Free Republic

**SNIP** But that isn’t what made the Hur report so poignant, so interesting—so funny. It’s something neither party nor much of the news coverage mentioned at all; the biggest missing detail from the stories elected officials told about the Hur report isn’t any legal technicality in the decision not to prosecute Biden for holding on to classified documents. It’s what Biden held on to, and why. The centerpiece of the investigation is a lengthy memo Biden wrote in 2009 to then-president Barack Obama, which investigators found—along with classified materials used to draft it—tucked in a cardboard box in Biden’s garage...

Special counsel Jack Smith’s team acknowledged Friday that some evidence in the prosecution of former President Donald Trump for hoarding classified documents at his Florida home may not be in the same sequence FBI agents found it when they swept into the Mar-a-Lago compound with a search warrant in August 2022. The concession from prosecutors in a court filing Friday afternoon came after attorneys for one of Trump’s co-defendants asked for a delay in the case because the defense lawyers were having trouble determining precisely where particular documents had come from in the 33 boxes the FBI seized almost two...

Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL) said he was “shocked” at how highly classified the documents that President Joe Biden was keeping at his Delaware home were, arguing that they were “eyes only” for the president and vice president. While appearing on Fox News’s Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo, Waltz addressed the classified documents Biden had at his home, with the representative pushing back against claims that the information contained in these documents was from the Cold War era. He contended that instead, the documents’ information was both “recent” and “relevant” and that the documents had many code words that even...

Sources close to former President Donald Trump have confirmed to Breitbart News that the General Services Administration (GSA) packed the boxes of documents he took with him to Mar-a-Lago, not political staffers. Shortly after the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago this month, reportedly to reclaim documents Donald Trump had taken from the White House in January 2021, journalist David Martosko announced that a source close to the former president confirmed the documents were boxed by government staffers in the GSA, not Trump’s own staffers. “A person very close to Donald Trump tells me it’s indeed true what’s being bandied about Twitter —...

This week in Florida, Judge Aileen Cannon unsealed a trove of new documents that Jack Smith fought to keep hidden. And you'll soon find out why. Among the documents unsealed were extensive exhibits, motions, and other filings shedding light on the intricate web of communication between the Biden White House and the National Archives and Records Administration in the lead-up to Trump's indictment. Investigative journalist Julie Kelly found something interesting in the documents that could change everything. The first things is testimony from an FBI agent who testified that the General Services Association (GSA) had been in possession of Trump's...

Criticism of the judge overseeing former President Donald Trump’s classified documents case lacks a legal justification, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.Judge Aileen Cannon, who was appointed to the bench by Trump in 2020, has repeatedly come under fire by liberal commentators and legal analysts for decisions seen as favoring the former president and intentionally slow-walking the case. But legal experts who spoke with the DCNF said she’s simply being fair and following normal procedure.“Most of the partisan, left-wing criticism against Judge Cannon is not grounded in legal substance and instead is due to their personal dislike of the...

Former President Donald Trump lost three major legal challenges in the past week, including his efforts to dismiss a racketeering case on First Amendment grounds. Here is a look at the rulings in three separate cases this week in Georgia, Florida, and New York. New York judge denies Trump’s attempt to delay hush money trialNew York Judge Juan Merchan denied the former president’s attempt to delay his criminal hush money trial on Wednesday, after Trump claimed he was protected under presidential immunity. Merchan said that Trump had plenty of opportunity before March to claim presidential immunity in the case. Trump...

US District Judge Aileen Cannon on Thursday denied a motion filed by former President Donald Trump seeking to dismiss the criminal charges against him in his classified documents case. Trump, 77, had argued that under the Presidential Records Act of 1978 he had the authority to designate sensitive documents as his personal property after leaving the White House. Cannon ruled that “the Presidential Records Act does not provide a pre-trial basis to dismiss” the 40 charges against the former president. She further noted that prosecutors “make no reference to the Presidential Records Act” in the indictment against Trump and did...

Of all of the legal cases currently being piled up against Donald Trump in the Democrats' ongoing lawfare efforts against him, the one I've probably found the most troubling is the allegation of mishandling classified documents. It's a fairly serious charge and it's one of the few cases against him that does at least appear to involve the possibility of an actual crime being committed (more on that in a moment) and physical evidence to support the claim. It has thus far sounded as if the court was taking it seriously as well. But now, a possible ray of hope...

Special Counsel Jack Smith's efforts to imprison Donald Trump for mishandling classified documents have hit a few snags recently, and the latest snag is, indeed, a big one. “ Special Counsel Jack Smith could be blocked from using evidence against Donald Trump contained in grand jury investigation files, which were transferred to the former president's Florida classified documents case this week, a former prosecutor has suggested," reports Newsweek. "In 2023, a grand jury in Washington, D.C., heard evidence from witnesses—including Trump's attorney, Evan Corcoran—while considering whether charges should be brought against the former president and others for hoarding classified documents....

The MAGA-friendly federal judge who keeps siding with Donald Trump in his Mar-a-Lago classified records case has forced prosecutors to make a stark choice: allow jurors to see a huge trove of national secrets or let him go. U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon’s ultimatum Monday night came as a surprise twist in what could have been a simple order; one merely asking federal prosecutors and Trump’s lawyers for proposed jury instructions at the upcoming trial. But as she has done repeatedly, Cannon used this otherwise innocuous legal step as yet another way to swing the case wildly in favor...

Special counsel Robert Hur testified on Tuesday that the White House attempted to pressure him into changing aspects of his report on President Biden’s mishandling of classified documents.The revelation came during Hur’s testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, in which Rep. Tom Tiffany, R-Wis., probed the special counsel head about a Feb. 5 letter the White House Counsel sent to Hur days before his report became public. When Tiffany asked whether the White House requested he “change [the report’s] references to the president’s poor memory,” Hur confirmed the administration did, in fact, make such a request. “There was a request,...

“Novel legal theory,” a term applied in whole or part to every case, criminal and civil, lodged against Donald Trump. That term is best understood as using the law in ways it was never intended to be used, and/or never has been used, most specifically for political purposes. A "novel legal theory" might consist of applying a vicious dog ordinance to someone who owned only a parrot that could bark like a dog. During my police career, professional officers were careful never to use the law in that way. If there was a law on the books that had never...

Special Counsel Robert Hur finally went public with his report on his investigation of Joe Biden and his handling of classified materials. I guess that most of you are wondering out loud like me: Who do you believe? Him (Biden) or Hur (counsel)? In one part of his investigation, he reported that the president said that he did not share the classified information with the ghostwriter. Sorry, he did. Well, the transcript shows that Mr. Biden lied or had a bad memory. This is from Steven Nelson: Hur testified that Biden lied at least twice to the public; once when...

On Tuesday broadcast of CNN’s “News Central,” Biden campaign co-chair Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) said “President Biden has deep respect for the classified document process.” When asked about Special counsel Robert Hur’s testimony before the House Judiciary Committee hearing on the investigation into Biden’s handling of classified documents, Coon said, “What I think really matters here about this whole kerfuffle is that at the end of the day, former President Donald Trump is facing 40 felony counts in a federal action because of his mishandling of federal classified documents, while President Joe Biden has been cleared.” He continued, “All the...

Within hours of the release of a special prosecutor’s report finding he “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials” as a private citizen, President Biden rushed to the White House podium to blame his former “staff.” “I take responsibility for not having seen exactly what my staff was doing,” the president maintained. Like Biden, these staffers have avoided any criminal charges. Who are they? Without identifying them by name, special counsel Robert Hur narrowed the suspects to two former aides: “Executive Assistant” and “Staff Assistant 3.” He said they gathered up more than 180 classified records totaling more than 600 pages...

The Biden administration suppressed information about Iran’s efforts to assassinate U.S. officials to ensure Congress and the American public were kept in the dark, according to a lawmaker on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "What Americans don’t know is that the Biden administration has gone to great lengths to hide the extent and persistence of those threats" from Iran, Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) said during a Senate hearing Wednesday on Tehran’s network of terror proxies. Those threats include active plots to assassinate former secretary of state Mike Pompeo and other top U.S. officials. The administration has been "abusing the...

One of the key facets of presenting legal arguments involves drawing parallels and distinctions between circumstances and parties. In large part, this is due to the significant role played by legal precedent in our justice system. Precedent refers to a court decision that is considered as authority for deciding subsequent cases involving identical or similar facts, or similar legal issues. Precedent is incorporated into the doctrine of stare decisis and requires courts to apply the law in the same manner to cases with the same facts. Some judges have stated that precedent ensures that individuals in similar situations are treated...

CBS reportedly seized files from Catherine Herridge, the network’s recently laid-off senior investigative correspondent. This action included materials that may reveal information about confidential sources, according to an article by Jonathan Turley, Shapiro Chair of Public Interest Law at George Washington University, in The Hill. Catherine Herridge, an Emmy-winning and nominated reporter known for her work on national security and intelligence, was among the 800 employees Paramount Global laid off in a bid to streamline operations amid financial strain. Her firing has since escalated into a broader controversy. In his article titled “CBS faces uproar after seizing investigative journalist’s files,”...

We've been talking for some time about how bad Joe Biden's classified documents scandal was compared to former President Trump's situation. Trump had things transported to Mar-a-Lago only from the time he was president, when he was allowed to have access to them, with Secret Service protection. The issue was over what needed to be returned. But as I've noted in the past, Biden himself admitted there was a document going back to 1974, when he didn't even have any right to have anything from the time he was a Senator. Then after the Hur report dropped, Biden spoke about...