Couple of points, amigo; First, there is the matter of Department of the Navy v Egan 1988 in which the SCOTUS ruled that a president's authority to classify and declassify documents is almost unlimited, with very few exceptions.
Second is Judicial Watch v National Archives and Records Administration 2012 In this DC District Court case regarding some supposedly classified documents that Clinton had taken, the court ruled that the president has, once more, almost unlimited authority to decide what documents are presidential and which ones are private. Basically a Democrat judge protecting a Democrat politician has just cleared Trump of wrong doing.
Some material sent to Mar-a-Lago was sent by mistake and Trump actually REQUESTED the National Archives come get them. Two months before the raid, Trump was visited by the FBI and he told them to take whatever they thought they needed. They did so and had the rest secured by the Secret Service. The material they took during the raid was right where they left it.
To suggest that the president needs permission of someone who serves at his pleasure and can be fired at his whim is a bit of a stretch. The President and Vice President are basically immune from the rules that govern the lesser lights in the Executive Branch.

We’re back in Texas! Not too far from PARADISE…….Texas, that is! 😂 We moved back to get closer to our kids, especially our 8 great grandchildren! They are so much fun! We definitely missed that wonderful weather on the coast of Alabama, only to come home to the hottest summer that I remember in my lifetime. I don’t remember the lakes ever getting this low, but I haven’t seen any of the actual records. We still need more rain to bring the water levels back up. We are living at Eagle Mountain Lake, it only came up a couple of feet.

Trump Flouted Rules About Presidential Records. That's Not How It Usually Works.

Michael D. Shear; Wed, August 24, 2022

WASHINGTON — For the three years that former President Barack Obama wrote his 768-page memoir after leaving the White House, the millions of pages of his official presidential records were locked away in warehouses in Washington and Chicago.

Each time Obama wanted to review something, his aides submitted precise requests to the National Archives and Records Administration. Sometimes, documents would be encrypted and loaded onto a laptop that would be brought to Obama at his office in Washington. Other times, a paper document would be placed in a locked bag for his perusal, and later returned the same way.

The tightly restricted process that Obama followed to gain access to the 30 million records from his presidency stands in stark contrast to former President Donald Trump’s seemingly haphazard handling of some of the government’s most sensitive documents after he left office in early 2021. People familiar with the actions of other recent presidents from both parties described similar, library-like procedures to see documents, conforming to rules set out in the Presidential Records Act, which was passed in 1978.

The difference underscores how rare it is for one of the country’s recent presidents to flout the rules about presidential records. And it helps to put into a broader context the FBI’s decision to search Trump’s estate in Florida after concluding that the former president had taken thousands of documents, including some that were classified as top secret.

Aides to Trump have recounted his chaotic last days in the White House in 2021, as the president and some of his allies tried in vain to cling to power. They said boxes of documents were frantically assembled in the dining room outside the Oval Office and in Trump’s personal residence in the main White House building, even as the country reeled from the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol.

Much of the presidential archive is transferred digitally, which makes it all the more striking that Trump appears to have taken so many paper documents. Historians and White House officials described a methodical process used by presidential staff members to keep track of who produces digital documents so that they can be archived.

People who work in the White House are generally required to use phones and laptops issued by the administration, to make archiving easier. And work performed on personal or home computers must be printed out or forwarded so that it can be cataloged and sent to the archives when the president leaves.

It is unclear how many of the last-minute boxes that Trump and his aides packed up were turned over to the archives. But according to federal officials, dozens of boxes of documents ended up in the former president’s custody.

That is not the way it’s supposed to happen.

“At 12:01 on Jan. 20, those documents become property of the United States government,” said Lee White, executive director of the National Coalition for History.

People familiar with the departures of Obama, a Democrat, and former Presidents George W. Bush, a Republican, and Bill Clinton, a Democrat, said the process of identifying presidential records and sending them to the archives begins months, if not years, before a president leaves the White House for the final time at noon Jan. 20.

In Obama’s case, the process involved the transfer of millions of digital files from White House systems to the archives. That began months before the president ended his second term, and was done without the direct involvement of Obama, according to a person familiar with the procedures.

According to the archives, “the Obama Presidential Library has the largest set of electronic holdings in the presidential library system, with approximately 250 terabytes of data including approximately 300 million email messages.”

Obama’s office near Washington’s Georgetown neighborhood has a secure facility for making calls and reviewing classified documents. But aides to Obama said he did not request to see any classified documents while writing his book.

“As required by the PRA, former President Obama has no control over where and how NARA stores the presidential records of his administration,” the National Archives and Records Administration said in a statement this month, referring to the Presidential Records Act.

Bush, who left office in 2009, also delivered millions of documents to the archives. People familiar with the transfer of that information said it happened on a regular basis throughout the president’s two terms. One person recalled that any documents deemed protected by the Presidential Records Act would be sent every day by the president’s staff secretary to the Office of Records Management, for eventual transfer to the archives.

Even presidents who were not subject to the 1978 records act have historically treated official documents with care. Michael Beschloss, a historian and a longtime board member for the National Archives Foundation, said that Dwight D. Eisenhower kept classified documents at Fort Ritchie, a military installation in Maryland, while he was in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, writing his memoirs. The former president and military commander would have to apply to see the documents, Beschloss said.

After the FBI searched Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate this month, the former president lashed out, and at one point accused Obama of having left office with many classified documents.

“President Barack Hussein Obama kept 33 million pages of documents, much of them classified,” Trump said in a statement to the press. “How many of them pertained to nuclear? Word is, lots!”

That accusation prompted a quick reply from the archives, which refuted Trump’s claim.

The National Archives “assumed exclusive legal and physical custody of Obama presidential records when President Barack Obama left office in 2017, in accordance with the Presidential Records Act,” the statement said, adding that in addition to about 30 million pages of unclassified records, the agency “maintains the classified Obama presidential records in a NARA facility in the Washington, D.C., area.”

The archives’ authority over presidential records dates to the beginning of the Reagan administration, the result of a Watergate-era backlash over attempts by former President Richard M. Nixon to maintain control over millions of pages of papers and hundreds of hours of audiotapes that helped force his resignation.

Nixon initially reached a deal with President Gerald R. Ford that would have given him control over his papers, the ability to take them to his post-presidential retreat in California and — most controversially — the ability to destroy or modify them as he wished.

But an act passed by Congress after Nixon left office in August 1974 forced him to take his fight to court. He eventually lost at the Supreme Court, in a 7-2 decision.

The legal tug of war over Nixon’s documents led to the passage of the Presidential Records Act. President Jimmy Carter signed the act into law, and it went into effect on the first day of Ronald Reagan’s term in 1981.

“At the time that Nixon went to California, these rules were at best somewhat ambiguous, and the country was relying on the patriotism of a president, as with Eisenhower, following these rules,” Beschloss said. “What Nixon showed the country was that you couldn’t rely on that goodwill.”

The current case involving Trump is another test of the power of the presidency. His office has said he had a “standing order” that materials removed from the Oval Office and taken to the White House residence were deemed to be declassified the moment he removed them, although none of the three potential crimes cited in the FBI search warrant depends on whether removed documents are classified.

National security experts also reject the idea of a standing declassification order, saying that even a presidential directive to remove a document’s classification must follow a rigorous process.

Trump has accused the FBI and the Justice Department of exceeding their authority and of going beyond what the law requires. But the history of the past 40 years suggests that it is Trump whose handling of his presidential documents is out of the norm.

“In the same way Nixon thought the White House tapes were his,” said Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian, “he just fails to understand that you are a servant in the White House, that you don’t own the materials produced there.”

Not a blind eye, Tom. Just waiting for the facts to come out. I see no proof and little evidence that Trump caused or exacerbated the riot on Jan 6. Nor have I seen anything except wild speculation concerning the raid. We have been given seven years of lessons that Democrat and/or left accusations against Trump can not be trusted. Very few of them have turned out to be true, and NONE of them have resulted in charges or convictions. I, and most other conservatives, are simply waiting to see what the facts are.

I’ve read through this entire thread and you and Tom have not yet defended your statement as to why Trump is the “biggest threat to our Democracy this country has ever known”………If you make that kind of grand statement, surely you’re prepared to defend it. There has been a couple of honest attempts for discussion from two conservatives and both have been ignored. If you’re going to create a thread that represents your beliefs and make grand statements, be prepared to defend them for the loyal readers, like me! This one is disappointing. LOL!

Our President has been in politics for decades…….decades of proof of his ineptitude, exaggerations, personal insults, racism, made up ridiculous stories, and blatant lies. Obama couldn’t have been more clear with his remark, Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to F@#-% things up! Joe claimed that he didn’t know anything about the raid…….a lie! He said he had never discussed his son’s business….a lie! So many lies that are being ignored.

Now we have proof that the FBI interfered with the election when they “suggested” Facebook to back off of the story on Hunter’s laptop, knowing that it was a very “dangerous “ story that could drastically effect the outcome of a Presidential election!………who can forget the remark about the Big Guys 10%? Oh right…this is another ignored statement of Hunter’s! 👿 And then there’s the raid to get Biden’s daughters diary! Several incidents of the FBI being used as “bulldogs” for the Democrats, either to dig up evidence against Republicans or to hide evidence of criminal activity of the Dems! There has been a unified effort to destroy Trump since day ONE.

Trump is not the greatest danger………this corrupt government and the agencies that they control, the FBI and DOJ, and most of the MSM…….that is the GREATEST danger! How many Americans will have to die from fentanyl before the invasion from Mexico be addressed? How many illegal aliens have to die, how many of their women and children raped and murdered by the criminals mixed in with the Mexicans…….Don’t tell me that liberals care for these people! If they did they would stop ignoring it! This DANGER may very well destroy this great Nation! All the attention is on a man that is no longer a President, he has no power except the power that the Democrats are giving him by their continual attacks and attempts to destroy him. Calling us a cult, claiming that we believe everything he says, that we idolize him, will follow him anywhere, etc. etc.etc……….This is untrue! We have continually said that it is his policies! Even your friends have told you this. All of this is uniting us. We are not dependent upon Trump being our President or the candidate of the Republican Party. We will support whichever candidate runs against the Democrats!

And on a lighter note! How bout this rain and temperatures under triple digits! It’s been a long hot summer. I can’t believe I’m actually saying this, but I’m ready for cooler weather. I hope this doesn’t mean that we’re going to have a long cold winter! 😂

First of all, I’m not a die hard Trump supporter, I’m a die hard Christian Conservative ! I voted for Trump the first time because of Hillary! The most corrupt woman in politics, IMO. The second time, because of his successful policies. I will vote against whoever the Democrat candidate is! How much more can we as individuals pay for fuel, groceries, a roof over our heads?

You are a contractor so you have lived through the good times, the bad times, and everything in between! Never in our lifetime have we experienced this kind of increase in building materials. Jack built a covered deck on our RV this summer. He paid $9 for treated 2x6’s. App. 2 years ago they would cost $4. Another example, OSB 1/2 inch cost us $9 a sheet on the last job we did, in June there was a stack with a sign $42 a sheet at Home Depot.

“An average home worth 400,000 has gone up 100,000 in the last 12 months”…….this is a quote from the Association of General Contractors. “Steel has gone up 67% in the last year”. “Brass and copper has gone up 49%”. “OSB in May 2021 was $12 and the price today is $40 a sheet”………..All these quotes were given to me by my husband as he was doing a little research on my conversation.

Another quote, “At the end of this year prices may drop 48% for market value of homes”………..This should be a big Wake Up call for everyone. And yes…….we can thank liberal policies and Joe Biden. What are they doing? Everyone on deck to destroy one man that has absolutely no power instead of paying attention to what is happening in America. We’re about to fall off the cliff with no parachute! But, no problem, We Got Trump! Like that’s really going to help us when our economy crashes!


I’ve studied Bible Prophecy for several years…..it’s not looking good. It is my belief that we have been blessed and protected as a nation because of our continual support of Israel. There is an ongoing effort to abandon Israel. Between this and turning a blind eye to the teachings of God and His Instruction Manual, I’m concerned that God will remove His loving protection of our beloved Nation.

It seems like it was the feast or famine type of summer for many Americans. Many suffered from flooding, many suffered from heat and no rain! I’ve never been to Oregon, one of the few states that we never got to, however the pictures are so beautiful. Many years ago, I had a friend from there and she shared many pictures with me. Trees, water, and lots of green, always impressed me, being originally from West Texas!…… Mesquite trees don’t get that tall and they bite! Well, most things bite in West Texas, come to think about it! And forget about the water. The only body of water that we ever swam in was a metal water tank at one of the windmills that Daddy would clean out the moss and water dogs……the cows generously shared their water with us! And green! Sand does not come in green! 😂. I wish everyone could be blessed with the memories of peace, love and happiness that I have of those years in remote West Texas.