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Cake day: June 13th, 2023

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  • Is the Secret Service actually empowered to stop a former official (not in office) from doing anything? It’s my understanding former office holders can waive SS protection, so I would presume compliance with SS recommendations or orders is purely optional. Of course there’s nothing stopping SS from phoning Jack Smith to let them know Trump just boarded a plane to Moscow…



  • This probably isn’t of interest in the GA indictment in which Trump is commenting about, but I’d have to imagine Jack Smith is taking notice that a criminal defendant accused of mishandling classified information is joking about flying to Russia. It’s plausible that Trump has classified information at other properties. While less plausible as Trump is a total dope, it’s technically possible he’s got classified information digitized and ready to go with him to Russia. This should be setting off alarm bells everywhere. Anyone else with four major indictments with 91 charges would have been locked up in jail by now.



  • I think there was going to be a conference. Trump may or may not have produced the “total exoneration” document he’s been crowing about. If he did, it undoubtedly would have been the same drivel cited in the indictment as fabricated misinformation/lies. If he didn’t, he’d say it was still being finished. Either way, the conservative world would be citing the document as proof of his innocence. I think the document is merely a distraction. Trump was going to use this conference as a call to arms directed at his idiot thug horde. He’s badly wanting to launch January 6th 2.0 against Fulton County. I think he backed off when his lawyers told him he’d end up in a jail cell until trial. This is all total speculation on my part, but quite plausible I think.




  • We’re talking about law enforcement agencies, not an IT department. Of course it’s technically possible to image a machine quickly. However, there are all kinds of steps and rules for chain of custody, transporting evidence, cataloging it, storing, examining it, etc. and a finite number of personnel to perform the work. Revisiting the child pornography example I used, fingerprints and DNA evidence on equipment could be quite relevant to a case. There may even be a need to examine hard drive platters (old school spinning disk, not SSD obviously) to determine if there was data deleted in the past. It’s rather simplistic to say it’s a matter of just imaging and returning as quickly as possible. I agree the equipment being gone often presents a hardship for a defendant, but arguing that it’s intentionally set up this way to inflict cruelty ignores the reality of investigations.


  • How is a law enforcement agent staring at some workstations and computers to know what equipment was involved in the alleged crime they are raiding the facility for? If the FBI was raiding a home for child abuse and pornography, there’s no way they have the access or expertise at the time of a raid to know the server in the corner is only for Mastodon, the box over there is just a Linux firewall, and that box over there is a porn server. There’s no practical way to trust a defendant on site as to what is relevant to an investigation or not. I agree that unnecessary confiscation is a problem, but in general I don’t think the ill intent is there. I’m not a law enforcement officer, nor am I lobbying in any way for them, I’m just putting myself in their shoes in this situation.