Millions of viewers watched as Geraldo Rivera (who else?) pioneered the "no-news news" format. Instead of reporting on news, he devoted entire programs to possible and hypothetical news. News channels like CNN (who else?) speculated on what would be found inside the safe. When the big day came, it turned out to be empty except for debris.
The Friday non-news event which reminded me of Geraldo's spectacular misfire was the FBI's forced disclosure of what they seized in their midnight raid on Mar-a-Lago, the Florida residence of President Donald Trump.
American presidents are required, on leaving office, to transfer all of their documents and emails to the National Archives. In an effort to keep the Dumbocrats from getting thrased in the 2022 mid-term elections, the Department of Justice is searching desperately for evidence that Mr Trump improperly handled records by taking them from the White House to Mar-a-Lago.
As nearly as we can infer -- the document was so heavily reacted that we can only guess -- the affidavit on the basis of which the raid was authorized by an Obama-appointed judge alleged that Mr Trump and his lawyers failed to provide relevant documents voluntarily, and "likely concealed or removed" records as part of an effort to obstruct the investigation.
On Friday, the FBI filed a list of what they found in the 33 boxes of papers etc -- note the "etc" -- they took away. They seized more than 11,000 government documents in total, including:
* 3 (count `em, three) documents marked "confidential"
* 17 documents marked "secret"
* 7 documents marked "top secret"
* 43 empty folders with "classified" banners
* 28 empty folders labelled "Return to staff secretary/military aide"
The court filing also confirms previous reports that many records were mixed with personal effects, including clothes -- Melania's underwear? -- books and newspapers.
A spokesman for President Trump, said the unsealed document showed the government's actions were "not some surgical, confined search and retrieval" but "a smash and grab." IMHO, if anything has been proven, it's just that the Donald, like most of us, doesn't stay on top of his filing!
President Biden went on to call for the expulsion from democratic society anyone who questioned the integrity of an American election. "If you question an election's fairness because our intel communities told media companies to bury damaging stories about me, or because COVID was used as an excuse to illegally change voting practices without legislative input, or because the FBI spied on Trump's campaign after Democrats gave them a bogus dossier - then you have no place in civil society," said Biden. "In fact, while we are at it, if you don't support abortion through nine months, or the genital mutilation of children, you are an enemy of the state. And we will foment violent protests and assassination attempts to intimidate you - to save democracy."
No comments:
Post a Comment