The “If he can keep interview tapes with his socks, you can keep classified docs” theory of document retention
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The Judicial Watch president suggested to Trump that if the Archives came back, he should not give up any additional records, according to sources with knowledge of their conversations, which have not been previously reported.
While Trump continued to publicly tout his cooperation with the Archives, privately the former President began obsessing over Fitton’s arguments, complaining to aides about the 15 boxes that were handed over and becoming increasingly convinced that he should have full control over records that remained at Mar-a-Lago, according to people with knowledge of his behavior at the time.
Trump even asked Fitton at one point to brief his attorneys, said a person familiar with the matter.
What a treat that would have been for them if it happened. Some obsequious trash muppet who never had to jab pins into their legs to stay awake through corporate law tells them how to lawyer and they probably wouldn’t get paid for the time it takes to pretend to listen to him.
I would have liked to see the looks on their faces.
In true right wing fashion Fitton’s certainty that he is right is based on a case that Judicial Watch filed against the National Archives in 2012. And lost.
Fitton told Trump that he had case law on his side due to Fitton’s own failed effort a decade ago to gain access to certain records from former President Bill Clinton’s time in office. In 2012, Judicial Watch sued to require the Archives to designate as presidential records audio recordings then-President Clinton made with a historian named Taylor Branch. Doing so would make them subject to Freedom of Information Act requests.
The Post, citing seven advisers to the former president, said Trump was extraordinarily stubborn when it came to negotiating with government officials. When one of his attorneys, Christopher Kise, suggested meeting with the Justice Department to negotiate a settlement that could avoid charges, Trump reportedly rejected that plan. Instead, he listened to the advice of Tom Fitton, the president of the conservative group Judicial Watch, who told him he could keep the documents and that he should fight Justice Department efforts to see them returned.
[…]
The Post reported that Trump would regularly cite Fitton to his advisers as the fight with investigators continued, and the man often asserted to the former president’s attorneys that Trump could keep the documents. Several of those advisers told the Post that they blame Fitton for convincing Trump he had the right to keep the classified files.
These same advisers are trying to get that man, whom they openly admit will only listen to people who tell him he can do whatever he wants, back into the White House. Where he can again inflict all 42 bazillion of his personality flaws on the entire world. And so can they. They can get fucked sideways with Tom Fitton’s penny loafers.
But not before these assholes have a turn.
Some advisers added that the FBI and National Archives’ insistence that Trump return the government documents only made him want to keep them more.
The fact that he shouldn’t have had the documents in the first place? Doesn’t matter. The fact that he had classified information in cardboard boxes scattered around a country club? Big deal. People should have said “Pretty Please with Sugar on Top” and waited for his orangeness to decide whether he wanted to return the documents. The septuagenarian pervert who has worse impulse control than a squirrel on meth must be appeased at all times!
Fitton maintains that he is right and the DOJ is wrong and tRump’s attorneys were wimps.
Fitton told the Post he didn’t understand “any” of the indictment, saying he believed the charges leveled against the former president were a “trap.” He added that Trump’s lawyers should have been more aggressive in fighting the subpoenas issued by the government.
Of course all of this is working out just swimmingly, for Tom Fitton. He hasn’t been indicted, he is getting attention from the press and Glump rewarded his ability to say things he wanted to hear back in 2020. He put him on the D.C. Commission on Judicial Disabilities and Tenure, a position that will expire in 2025.
People who post off-topic comments want to tongue polish the toilets in Mar-a-Lago.
