Thursday Reads: Drip, Drip, Drip
Posted: June 1, 2023 Filed under: Donald Trump, just because | Tags: Carlos Deoliveira, iran, James Trusty, Mar-a-Lago security footage, Margo Martin, Mark Meadows, Mark Milley, Special Counsel Jack Smith, stolen documents case, Susan Glasser, Tim Parlatore, Walt Nauta, Yuscil Taveras 43 Comments
The Balcony in Vernonnet, 1920, Pierre Bonnard
Good Morning!!
The evidence against Trump keeps coming out bit by bit. Yesterday was a big day for news about the stolen documents case. CNN first broke the news that Trump was caught on tape discussing a classified document that he retained after leaving the White House. Then The New York Times, The Guardian, and The Washington Post added more information to the story.
Federal prosecutors have obtained an audio recording of a summer 2021 meeting in which former President Donald Trump acknowledges he held onto a classified Pentagon document about a potential attack on Iran, multiple sources told CNN, undercutting his argument that he declassified everything.
The recording indicates Trump understood he retained classified material after leaving the White House, according to multiple sources familiar with the investigation. On the recording, Trump’s comments suggest he would like to share the information but he’s aware of limitations on his ability post-presidency to declassify records, two of the sources said….
Special counsel Jack Smith, who is leading the Justice Department investigation into Trump, has focused on the meeting as part of the criminal investigation into Trump’s handling of national security secrets. Sources describe the recording as an “important” piece of evidence in a possible case against Trump, who has repeatedly asserted he could retain presidential records and “automatically” declassify documents.
Prosecutors have asked witnesses about the recording and the document before a federal grand jury. The episode has generated enough interest for investigators to have questioned Gen. Mark Milley, one of the highest-ranking Trump-era national security officials, about the incident.
Ramo de gladiolos, lirios y margaritas (1878), Claude Monet
It’s interesting and significant that the meeting at which Trump talked about the document was at his Bedminster golf club in New Jersey. The incident took place at a meeting with two ghost writers who were working on Mark Meadows’ autobiography. Other attendees were “communications specialist” Margo Martin, and other Trump aides. It appears that Martin may be the source of the recording.
Back to the CNN story:
Meadows’ autobiography includes an account of what appears to be the same meeting, during which Trump “recalls a four-page report typed up by (Trump’s former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) Mark Milley himself. It contained the general’s own plan to attack Iran, deploying massive numbers of troops, something he urged President Trump to do more than once during his presidency.”
The document Trump references was not produced by Milley, CNN was told….
The meeting in which Trump discussed the Iran document with others happened shortly after The New Yorker published a story by Susan Glasser detailing how, in the final days of Trump’s presidency, Milley instructed the Joint Chiefs to ensure Trump issued no illegal orders and that he be informed if there was any concern. The story infuriated Trump.
Glasser reported that in the months following the election, Milley repeatedly argued against striking Iran and was concerned Trump “might set in motion a full-scale conflict that was not justified.” Milley and others talked Trump out of taking such a drastic action, according to the New Yorker story.
Glasser reported that in the months following the election, Milley repeatedly argued against striking Iran and was concerned Trump “might set in motion a full-scale conflict that was not justified.” Milley and others talked Trump out of taking such a drastic action, according to the New Yorker story.
Trump appeared to be holding the secret document he was describing because the recording picked up the “sound of paper rustling.” Even if he didn’t show it to the others, he never should have had the document in an unsecured meeting room with people without security clearances.
Some observers were wondering if Trump could be charged with espionage if this recording is “top secret,” because then it might not be able to be used in court. But Hugh Lowell reports at The Guardian that it is only classified as “secret”: Trump regretted not declassifying retained military document in recording.
The document at issue is understood to be classified as “secret” – significant as the justice department typically prefers to charge espionage cases involving retention of materials at that level, rather than “top secret” papers that might be too sensitive or “confidential” papers that are too low.
The recording was made at Trump’s Bedminster golf club in July 2021, when the former president met with people helping his former chief of staff Mark Meadows write a book, by his aide Margo Martin who regularly taped conversations with authors to ensure they accurately recounted his remarks.
Apple Tree In Blossom, 1898c, Carl Larsson (Swedish 1853-1919
For several minutes of the audio recording, the sources said, Trump talks about how he cannot discuss the document because he no longer possesses the sweeping presidential power to declassify now out of office, but suggests that he should have done so when he was still in the White House.
But the previously unreported suggestion that he should have declassified the document presents a potentially perilous moment, as it indicates Trump knew that he had retained material which remained sensitive to national security – as well as the limitations on discussing it with unauthorized people. CNN earlier reported that prosecutors had the recording.
Prosecutors in the office of special counsel Jack Smith appear to have obtained the recording around March, as the criminal investigation targeting Trump intensified and numerous Trump aides were subpoenaed to testify before the federal grand jury hearing evidence in the case in Washington.
The tape was played to multiple witnesses, including Martin, when she testified in mid-March after having her laptop and phones imaged by prosecutors, the sources said. The first time the Trump lawyers learned about the tape was after Martin testified, one of the sources said.
As I suggested earlier, it appears that Martin’s laptop was the source of the recording. The New York Times also reported that Martin attended the meeting and doesn’t quite claim she is the source, but it seems pretty likely, since prosecutors had her laptop. A bit more from The New York Times story:
Bouquet de Mimosa sur la Table 1938, Édouard Vuillard
In an interview with CNN on Wednesday night, James Trusty, a lawyer representing Mr. Trump in the case, indicated that the former president was taking the position that he had declassified the material he took with him upon leaving office.
“When he left for Mar-a-Lago with boxes of documents that other people packed for him that he brought, he was the commander in chief,” Mr. Trusty said. “There is no doubt that he has the constitutional authority as commander in chief to declassify.”
Mr. Trusty said officials could prove that Mr. Trump had declassified material. But when pressed on whether Mr. Trump had declassified the document in question at the Bedminster meeting, Mr. Trusty declined to say.
That’s pretty weak.
Here’s The Washington Post story, which you can read if you’re interested. It’s mostly a recap of the other reports and background on the investigation: Prosecutors have recording of Trump discussing sensitive Iran document.
One more Trump stolen document investigation story from The New York Times: Prosecutors Scrutinize Handling of Security Footage by Trump Aides in Documents Case.
For the past six months, prosecutors working for the special counsel Jack Smith have sought to determine whether former President Donald J. Trump obstructed the government’s efforts to retrieve a trove of classified documents he took from the White House.
More recently, investigators also appear to be pursuing a related question: whether Mr. Trump and some of his aides sought to interfere with the government’s attempt to obtain security camera footage from Mar-a-Lago that could shed light on how those documents were stored and who had access to them.
The search for answers on this second issue has taken investigators deep into the bowels of Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s private club and residence in Florida, as they pose questions to an expanding cast of low-level workers at the compound, according to people familiar with the matter. Some of the workers played a role in either securing boxes of material in a storage room at Mar-a-Lago or maintaining video footage from a security camera that was mounted outside the room.
Two weeks ago, the latest of these employees, an information technology worker named Yuscil Taveras, appeared before a grand jury in Washington, according to two people familiar with the matter.
So now we know the name of the aide who helped Walt Nauta move the boxes around.
Mr. Taveras was asked questions about his dealings with two other Trump employees: Walt Nauta, a longtime aide to Mr. Trump who served as one of his valets in the White House, and Carlos Deoliveira, described by one person familiar with the events as the head of maintenance at Mar-a-Lago.
Phone records show that Mr. Deoliveira called Mr. Taveras last summer, and prosecutors wanted to know why. The call caught the government’s attention because it was placed shortly after prosecutors issued a subpoena to Mr. Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, demanding the footage from the surveillance camera near the storage room.
The call also occurred just weeks after Mr. Deoliveira helped Mr. Nauta move boxes of documents into the storage room — the same room that Mr. Deoliveira at one point fitted with a lock. The movement of the boxes into the room took place at another key moment: on the day before prosecutors descended on Mar-a-Lago for a meeting with Mr. Trump’s lawyers intended to get him to comply with a demand to return all classified documents.
The Trump Organization ultimately turned over the surveillance tapes, but Mr. Smith’s prosecutors appear to be scrutinizing whether someone in Mr. Trump’s orbit tried to limit the amount of footage produced to the government.
They asked Mr. Taveras an open-ended question about if anyone had queried him about whether footage from the surveillance system could be deleted.
The Times doesn’t know what Taveras told the grand jury. Read more at the link.
Today, Hugo Lowell has another story at The Guardian on the turmoil among Trump’s many lawyers: Months of distrust inside Trump legal team led to top lawyer’s departure. And get this: Lowell learned all this because he was sitting at the next table in a restaurant.
Donald Trump’s legal team for months has weathered deep distrust and interpersonal conflict that could undermine its defense of the former president as the criminal investigation into his handling of classified documents and obstruction of justice at Mar-a-Lago nears its conclusion.
The turmoil inside the legal team only exploded into public view when one of the top lawyers, Tim Parlatore, abruptly resigned two weeks’ ago from the representation citing irreconcilable differences with Trump’s senior adviser and in-house counsel Boris Epshteyn.
But the departure of Parlatore was the culmination of months of simmering tensions that continue to threaten the effectiveness of the legal team at a crucial time – as federal prosecutors weigh criminal charges – in part because the interpersonal conflicts remain largely unresolved.
It also comes as multiple Trump lawyers are embroiled in numerous criminal investigations targeting the former president: Epshteyn was recently interviewed by the special counsel, while Parlatore and Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran testified to the grand jury in the classified documents inquiry.
The turmoil has revolved around hostility among the lawyers on the legal team who have come to distrust each other as well as their hostility directed at Epshteyn, over what they regard as his oversight of the legal work and gatekeeping direct access to the former president.
In one instance, the clashes became so acute that some of the lawyers agreed to a so-called “murder-suicide” pact where if Parlatore got fired, others would resign in solidarity. And as some of the lawyers tried to exclude Epshteyn, they withheld information from co-counsel who they suspected might brief him.
Read all the details at The Guardian link.
So . . . that’s the latest on just one of the Trump investigations. Will we learn more today? Drip, drip, drip.
peej
Carissa
ecocatwoman
mablue2
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
Have a nice Thursday, Sky Dancers!!
They will never give up.
First, the Repubs need to stop walling off a 70% top tax rate.
Taxes on the rich are ridiculously low compared to what they were under Reagan. Dems should be emphasizing this every chance they get.
From 2020, but the studies continue to hold …
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tax-cuts-rich-50-years-no-trickle-down/
I’d have to look it up, but I have that 70% number from research that looked at optimal tax levels for overall social welfare _and_ motivating the wealthy to use their money a bit intelligently. The problem with 90%, or 95% like Sweden had for a while, is people really do get very motivated to hide it or move, which doesn’t do anyone any good.
“…who happened to be sitting at the table next to them.”
Just happened to be there. (snicker) That reporter’s got undercover tipsters on the waitstaff!
Just want to shout out to all our LGBTQ+ friends…
https://www.instagram.com/p/Cs9JPy9S9xA/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
Happy Pride Month!!!!
Drag show on Military Base
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39XY0TUY5po&fbclid=IwAR3n8-sMGkgtD_BdtwtzSQfmAdhhImDkDUi6Cyl3EgsZ-vpFVPPAWUvgi0k
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/18124382.mark-smith-feminists-got-problem-drag-queens-back-off-dear/
Wow. What if I said the world of the TQ+ is a sick and boring life?
Anyhow, here’s from a guy who actually was at the Stonewall event. Last year at a Pride march he carried a “Gay not Queer” sign and was knocked down and beat up by some TQ+s for his uppityness.
Kavanagh is a director of the Gay Men’s Network in the UK. He’s decidedly a leftist.
Yeah, he gets it in a lot of ways. It’s not that drag _couldn’t_ be lighthearted fun. But then they’d be very clear on what is misogyny and steer clear of it. Instead there’s a get-over-yourself attitude. Which puts me in a mood of “Fine. You get over yourself first.”
We either all respect each other, or don’t ask for respect from me.
quixote, you reminded me of one of my favorite quotes about respect from Autistic Abby on tumblr:
Sometimes people use “respect” to mean “treating someone like a person” and sometimes they use “respect” to mean “treating someone like an authority”
and sometimes people who are used to being treated like an authority say “if you won’t respect me I won’t respect you” and they mean “if you won’t treat me like an authority I won’t treat you like a person”
and they think they’re being fair but they aren’t, and it’s not okay.
darthvelma, that’s it exactly! I’m going to find the cross-stitching stuff from when I was a kid and my Granny was trying to teach me how it’s done, and make a wall hanging out of that comment!
Cancel Culture: Drag Show on Military Base shut down 2023
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/pentagon-leaders-cancel-drag-show-nevada-nellis-air-force-base-rcna87142?fbclid=IwAR3n8-sMGkgtD_BdtwtzSQfmAdhhImDkDUi6Cyl3EgsZ-vpFVPPAWUvgi0k
Somehow I don’t think performing caricatures of women as oversexed and stupid are a good look for any organization, let alone our armed forces. The military has enough problems with treating women with respect as is. Move it to the private clubs for adults.
You do realize I spent several years recently as the musical director and pianist for a drag cabaret on Bourbon Street, and what you keep describing isn’t even within my realm of experience. I’ve directed women that do drag. They are most likely to send up the bombshell stereotype of the 50s and 60s. A good deal of performances these days are based on magical characters and mythological creatures and superheroes.
Look at the women that are “gay icons” that early female impersonators used as role models. They are all women who are glamorous, sexual, and smart all on their own terms. Lucy, Cher, Tina, Dolly, and now Katie Perry, Beyonce, and Reba are no woman sitting on a shelf like some men’s version of Babydolls. They are strong, fierce, and openly sexual on their own terms with a style and signature that suits them. They are business savvy and talented. It’s a tribute to that, not a slur based on the stereotypes of the drooling breeders.
Not to mention the history of men…soldiers performing in “drag” during wars …which was never a fucking problem before!!!!
If you can’t remember, check out https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/drag-entertainment-world-war-ii
So there is a history of drag and military connection.
I’m with Dak, obviously. As I have been the major voice here posting supportive threads and comments on LGBTQ+ issues.
I’ve been posting in support of LGB and women’s rights and I find it odd that that’s not obvious. The two men I posted tweets from up above are gay. The Stonewall vet had a sign saying Womanface=Blackface with his Gay not Queer sign. There’s a growing movement in the LGB community as they recognize the lack of commonality with the TQ+. I’m in good company.
Some drag isn’t as bad as others, I agree, but there isn’t any that’s not a caricature of women. But yeah, some blackface isn’t as bad as others either. Show me any of either that’s not based on stereotypes.
As far as women not “sitting on a shelf like some men’s version of Babydolls (whatever that is). They are strong, fierce, and openly sexual on their own terms” Of course. If they like dressing for leering males that’s on their own terms. It’s hardly empowering to the rest of us. And it’s a noticeable contrast with the majority of male performers — just determine the average % of skin coverage between the two sexes. Women as sex objects is so embedded in our culture that it’s seen as normal.
Of course there’s a history of drag and military. The Nazis did too. The Nazis persecuted gays and lesbians, but not drag queens or transvestites. There are photos of some of the high-up Nazis dressed up (stored in my thousands of bookmarks). But drag shouldn’t be promoted by a government organization, just as they shouldn’t promote religion either.
https://twitter.com/Kazlovinglife1/status/1664339319518113792
This comparison Luna makes me want to puke.
Drag is celebrating women. It empowers the performers.
I’m done with all this shit.
Sorry, I just can’t see that stereotypes and caricatures are empowering. If it’s not OK for whites to ridicule blacks, it’s not ok for any other privileged group to ridicule the underprivileged group. Same principle. How is it different?
I honestly can’t figure out how men portraying women as super-sexualized, makeup-glazed, and ditzy-acting creatures is a celebration. It so obviously portrays their contempt of women.
I’m radfem to the bone and don’t understand libfems in this regard, even though we have most political positions otherwise in common. We’ll have to do the old agree-to-disagree.
I hope all will be well for you.
Drag is punching down. It’s members of the dominant group making fun of the stereotypes that have been forced on the subordinate group. Which is a shitty thing to do.
If they really wanted to poke fun at gender, they’d be mocking men. But they don’t. Because they are men. And they know other men wouldn’t tolerate it.
“If they really wanted to poke fun at gender, they’d be mocking men”
Exactly. At least _some_ of the time.
And dak and JJ, I know you have involvement with drag communities and, as you point out, they’re about fun without an intention of meanness. Two things about that: specific personal samples don’t change the presence of quite a bit of outright misogyny in the wider community, as Luna points out. And two, there’s no need for them to intend meanness because they’re embedded in a system that takes it for granted. It’s invisible until you see it. And then you can’t unsee it.
Maybe we should start thinking of white men as unfit for military service unless they’ve undergone intensive background checks.
Maybe it’s time for age limits
It’s like the old saying, “It’s not the age, it’s the stupidity.”
I’m so sorry that this conflict is happening. My philosophy is live and let live.
I actually worked very hard on this post, and I was hoping for some discussion about it. But that’s OK too. Live and let live.
This blog has always been a safe place for me, and I hope it will stay that way. I don’t have strong feelings about these issues. To me, drag is about self expression and figuring out an individual’s identity. As Dakinikat said, women are involved in drag also. I can understand the other point of view too.
As I have said in the past, I do have strong feelings about the way language is being used in relation to trans issues. I think it is demeaning to refer to women as TERFS and “people with vaginas” for example. But I think every human being should have the right to figure out their own identity and live accordingly.
Anyway, I love all of you, and I’m very grateful for all of the years we have interacted with each other and supported each other here on Skydancingblog.
I am actually very interested in the topic of the post. I’m absolutely gobsmacked that there are recordings. I’m old enough to remember Watergate and it boggles my mind that people will still talk about illegal shit they did on tape/camera and just assume it will never come back to bite them in the ass. The hubris involved is staggering.
It’s so vitally important that Trump face justice over this. It’s the most important lesson he and others of his ilk need to learn – that there will be consequences. I’m not sure I believe it will actually happen, but it needs to.
Seconding that, bb. This is a wonderful community. ALL of it 🙂 .
Thanks
Thanks, Darthvelma. There is news out today that the Trump lawyers can’t find the document. What are the odds that Saudi Arabia has it? That’s why Smith is investigating Trump’s foreign business contacts. Did he exchange the war plans for the LIV golf contract?
The more I think on this, the angrier I’m getting.
Now Trump is having a(nother) hissy fit because the DOJ is closing the classified documents investigation into Pence:
https://crooksandliars.com/2023/06/trump-whines-over-doj-closing-pence
He cannot possibly be stupid enough to believe that Pence and Biden finding documents and immediately handing them over is the same as him withholding documents to the point where the Feds had to raid his house…but he’s sure hoping republican voters are that dumb.
Jumpin’ jeebus on a pogo stick.
Yeah, he’s exactly the kind of person who would try to start a war between Saudi Arabia and Iran in exchange for the rights to a golf tournament.
I wouldn’t put anything, anything at all, past Trump. He has all the higher brain functions of a shark. (None.) And he has to keep moving toward prey or water isn’t passing over his gills and he suffocates.
What an image!