He's In The Driver's Seat

"President Donald Trump accumulated hundreds of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago during his presidency and the tumultuous transition of power to Biden in 2021. Officials repeatedly demanded those documents and other unclassified files back."

"Trump aides returned 15 boxes in January 2022. Prosecutors acquired another 38 classified documents in June 2022 in response to a grand jury subpoena, but were convinced more remained."

"A court-ordered FBI search in August 2022 turned up more than 100 additional classified records, including 17 “top secret” documents."

Josh Gerstein, Politico 

 

"President Donald Trump has made no secret of his desire to see his critics investigated, pressuring the Justice Department to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James."

"We can't delay any longer, it's killing our reputation and credibility," the president wrote last month in a Truth Social post."

"They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!)" he said, referencing the four criminal cases he faced after leaving the White House in 2021 and James's civil case."

"Both have since been charged, in cases that many experts have said appear to be politically motivated and difficult to win in court."

Kayla Epstein, BBC   

 

 

"An objective and thorough review will show nothing inappropriate was stored or kept by Amb. Bolton. These materials, many of which are documents that had been approved as part of a pre-publication review for Amb. Bolton’s book, were reviewed and closed years ago."

"These are the kinds of ordinary records, many of which are 20 years old or more, that would be kept by a longtime career official who served at the State Department, as an Assistant Attorney General, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, and the National Security Advisor."

Bolton's Lawyer, Abbe Lowell  

Letitia James, one of three prominent Trump critics hit with criminal charges recently had successfully prosecuted President Donald Trump as the New York attorney general. On Friday she pleaded not guilty to bank fraud charges. She entered her plea at an arraignment in a federal court in Norfolk, Virginia. A trial date of January 26 was set by the presiding judge. Facing one count of bank fraud and a second one of making false statements to a financial institution in connection with a property she purchased in 2020 in Virginia.

 

The case was brought a day after yet another Trump target, former FBI director James Comey, pleaded not guilty to charges of making false statements to Congress, and obstructing a congressional proceeding. Charges that seem eerily similar to some that were in fact brought against President Trump himself, in the past. And then there is John Bolton, who served as national security advisers in the first Trump administration before falling out with the irascible president whose ire against those who turn against him becomes an acidic maelstrom of tit-for-tat.

 

Mr. Bolton's charge was that of mishandling classified information. He too has pleaded not guilty. 'Mishandling' government documentation is a charge made against many, including former president Joe Biden who was found by a special counsel to have improperly stored classified documents from his time as vice-president. He, on the other hand, did not have criminal charges pressed against him. Just as the presidential position prevented similar charges from being pressed against Donald Trump  himself.

 

President Trump's great good friend Lindsey Halligan whom the president elevated to the position of U.S attorney following her predecessor's resignation after claiming insufficient evidence was produced, filed those cases against James and Comey. The charges were rejected by James as "baseless, nothing more than a continuation of the president's desperate weaponization of our justice system".

 

"The president's own public statements make clear that his only goal is political retribution", she responded. 

 

However, this is the president of the great United States of America. And he has used the great powers vested in him as the world's arguably most powerful political figure to stamp his personal mark in a myriad of ways, from the world economy, to strong-arming countries around the world to do his bidding in his very personal campaign to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize; not this year, but the one to follow, surely. This president's penchant for admiring the world's strong men as well as those with the aura of power that accompanies great wealth is legendary. 

 

As is his splenetic outbursts at criticism.

 

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi was recently instructed in public to take action against James, Comey and any others the president views as his personal adversaries as he escalates his campaign dedicated to  ensuring that those who cross him bear the burden of a cross of their own. 

 

And Letitia James has certainly earned that cross earmarked for her bent back, when in 2021 she brought a major civil fraud case against him that alleged he and his real estate holdings inflated his wealth unlawfully to manipulate the value  of properties with an eye to favourable bank loans or insurance terms. Mr. Trump was ordered to pay a $46 million penalty by a New York State judge, but the financial penalty was removed by a higher court which chose nonetheless to uphold the underlying judgment.

 

Democratic Senator Adam Schiff, is also in Mr. Trump's crosshairs for leading the first impeachment of the president in the House of Representatives. Seeking to have the case against the former FBI chief dismissed, Comey's lawyer characterized the charges as vindictive and selective prosecution. It certainly has that kind of whiff about it. 

"[My book,] The Room Where It Happened, [was reviewed and approved by] the appropriate, experienced career clearance officials. [The FBI was made fully aware of the 2021 email hack. In the four years of the Biden administration, no charges were filed]." 

"Then came Trump 2 who embodies what Joseph Stalin’s head of secret police once said, ‘You show me the man, and I’ll show you the crime’."

"These charges are not just about his focus on me or my diaries, but his intensive effort to intimidate his opponents, to ensure that he alone determines what is said about his conduct."

"Dissent and disagreement are foundational to America’s constitutional system, and vitally important to our freedom. I look forward to the fight to defend my lawful conduct and to expose his abuse of power."

John Bolton, President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser