Frankly, I’m surprised this didn’t immediately make headlines. There may be national security concerns if there’s wide publicity. Or perhaps the media is simply shell-shocked by the shitstorm that is Trump.
Screechy Monkey
Eh, the last time Trump tweeted this, the Justice Department was telling a judge a week or so later that it wasn’t “really” a declassification order. Some things really can’t be done by a tweet.
Yes but he can be doing it off Twitter and just saying he’s doing it on Twitter, which is what I find scary. The doing it, I mean.
Screechy Monkey
Oh, of course. But doing it for real requires actual work — not so much by Trump, but by underlings, and his underlings are either incompetent or lazy or are actually professionals who don’t want to burn the entire country down. I’m sure they’ll declassify a few select things that they think they can get political mileage out of, but I’d be surprised if it went beyond that.
Ah, yes. I don’t know what I was envisioning – I suppose Trump sending for The Big Box of Classified Stuff and throwing it all out the window.
Rob
As I understand it Trump, as President, has absolute say over whether something is classified or not. Not by tweet though. The example Screechy gave was in the Flynn trial I think. Judge pointed out to Government lawyers who were hiding behind National Security that Trump had tweeted that the docs were declassified. Government said ‘No, don’t think so.’ Judge said ‘Prove it.’ Government had to get a sworn affidavit from a Whitehouse official saying in essence that Trump lied in his tweet. Delicious.
As Ken White has said, Trump is almost immune to certain types of claims because he has an almost perfect reputation for being someone whose public claims cannot be taken seriously by any reasonable person.
iknklast
he has an almost perfect reputation for being someone whose public claims cannot be taken seriously by any reasonable person.
Which means nearly half of our citizens are not reasonable. Scary.
Screechy Monkey
Well, that’s always the question, isn’t it? I wonder how many Trump supporters actually literally believe the things he says, and who just pretends to. Sometimes they may even simultaneously believe and not believe it, in classic doublethink.
It’s why I’m skeptical that there will be a big dropoff in GOP turnout for the GA runoff (beyond the typical dropoff for a non-presidential election). Sure, they scream about it being rigged and Hugo Chavez programmed voting machines, etc etc., but they’ll still show up and vote anyway.
Bjarte Foshaug
Screechy Monkey, that reminds me of something Timothy Snyder wrote regarding Trump’s mentor and role model Vladimir Putin: The more obvious the lie, the more the cronies are able to signal loyalty by repeating them back.
Comments
10 responses to “Any adults nearby?”
But his tax return is a National Secret.
Frankly, I’m surprised this didn’t immediately make headlines. There may be national security concerns if there’s wide publicity. Or perhaps the media is simply shell-shocked by the shitstorm that is Trump.
Eh, the last time Trump tweeted this, the Justice Department was telling a judge a week or so later that it wasn’t “really” a declassification order. Some things really can’t be done by a tweet.
Yes but he can be doing it off Twitter and just saying he’s doing it on Twitter, which is what I find scary. The doing it, I mean.
Oh, of course. But doing it for real requires actual work — not so much by Trump, but by underlings, and his underlings are either incompetent or lazy or are actually professionals who don’t want to burn the entire country down. I’m sure they’ll declassify a few select things that they think they can get political mileage out of, but I’d be surprised if it went beyond that.
Ah, yes. I don’t know what I was envisioning – I suppose Trump sending for The Big Box of Classified Stuff and throwing it all out the window.
As I understand it Trump, as President, has absolute say over whether something is classified or not. Not by tweet though. The example Screechy gave was in the Flynn trial I think. Judge pointed out to Government lawyers who were hiding behind National Security that Trump had tweeted that the docs were declassified. Government said ‘No, don’t think so.’ Judge said ‘Prove it.’ Government had to get a sworn affidavit from a Whitehouse official saying in essence that Trump lied in his tweet. Delicious.
As Ken White has said, Trump is almost immune to certain types of claims because he has an almost perfect reputation for being someone whose public claims cannot be taken seriously by any reasonable person.
Which means nearly half of our citizens are not reasonable. Scary.
Well, that’s always the question, isn’t it? I wonder how many Trump supporters actually literally believe the things he says, and who just pretends to. Sometimes they may even simultaneously believe and not believe it, in classic doublethink.
It’s why I’m skeptical that there will be a big dropoff in GOP turnout for the GA runoff (beyond the typical dropoff for a non-presidential election). Sure, they scream about it being rigged and Hugo Chavez programmed voting machines, etc etc., but they’ll still show up and vote anyway.
Screechy Monkey, that reminds me of something Timothy Snyder wrote regarding Trump’s mentor and role model Vladimir Putin: The more obvious the lie, the more the cronies are able to signal loyalty by repeating them back.