https://sputnikglobe.com/20230614/docs-trump-being-prosecuted-for-possessing-should-not-be-secret-from-american-people-1111163000.html
Docs Trump Being Prosecuted Over ‘Should Not Be Secret’ in the First Place
Docs Trump Being Prosecuted Over ‘Should Not Be Secret’ in the First Place
Sputnik International
Donald Trump was arraigned at Miami court on Tuesday on 37 felony counts related to the alleged mishandling of classified documents removed from the White House at the end of his tenure as president in January 2021. But legacy media coverage of the case is burying the lead, says veteran investigative journalist Dave Lindorff.
2023-06-14T19:26+0000
2023-06-14T19:26+0000
2023-06-14T19:44+0000
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The former president of the United States is now facing two prosecutions – one in New York on charges related to the alleged payoff of an ex-porn star, and a second in Florida over the alleged improper handling of tens of thousands of documents stored at his Mar-a-Lago estate after he left office.Trump pled not guilty to all 37 counts in the documents case, including the unlawful retainment of state secrets and conspiring to obstruct justice, and later raged against prosecutors at a rally after his arraignment, suggesting that the charges against him constitute “the most evil and heinous abuse of power in the history of our country.”Trump said he had the right to take “whatever documents” he wanted, repeating that it was within his power as president to declassify any document he deems fit – a claim he has repeated for nearly a year.Dave Lindorff, a veteran investigative journalist and writer, told Sputnik that more than anything, the Trump documents case is an “educational moment” for Americans about the ridiculous degree to which things are overclassified by the federal government.“But on the other hand, for him to have them is a serious crime too. So you gotta keep both those things in check as you think about it. However, I see this as an educational moment for the American people to see the vast amount of stuff that gets classified,” Lindorff said, referring to the overclassification frenzy which results in tens of millions of documents being classified every year, with the total number now consisting of more than a billion documents, and up to a trillion pages.“I mean a lot of the stuff they’re talking about is things like reputational stuff [documents relating] to other people that [Trump] probably kept because he wants to be able to retaliate against them,” Lindorff noted.The journalist added that the government presently knows “so much about us as individuals that should not be known, and we should be able to find out. And the truth, as I’ve learned, is that you can’t get the information you should be able to get even with the Freedom of Information Act.”The journalist said the Trump documents scandal goes to show that talk about democracy in the modern-day United States is basically a “joke,” because in the most important issues facing the nation – matters related to war and peace, the American people aren’t privy to key information to be able to weigh in and participate in the decision-making process.Getting back to the issue of overclassification of government records, the journalist, who recently penned an article related to the Trump case, urged ordinary Americans to show more courage to challenge this secrecy and take on the security state, including by requesting files that intelligence agencies like the NSA or the FBI may have on them – recalling that he first did that in the mid-1970s after the revelations of the Church Committee related to serious abuses by the intelligence apparatus.“I asked for my file and got 21 pages from the FBI. They were fascinating. They were spying on me as an anti-war activist, and not as a big one either. I mean I was an 18-19 year old kid and I had a file. People should know this. And that was the early days. There’s so much spying going on now, you might find something interesting and I think it would be I think educational to people to know what the government is doing,” Lindorff said.For more incisive commentary on current affairs, tune into our Sputnik Radio show By Any Means Necessary.
https://sputnikglobe.com/20230614/trumps-deep-state-enemies-take-persecution-from-congress-to-courts-1111148102.html
https://sputnikglobe.com/20230613/recording-of-trump-discussing-classified-docs-was-part-of-feud-over-iran-with-top-general-1111119014.html
https://sputnikglobe.com/20230614/why-trumps-classified-docs-case-wont-be-easy--speedy-for-bidens-doj-1111160549.html
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donald trump, classified documents, case, overclassification
donald trump, classified documents, case, overclassification
Docs Trump Being Prosecuted Over ‘Should Not Be Secret’ in the First Place
19:26 GMT 14.06.2023 (Updated: 19:44 GMT 14.06.2023) Donald Trump was arraigned at a Miami court on Tuesday on 37 felony counts related to the alleged mishandling of classified documents removed from the White House at the end of his tenure as president in January 2021. But legacy media coverage of the case is burying the lead, says veteran investigative journalist Dave Lindorff.
The former president of the United States is now facing two prosecutions – one in New York on charges related to the alleged payoff of an ex-porn star, and a second in Florida over the alleged improper handling of tens of thousands of documents stored at his Mar-a-Lago estate after he left office.
Trump
pled not guilty to all 37 counts in the documents case, including the unlawful retainment of state secrets and conspiring to obstruct justice, and later
raged against prosecutors at a rally after his arraignment, suggesting that the charges against him constitute “the most evil and heinous abuse of power in the history of our country.”
Trump said he had the right to take “whatever documents” he wanted, repeating that it was within his power as president to declassify any document he deems fit – a claim he has repeated for nearly a year.
Dave Lindorff, a veteran investigative journalist and writer,
told Sputnik that more than anything, the Trump documents case is an “educational moment” for Americans about the ridiculous degree to which things are overclassified by the federal government.
“I mean the fact that he’s got nuclear information about the vulnerabilities of America’s nuclear weapons, or the vulnerability of other countries’ nuclear weapons, or that he has documents about a US plan to attack Iran – these are things that, first of all, should not be secret from the American people,” Lindorff said.
“But on the other hand, for him to have them is a serious crime too. So you gotta keep both those things in check as you think about it. However, I see this as an educational moment for the American people to see the vast amount of stuff that gets classified,” Lindorff said, referring to the overclassification frenzy which results in
tens of millions of documents being classified every year, with the total number now consisting of
more than a billion documents, and up to a trillion pages.
“I mean a lot of the stuff they’re talking about is things like reputational stuff [documents relating] to other people that [Trump] probably kept because he wants to be able to retaliate against them,” Lindorff noted.
The journalist added that the government presently knows “so much about us as individuals that should not be known, and we should be able to find out. And the truth, as I’ve learned, is that you can’t get the information you should be able to get even with the Freedom of Information Act.”
The journalist said the Trump documents scandal goes to show that talk about democracy in the modern-day United States is basically a “joke,” because in the most important issues facing the nation – matters related to war and peace, the American people aren’t privy to key information to be able to weigh in and participate in the decision-making process.
“All these decisions about US military violence abroad are made in total secrecy within the National Security Council, the Oval Office and the war Rooms in the Pentagon. And that’s not a democracy,” Lindorff said.
Getting back to the issue of overclassification of government records, the journalist, who recently
penned an article related to the Trump case, urged ordinary Americans to show more courage to challenge this secrecy and take on the security state, including by requesting files that intelligence agencies like the NSA or the FBI may have on them – recalling that he first did that in the mid-1970s after the revelations of the
Church Committee related to serious abuses by the intelligence apparatus.
“I asked for my file and got 21 pages from the FBI. They were fascinating. They were spying on me as an anti-war activist, and not as a big one either. I mean I was an 18-19 year old kid and I had a file. People should know this. And that was the early days. There’s so much spying going on now, you might find something interesting and I think it would be I think educational to people to know what the government is doing,” Lindorff said.
For more incisive commentary on current affairs, tune into our Sputnik Radio show By Any Means Necessary. 
