no longer between the left and the right but between populism and democracy. the democratic right has won at the cost of forming a giant coalition made out of five different parties. they really needed that many in order to beat the ever so popular ANO, and babiš himself.

and this appears to be happening again. the choice of the second round of the presidential election is between babiš and generál pavel. babiš being a populist who will say just about anything to win (including pointing at the general's millitary past and claiming that he will drag our country into the war, take your kids away and whatever else). generál pavel being a guy with diplomatic experience in NATO, who mostly bases his campaign on his unshakeable calm and order. which, to be fair, following the many years with miloš zeman does seem like a very alluring concept.

both babiš and pavel also have a communist past, much like most people their age in this country. while pavel was a regular party member (and gained part of his millitary training under the old regime), andrej babiš has been proven to cooperate with the secret police at the time, being their secret agent of sorts. the cynics would tell you that there its not a real choice, that its between a communist and an agent, that they both suck. but.

it's not just the choice between two people. it's once again between a real diplomat and a liar. they are many poignant arguments concerning these two, but let me just focus on this one, as it is the most important one to me. babiš as a person does not stand for anything. he will say anything to get what he wants. he contradicts himself on the regular and does not cope well with being called out. he makes himself out to be an underdog but he was the prime minister until last year, and as a prime minister proved himself to be both completely spineless and worthless. and yet, his loyal fans seem to forget. they seem to have a weird sort of parasocial relationship with the kind grandpa in a turtleneck that he presents himself as on the social networks. they don't care what he did or didn't do. they like him as a person. they don't care what he would do to the image or political orientation of our country. they don't care. they care that he baked a delicious vánočka the other day, just like they do, every christmas!!!!

generál pavel has his own minuses, one of the ones that get thrown around a lot-- having millitary past, it's not all clear what he's done while in the millitary. having had diplomatic affiliations before, they say we can't know for sure where all his allegiances lay. and he was a communist after all. but. the thing is. he's the only other option we've got. and he's not all bad. he speaks well, he's consistent in his opinions, and he's willing to listen to marginalised groups for reasons other than to make himself look good.

and he's decent. and unaffiliated with a particular political party. insistent on democratic values. it's a low bar, i know. but it's the best hope we've got...

[fictionadventurer]

History Channel guys: So glad to have you onboard for our docudrama. Here's the script telling you everything you need to know to play Ulysses S. Grant.

Actor: This just says, "Stare off into the distance and take a long drag on a cigar."

History Channel guys: Yeah, we're pretty sure he ended 75% of his conversations that way, so this show is going to reflect that.

Actor: Okay, then. Throat cancer, here I come!

[grits-galraisedinthesouth]

102 pieces of paper

[mihai-florescu]

how long have u been running this blog (i love ur txts RAHHHHH thanks for spilling wtv is on ur brain)

Aw thank you! Ive had the same blog since 2014 when i was in middle school ^_^

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Former President Donald Trump, who is charged with stashing national security secrets at Mar-a-Lago and obstructing government efforts to retrieve them, relied on advice from the leader of the conservative organization Judicial Watch, who convinced Trump that he had the legal right to retain the documents and encouraged him to fight against the Justice Department, The Washington Post reported.

Trump's lawyers repeatedly urged him to return the document remaining at his residence but the former president instead turned to Tom Fitton, who doesn't have a law degree but has remained vocal about Trump having the right to keep the documents he took with him at the end of his presidency.

"If Trump had simply given these documents back, when he was first asked, there would have been no jury subpoena, there would have been no search warrant, and there would have been no criminal charges," former U.S. Attorney Barb McQuade, a University of Michigan law professor, told Salon. "In fact, in each of those steps of the investigation, if Trump had returned the documents, there likely would not have been a criminal prosecution."

Fitton reportedly argued that the records belonged to Trump, pointing to a 2012 court case involving his organization which he claimed granted the former President the authority to exercise control over the records from his own term in office.

Trump has echoed his claims referring to a ruling in which the judge said it was okay for President Bill Clinton to keep audiotapes of his conversations with historian Taylor Branch during Clinton's White House tenure.

"Under the Presidential Records Act — which is civil, not criminal — I had every right to have these documents," Trump said in a speech Tuesday night. "The crucial legal precedent is laid out in the most important case ever on this subject, known as the Clinton socks case."

But the key difference between the two comparisons is that Clinton's recordings were from his own interviews with a journalist and not presidential records like Trump's, legal experts say.

"The Presidential Records Act distinguishes between 'presidential records' and 'personal records' and required President Trump to preserve White House documents because those are the property of the U.S government," Temidayo Aganga-Williams, partner at Selendy Gay Elsberg and former senior investigative counsel for the House Jan. 6 committee, told Salon.

Even as Trump's advisers urged him to cooperate with investigators in their efforts to retrieve the classified documents he had taken when he departed from the White House, Trump brought up Fitton's name whenever he refused to comply with their advice, sources told The Post.

"Trump all but dared DOJ to indict him," McQuade said. "In order to be even-handed in applying the law to offenders who willfully abuse their power to handle classified information, DOJ really had no choice but to indict Trump."

Despite multiple opportunities to avoid criminal charges, Trump consistently refused to return the presidential documents requested by the National Archives since February 2021, sources familiar with the case told The Post. Trump was not charged for the documents he did return voluntarily.

"The national security documents that President Trump is criminally charged with keeping at Mar-a-Lago and refusing to return were always government records and could not be considered personal records in any reasonable reading of federal law," Aganga-Williams said.

Even as Trump publicly maintained that he was fully cooperating with government officials, his behind-the-scenes communication with Fitton reveals a different story.

In February, after the National Archives acknowledged retrieving 15 boxes of presidential records from Trump, he began receiving calls from Fitton telling him it was a mistake to give the records to the Archives, CNN reported.

One source told CNN that Trump requested Fitton brief his attorneys on the legal argument.

Fitton reportedly told Trump's team that they should never have let the Archives "strong-arm" him into returning them. He then suggested to Trump that if the Archives came back, he should not give up any additional records.

Contrary to Fitton's advice to "completely stonewall the government," Trump did hand over some material in June after a meeting between his lawyers and federal investigators at Mar-a-Lago, according to CNN.

However, investigators later found evidence suggesting that not all classified material had been returned, despite the former president being issued a subpoena. The FBI eventually carried out a search of Mar-a-Lago last August and found over 100 documents with classified markings at Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence.

Trump intentionally deceived his own advisers regarding the contents of the boxes, telling them they only contained newspaper clippings and clothes, seven Trump advisers told The Post. He consistently refused to return the documents even after receiving warnings from some of his most loyal advisers about the potential risks involved.

His actions have mirrored the advice of Fitton – a staunch election denier who promoted conspiracy theories about Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic after the 2020 election, according to Media Matters.

Fitton entered Trump's inner circle after he caught the former president's attention, who viewed him as one of the most effective critics of the Mueller probe from his frequent appearances on Fox News, Politico reported.

His media appearances are also similar to Trump's.

In one interview with Politico, Fitton discussed what he perceived as "abuses" of power by the Justice Department and the FBI, labeled the Mueller investigation as "unconstitutional" and asserted that there was sufficient evidence to arrest and prosecute Hillary Clinton. He has built a following by appearing on right-wing networks and filing lawsuits against the federal government alleging bureaucratic corruption.

During one Fox interview, Fitton himself corrected host Jeanine Pirro after she referred to him as a lawyer, and then responded: "You should be, you get more out of courts than anyone I know." But Fitton's limited legal expertise hasn't stopped the former president from seeking advice from him. It's only complicated the role Trump's attorneys play in representing him. It's also left Trump scrambling to find legal representation a day before his court appearance after two of his top lawyers stepped down just hours after a Florida grand jury voted to charge him.

Most recently though, Fitton's advice appears to have led Trump to being charged with 37 counts including alleged violations of the Espionage Act, obstruction and false statements.