Julian Assange Reaches Plea Deal With US, Allowing Him To Go Free (cnn.com) 248
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has agreed to a plea deal with the U.S. Justice Department over his alleged role in one of the largest U.S. government breaches of classified material. As a result, he will avoid imprisonment in the United States. CNN reports: Under the terms of the new agreement (PDF), Justice Department prosecutors will seek a 62-month sentence -- which is equal to the amount of time Assange has served in a high-security prison in London while he fought extradition to the US. The plea deal would credit that time served, allowing Assange to immediately return to Australia, his native country. The plea deal must still be approved by a federal judge.
Assange had faced 18 counts from a 2019 indictment for his alleged role in the breach that carried a max of up to 175 years in prison, though he was unlikely to be sentenced to that time in full. Assange was being pursued by US authorities for publishing confidential military records supplied by former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning in 2010 and 2011. US officials alleged that Assange goaded Manning into obtaining thousands of pages of unfiltered US diplomatic cables that potentially endangered confidential sources, Iraq war-related significant activity reports and information related to Guantanamo Bay detainees.
Assange had faced 18 counts from a 2019 indictment for his alleged role in the breach that carried a max of up to 175 years in prison, though he was unlikely to be sentenced to that time in full. Assange was being pursued by US authorities for publishing confidential military records supplied by former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning in 2010 and 2011. US officials alleged that Assange goaded Manning into obtaining thousands of pages of unfiltered US diplomatic cables that potentially endangered confidential sources, Iraq war-related significant activity reports and information related to Guantanamo Bay detainees.
A disgrace (Score:2, Interesting)
... if anything shows just how much we are lied to, it was the wikileaks releases, and the liars did everything they could to stitch him up.
The excellent book 'The Trial of Julian Assange" details the lies we were told about Assange and Wikileaks. If you haven't read it it's very unlikely you know the true story.
But nevermind. It's slashdot. We'll get downmodded by slashdot's social credit score system and people who repeat the lies will get upmodded.
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Nothing Assange 'exposed' put the U.S. in a negative light in any way whatsoever.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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You act like there are no rules about this but there absolutely are. If you're not sure someone is a combatant or a civilian you can't just shoot them and figure it out later. You can tell right away the Americans weren't sure if they were hostiles, they even try to get confirmation but they are impatient and want blood so they shoot anyway. It's not "fog of war" nor is it "friendly fire". It also wouldn't be the first time Americans have shot journalists either accidentally or deliberately.
Just because Ame
Re: A disgrace (Score:2)
He was stuck in the Ecuadorian embassy, actually. And for seven years.
Kudos to you though, you managed to name a foreign country. Quite a feat and testimony to your expert insights.
Re: A disgrace (Score:2)
Smartest move he’s made in (Score:3)
I sincerely hope he gets to go home. The guy is now harmless, and we’ve more than made our point. Freedom is probably within his grasp, if he makes the choice to take it.
Saving Face (Score:4, Interesting)
The U.S. has been under increasing pressure to stop going after Assange. This is how the U.S. acquiesces without overtly looking like it's doing so.
Pressure from who? (Score:3, Insightful)
But besides Republican and Russian trolls that show up on left-wing forums to drop his name and try (successfully) to cause trouble in left-wing spaces I can't imagine anyone caring. I think that he was a bit of a boo
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Who modded you up?
Hillary was what, 1% of the leaks that Wikileaks published? There's truckloads of other, more damning, stuff that Julian published, including documented US war crimes.
If Hillary were the main problem, you'd think Trump would've stopped the whole thing and given him a medal.
Journalism kind of died when we let Reagan eliminate all antitrust log and a handful of billionaires by up every single newsroom and radio station and local TV news room in the country. There is still good journalism being done but it doesn't have the broad reach that it did back when they took Nixon down
Agree on that.
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To me it wasn't even about journalistic protection... though that should also be of paramount and inviolable importance... but jurisdiction. Assange is not a US citizen. And so fart as I've ever been able to discern he was not within US borders when he supposedly committed his so-called "crimes." So every other nation involved in that entire bout of disgraceful shenanigans... UK, Sweden, Ecuador, his own Australia, EVERYONE... should have told Washington DC to go pound sand. Assange should no more be ob
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I think this is quite a fair deal here.
After all, while the information was important to publish, we do have to remember that, as far as I am aware, he conspired with Manning to get this data. Assange told the guy to do it and how to do it. And that is a no-no for a reporter.
Had Manning been self-motivated and handed the information over ideally after trying to go through official channels first, that would be a different matter.
Now I am not saying that Assange shouldn't have done it. That is up to him. But
Now do Snowden next. (Score:3)
I guess that's going to take a little longer, though.
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You can have dual citizenship in some cases. I do, but not with Russia.
The US state department says Snowden is still a citizen.
That's may not be relevant, though. Citizenship didn't stop the US from asserting a case against Assange, who was never a US citizen to begin with.
Re: Now do Snowden next. (Score:2)
Snowden doesn't need a "visa" (visum;), his passport was revoked by the US while in transit from Hong-Kong to Latin America so the US effectively got him stuck in Russia. Their narrative seem to have gone down well with the general populace.
A passport is permission from your own country to go abroad. A visum is permission from a foreign country to enter. So, a country never gives visa to its own citizens.
Been abroad much?
But yea. Snowden's been stuck there for way too long.
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I have to imagine Snowden being a US citizen and a government contractor whereas Assange was neither means they are going to be more steadfast on him coming back and facing charges.
Re: Now do Snowden next. (Score:2)
Snowden leaked the documents while working at Booz Allen Hamilton, one of the private contractors in the military-industrial complex. While he had previously worked for the CIA, technocally he wasn't under any government contract. Just FYI.
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Lol, wut? How exactly was he not a government contractor while he was a government contractor?
Free speech and democracy anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
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"...continue to hurt freedom of the press and freedom of speech for decades to come."
Some might say 'working as intended, then.'
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That the US should have any grounds for getting Assange for having shown what they have done to civilians around the world is quite absurd.
Normally, the person in question is removed from life entirely, like the Boeing whistleblowers.
Look, it doesn't matter what you or I think is right or even correct. What matters is that those in power want full control. They are slaves to human nature because they never receive any reality checks. It will only get worse until the USA itself collapses as an entity. There is zero chance that a person who is not a slave to their desire for power will ever have power in the current system.
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Assange isn't being tried for Whistleblowing or for a free speech violation. He was being charged with crimes that he committed in the process of obtaining that information. Most notably, no one else at Wikileaks, no one else publishing that information, or anyone other than the guy who mishandled secure information and the guy who helped him gain unauthorised access to a computer have been in any way punished.
You can't justify a crime by exposing another crime. Literally no country on earth have Whistleblo
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He exposed NO war crimes.
Someone hasn't being paying attention.
Re: Julian Assange Allowed to Go Free (Score:2)
And... (Score:3)
...when he returns to Australia, "new proof" will apear, reopen the case, be extradited from Australia without a hassle and silenced.
/. useless for anything political. (Score:3)
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The problem is that a bunch of these people are well-paid, and therefore in a position to be dumb and happy. By the time the systemic collapse reaches them in an inconvenient way, it will be way too late to do anything about it.
Anyone remember the Sweden cases (Score:2)
Worst crime ever (Score:2, Insightful)
FREE KEVIN (Score:3)
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Easier to take him out once he is released from prison.
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just as easy as having him die in prison ...
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More paperwork involved.
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Mr. Epstein and his business partner in a French prison would both like a word with you.
Except they both died mysterious deaths in prison.
Re:Which weighs more? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a weird debate to try to turn into a pro-Trump political argument.
There have been zero deaths directly linked to Assange's leaks. When asked the Pentagon said "We have yet to see any harm come to anyone in Afghanistan that we can directly tie to exposure in the Wikileaks documents." And given the efforts to charge Assange with a variety of crimes I believe if there was any links it would have been publicised. https://www.bbc.com/news/world... [bbc.com]
On the other hand a large number of CIA informants were killed in 2021. This has frequently been linked to Trump, conversations he had alone with Putin, documents in his possession and documents he published. https://www.foxnews.com/media/... [foxnews.com] https://www.theguardian.com/us... [theguardian.com]
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He read it in some documents that were stuffed into a magazine rack of a Mar-a-lago bathroom.
Re:Which weighs more? (Score:5, Informative)
How could you POSSIBLY know that, especially given the nature of that community?
The community said so. They frequently say stuff like "could place at risk lives of countless innocent individuals", but when asked directly how many people were actually hurt they say "no one". Remember secrets aren't absolute, government agencies are more than happy to release information when it furthers their interests.
* Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell "We have yet to see any harm come to anyone in Afghanistan that we can directly tie to exposure in the Wikileaks documents."
* Brigadier general Robert Carr, who headed the review on the impact of WikiLeaks disclosures, to court "I don't have a specific example,"
Carr's evidence in the Manning trial is particularly interesting, because he initially claimed that there was one Afghan who was killed due to the Wikileaks publications. However on cross examination he admitted that the individual wasn't actually named in the leaks. The Taliban claimed they killed someone named in the leaks who actually wasn't actually there, a claim which Carr repeated. it seems like both the Taliban and US governments had an interest in claiming related deaths to the extent of being willing to make one up.
Carr's evidence shows that the US government wants to link the leaks to deaths, is willing to provide information to link the leaks to deaths, even to the extent of claiming links when there actually weren't any. Their clear desire to publicize such a link and the fact that they haven't done so is strong evidence that no link exists.
The evidence around the 2021 deaths and the link to Trump is less clear, the primary source of information is a CIA cable that was partly reprinted by the New York Times. The NYT reported that "dozens" of informants were lost (died and double crossed), the cable had a specific number, it also recommended tightening a number of operational practices to improve matters. Other reporting has drawn links between those losses and Trump's actions. We may get more concrete information when the classifieds document trial eventually proceeds.
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https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/12... [cnn.com]
*time passes*
https://thehill.com/policy/nat... [thehill.com]
Look, I'm just asking questions here.
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No, you are posting links without any summaries.
Are you new here? Moron.
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Trump has several off the record meetings with Putin. Some time later the CIA releases a report on how dozens of informants and assets are killed.
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so the cia incurs in propaganda and misinformation. what's new?
are you really implying that trump passed a list of informants, and those were subsequently executed instead of exploiting that knowledge? i'm surprised by the level of infantilism of that suggestion, particularly coming from you. both fabulations are preposterous by themeselves, but putting them together is just ... does the coming election really make you that itchy? ;-)
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are you really implying that trump passed a list of informants, and those were subsequently executed instead of exploiting that knowledge?
Here's what happens when the KGB catches moles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
On October 1, 1985, Hanssen sent an anonymous letter to the KGB offering his services and asking for $100,000 in cash, equivalent to $280,000 in 2023.[24] In the letter, he gave the names of three KGB agents secretly working for the FBI: Boris Yuzhin, Valery Martynov, and Sergei Motorin. Although Hanssen was unaware of it, Ames had already exposed all three agents earlier that year.[25] Yuzhin had returned to Moscow in 1982 and
Re: Which weighs more? (Score:2)
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All the lives of our spies, confidential informants, translators, and everyone who ever helped us at extreme risk to their own lives, and mountains of critical wartime classified material, all of which Assange eagerly and maliciously exposed. And the need to prevent that from happening again...
stop the drama. he exposed criminal behavior by the state, and nothing happened to the state. you know that, karen.
Or, a few more votes to keep Joe Biden in power?
that can be. maybe they thought he was about to win his extradition case anyway, a deal would let him go free much sooner (the guy has already endured way too much) and spare the us the embarrasment plus a few more desperate votes for that warmonger and genocide cheerleader.
Re: Which weighs more? (Score:2)
Collateral Murder: killing of innocent civilians including Reuters journalists, for example? https://collateralmurder.wikil... [wikileaks.org]
Re: Which weighs more? (Score:2)
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It's wild that Trump supporters not only think that the President is ordering direct actions though the DOJ but that they should.
This is two stubborn parties finally realizing what they needed to do. The DOJ needed. to come away with something of a guilty verdict and Assange didn't want to face trial in the US. His times served in UK was just a good excuse for everyone to put this to rest finally.
The US effectively got what it wanted in the end, Assange doesn't seem like a guy with many bridges left to bur
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Thanks for proving my point.
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This allegation has been repeatedly made since the first Wikileaks leak back in 2010, IIRC.
There never was a shred of evidence such a thing has happened. Not one.
On the other hand, the many baseless charges against Assange (the "rape", the "hacking", etc.), whatever his personality is, have been for 15 years now a constant generator of anti-democracy and anti-West propaganda, very successful at that, precisely because they were bullshit and baseless and were easy to attack.
It is a pretty smart move that the
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This is so ridiculous I don't know even when to start...
I guess just deny, deny, deny, since all this stuff is classified
What a universal excuse. I don't "deny", I just point out there is a total lack of credible evidence in support of this claim. Occam's razor says that it is very unlikely data on harmful consequences of the leak will stay secret. Therefore, it is very plausible that actual damage is very far from what you make it out to be.
How about some real damage? Give us a ballpark, what did real damage, the cut'n'run of the US from Eye-rack and Oh-ganistan, which
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It is a fact that Assange leaked the names of confidential sources causing many deaths.
no, it isn't.
World Service interview with David Shoebridge (Score:2)
Good interview addressing this 1m23s into this BBC World Service radio programme with New South Wales Senator David Shoebridge:
Newsday - Julian Assange leaves the UK after being freed in US plea deal [bbc.co.uk]
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Draw your own conclusions, but in my opinion releasing these names en masse was unnecessary and makes it difficult to side with him
I've never sided with him for exactly this reason but that isn't and should not be a criminal act. The US has no Official Secrets Act [wikipedia.org]. If I somehow come into possession of classified information, as a normal John Q. Public with no security clearance, I have no obligation to keep that information secret. I can scan it and release it to the world. I can call the FBI and turn it in. I can do anything in the middle of those two extremes. I have not broken the law.
What got Assange into trouble isn't the f
Re: better get it done before trump is voted back (Score:2)
The White house had no say in this, the decision was made by the court.
Though one has to admit, what does Trump care what the courts say.
Happy to read about his release. What a farce this whole extradition request had been for way too long.
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Sentenced to Transportation. It's how many in both Australia and America got new starts in life.
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Re:better get it done before trump is voted back i (Score:4, Insightful)
What was Trump's most popular rally cries in 2016?
"LOCK HER UP!" was it? Yeah I recall that. For an "offense" that was thoroughly investigated that came up with absolutely nothing.
Now he is claiming he never said that.
Were it not for interference by Aileen Cannon on behalf of Trump we would have seen another 90+ guilty verdict on their way by now.
And this is the guy you support. Trump cultists are pathetic.
Re: better get it done before trump is voted back (Score:2)
"Now he's claiming he never said that"
Citation needed.
Re: better get it done before trump is voted back (Score:4, Informative)
“You famously said, regarding Hillary Clinton, ‘Lock her up,'" Fox co-host Will Cain reminded Trump. "You declined to do that as president.”
Trump responded, “I didn’t say ‘Lock her up,’ but the people would all say ‘Lock her up, lock her up.’” He said he felt imprisoning Clinton would have been “a terrible thing,” adding, “I say – and I said pretty openly, I said, all right, come on, just relax, let’s go, we’ve got to make our country great.”
https://www.youtube.com/live/H... [youtube.com]
You can listen to his words and read them. One google search.
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I thought it was "Build that wall". Or "Make America great again". But perhaps you visited even more rallies than I did.
I can't beleive people sometimes (Score:5, Insightful)
Does it make absolutely no difference to you whether crimes were actually commuted or just alleged?
Hillary is probably the single most investigated individual in all human history. There were many allegations. Never any evidence of any crime, ever.
Don't pretend that Trump did not try to actually "LOCK HER UP." He did. His own AGs (Sessions then Barr) denied him, knowing there is nothing that they could take to court that just wouldn't be summarily tossed. There was no there there.
In contrast, Trump did actually commit crimes. He exacerbated those crimes with further perfidious behavior. He did it in public. He bragged about it. He left mountains of evidence around and just a piece of it was enough to convince a Grand Jury (NOT Biden) and then a jury of guilt. Even the guy who said he got his news from Truth Social voted guilty.
Were it not for Alieen Cannon, Trump's "own" judge, he would have another trial underway for acts thousands of times worse than anything Hillary was ever even accused of.
Were it not for Fani Willis' idiotic lapse there would have been ANOTHER trial underway, also indicted by a Grand Jury (again, NOT Biden) in Georgia. More felonies.
Yet to Trump cultists and, worse, to the self-proclaimed "non partisan" voices of reason, it isn't a matter of crimes with testable evidence being committed or not. It is all about who is in power. My side versus your side. If you play dirty that means I can play dirty too.
Pretend all you want. I agree that Republicans will, if they have the power to do so, will do what they accuse Biden of doing. They are already doing it. They have done it. With them, every accusation is a confession and that as much the case here as anywhere else.
Re:I can't beleive people sometimes (Score:4, Insightful)
This reminds me so much of Nixon. Remember him claiming that if the president does it then it can't be illegal? Trump is living that attitude.
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Hillary is probably the single most investigated individual in all human history. There were many allegations. Never any evidence of any crime, ever.
Your logic is astoundingly poor. Just to remind you of something that she did that was absolutely illegal, she ran a "personal" email server that had classified information flow through it and then deleted it when it came time to investigate.
There is no way to excuse that. There is no way to say that was she did was legal. And yet here you sit claiming she is not a criminal and has been investigated deeply so she can't be a criminal... and yet speak to anyone who has ever held a clearance, and ALL of them w
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Before Biden took power. The justice department was looking into a lot of things about Trump. New York City was investigating him before he declared he was running for 2016 - rumor is that he ran for president to delay the investigations.
Also, since the January 6th debacle happened just before he left office, and the classified documents were after he left, there's no way they could have been investigated before then.
As for Hillary, there was no crime except for a technicality. Almost nobody gets prosecu
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Before he ran for president, everyone knew he was a bit shady. I don't know why others don't pick up on that or just automatically assume innocence just because they voted for him.
The reason it took this long is because Trump's primary defense strategy is to delay, delay, delay. Lot's of frivolous motions, even repeating the same motions that were already rejected. He's rich, has friends, and unlike you or me justice moves slowly for them.
Re:better get it done before trump is voted back i (Score:5, Insightful)
250 years? You realize we almost charged Nixon before he resigned. Presidents are not above the law, they are not immune from the law, especially for crimes commited while not even in office. It's unprecedented precisely because it's unprecidented that a presidential candidate or past president would have been indicted on crimes. Trump doesn't even deny the evidence, he's just denying that the law applies to him or that the other side has done the same thing.
Biden is staying out of this. It's the justice department, the special counsel, New York City, and Georgia that are doing this, and the grand juries. I don't see how this is Biden being a mastermind while at the same time Trump is campaining that Biden is more senile than he is. The "witch hunt" is just a campaign slogan, because he hopes to pardon himself. And if Biden is such a mastermind, how come his son was convicted?
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The crime with Merchan was stated clearly and up front in the trial. There was no surprise. Maybe it's unusual to people outside New York, but ignorance of the law has never been an excuse. Trump, or his lawyers, did not even bother with a half hearted defense, instead the campaigned out in front of the court as if he cared more about public opinion than that of the judge and jury. Ie, he actively insulted the judge during the trial: even the dumbest criminal knows not to do that. He repeatedly violate
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No dummy. NY state law [nysenate.gov] doesn't require the second crime to be specified, or for Trump to be put on trial or found guilty of that second crime for falsification of business records to be elevated to a felony. Trump's lawyers tried that angle in court and the law was duly wheeled out to demonstrate the it was nonsense. Even so, the prosecution presented evidence of 3 crimes that falsification of business records was in furtherance of - violation of state tax laws, violation of campaign finance limits and viol
Re:better get it done before trump is voted back i (Score:5, Informative)
Trump actually did have the DOJ investigate Hillary. [thehill.com] Trump also used Congressional funds to try to bribe Zelensky into providing false evidence in an investigation of Joe Biden [cnn.com]
It must be terrifying to live in the modern world with such a meager grasp of recent events. Trump is not the answer your're looking for though.
Re:better get it done before trump is voted back i (Score:5, Insightful)
You claim Biden is an authoritarian because a local prosecutor in New York investigated Trump (happens all the time), and found probable cause to believe that Trump had committed crimes (and a jury of 12 convicted him on 34 counts). It seems like actually prosecuting crimes by those an authority is what makes the investigations important to do in a democracy.
But when Trump directs the DOJ to investigate his the last two Democratic nominees for president you claim it is NBD to investigate (leaving aside that Trump asked for Biden to be framed), therefore Trump will save America from Biden's authoritarianism. Your position is so wildly incoherent that I have to interpret your voluminous posting on the topic as a cry for help.
So I'll try to help. The DOJ probably refused to prosecute Trump himself (as opposed to Michael Cohen [wikipedia.org]) because it would be seen as a political move and because every DOJ attorney knows who his boss will be if Biden loses. Notably, Trump planned to weaken civil service protections to make government employees loyal to him [washingtonpost.com]. That is what authoritarianism looks like.
Re:better get it done before trump is voted back i (Score:5, Informative)
What he did was actually do the crime he accused Hillary of committing! Hillary had classified documents, but returned them when asked. Biden had unclassified documents, but returned them when asked. Trump had classified documents, denied he had them, bragged that he had them, claimed that he declassified them just by thinking about them, claimed they were his personal property, lied to the feds directly that he returned every thing he had, hid the documents he didn't turn over and moved them to rooms that didn't have cameras. If Trumpers can't see the difference between those scenarios then they're a part of the cult.
Trump didn't drain the swamp, but he added so many alligators to it that now you can cross it without getting your feet wet.
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That's not how the laws work. You have obviously never had classified documents training.
Short version: mere possession of classified documents in a place or way you're not supposed is grounds for and has been handled as: you lose your job, your freedom and eat a huge fine. Saying sorry and returning them or taking them by accident does not in any way lessen the severity of the crime, Period. End of story. No excuses.
That's how little people are treated. Fucked. Life is over. Even for trivial mistakes of un
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That's not how the laws work. You have obviously never had classified documents training.
Short version: mere possession of classified documents in a place or way you're not supposed is grounds for and has been handled as: you lose your job, your freedom and eat a huge fine. Saying sorry and returning them or taking them by accident does not in any way lessen the severity of the crime, Period. End of story. No excuses.
That's how little people are treated. Fucked. Life is over. Even for trivial mistakes of unimportant stuff.
While it can be handled that way, it generally is not. If it were, a significant percentage of civilian government employees and military members would be gone. There is a lot of leeway in how you treat it based on the circumstances and the type of material.
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I was sternly warned about data handling during training and reminded several times along the way and saw one guy get super fucked for some pretty minor stuff but he wasn't a national politician. Yes circumstances are critical. Politicians can do anything, little people get fucked.
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I was sternly warned about data handling during training and reminded several times along the way and saw one guy get super fucked for some pretty minor stuff but he wasn't a national politician. Yes circumstances are critical. Politicians can do anything, little people get fucked.
That shouldn't be a shock. In America, there's the law as it exists for the common man, then the law as it exists for rock stars, movie stars, uber rich folks, and politicians. Those are two completely different rulebooks, and anybody falling under the common man laws can STFU about it and die for all the rest care. We built the law to protect the owner class and their friends. We did not build the law to take care of everyone equally.
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Well, that would at least give him a place in the history books: The one that ran amok.
Wow. 10 bucks. (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, it is true that Judge Juan Merchan, who presided over former President Donald Trump’s case, made small donations to Democratic causes. According to Federal Election Commission records, Merchan donated a total of $35 to ActBlue, a Democratic fundraising platform, in July 2020. These donations included $15 earmarked for Biden for President and $10 each to the Progressive Turnout Project and Stop Republicans. The donations were noted to be small and classified as de minimis contributions by the Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics, which stated that such contributions do not reasonably call into question a judge’s impartiality.
I guess I'd be in trouble if I ran for office since I checked all those donation boxes on my tax return for the last 20 years.
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So both men had documents they were not supposed to have. What happened after each of them discovered said documents?
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Biden gave them all back and Trump gave some back but tried to hide the rest so that he could keep them?
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That's not how the laws work. You have obviously never had classified documents training.
Short version: mere possession of classified documents in a place or way you're not supposed is grounds for and has been handled as: you lose your job, your freedom and eat a huge fine. Saying sorry and returning them or taking them by accident does not in any way lessen the severity of the crime, Period. End of story. No excuses.
That's how normal people are treated. Fucked. Life is over. Even for trivial mistakes
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How laws work? Intent and mens rea are crucial components to law, especially this one and there are clear, very clear.
You're smarter than to pull the "hurr, normal people" card because you know that isn't the case.
18 USC 1924 includes the word "knowingly", that's not just flavor text, it means something.
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Were your trainers in fact trained attorneys going over the specific interpretation of a case involving improper possession of classified documents or were they doing their job to explain the importance of rules and the letter of the law, much like a DR ving instructor isn't going to tell you "oh, the law says this but you can actually speed a little, everyone does it"
You got details on the case of your coworker and what he was charged with? Was he under federal indictment or just fired? Do we not think the
Short memory? (Score:5, Informative)
"I love Wikileaks." - Donald J Trump, 2016 [youtube.com]
Re:Short memory? (Score:5, Insightful)
Trump supporters, and Trump himself, all have a short memory. The "truth" is whatever Trump says *today* regardless of what he said yesterday.
Re:Short memory? (Score:5, Insightful)
We have always been at war with East Asia.
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We have a lot of incest jokes, among others, about that part of the world. I don't think I'd go as far as declaring war on it though.
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He probably thought Wikileaks was related to the Hamburgler.
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Whatever he thought about Wikileaks, it was his administration that put Assange in jail.
https://apnews.com/article/ass... [apnews.com].
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It means that Assange was a go between Russian hackers and operators like Roger Stone to steal and disseminate emails from the Democratic party. Assange would undoubtedly have also been smacked with charges for that if he had set foot on US soil.
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Trump was never "voted in" in the first place, he was a massive vote loser in both 2016 and 2020, and much worse the second time. But that's not even relevant, because he's not legally eligible for office - any office - under the 14th Amendment
The problem is, the Constitution doesn't actually mention the presidential oath of office. To be fair, that's because prior to roughly when that amendment was passed, no president had ever taken an oath to defend the constitution, IIRC. (The current oath began during the Civil War, right around the time that the 14th amendment was ratified.) So it's entirely unclear whether the amendment should cover the presidency. That mostly depends on whether it was intended mainly as a penalty for future insurrecti
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Re: better get it done before trump is voted back (Score:3)
Here's the funny thing about whether or not DJT could vote this fall in Florida. Florida law would not permit him to vote if he was convicted in Florida and given probation until after the entire sentence with probation was served. However, New York State allows a convicted felon to vote while under probation as long as any incarceration has ended. AND, Florida follows the voting right provision of the state in which a Florida resident was convicted. So, DJT gets the benefit of New York law and not the hars
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The fact that they just basically made up their own pseudo-English language to excuse legalizing machine guns from the bench looks pretty sinister.
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Trump was never "voted in" in the first place
To settle this one, we still need our patriots to find Hillary Clinton's email server which was allegedly shipped off to Ukraine and hidden in an underground vault.
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I read the admin asked for help on Reddit on how to bit bleech it
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Uh, you don't seem to understand how our election system works. You don't have to like it but we do not elect the President based on the popular vote. This was covered a zillion times before.
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Well, if you don't vote for a lizard, then the wrong lizard might get in.