Trump's Russian Collusion

[old salt]

And, more specifically, the point is that if 'classification' is being used to cover-up a crime, that 'classification' act is itself also a crime.

The question I have for you, Salty, is whether you are actually dense as a rock or just pretending? Sorry if that sounds a bit aggressive, but this has been explained very, very clearly.

...except for the fact that all ph calls between POTUS & foreign leaders are automatically classified, whether or not the conversation can be hyped into a supposed cover up of some arguable crime. ...all based on leaks of a partisan presumption of criminal activity, based upon a small selective portion of witness testimony.
Who's being dense ? ..

Why make it even more classified then?

To prevent it from being leaked. The higher classification of these calls began after 3 early ones were leaked.

[ggait]

Who's being dense ?

That would be Salty.

There may be benign reasons for putting this telcon on the double secret server. There also may be malign ones.

Hopefully, we will get Messrs. Eisenberg, Ellis and Morrison to testify on TV so that we can all make up our minds on which it is.

FWIW, Eisenberg and Ellis decided to skip their testimony today.

[MDlaxfan76]

And, more specifically, the point is that if 'classification' is being used to cover-up a crime, that 'classification' act is itself also a crime.

The question I have for you, Salty, is whether you are actually dense as a rock or just pretending? Sorry if that sounds a bit aggressive, but this has been explained very, very clearly.

...except for the fact that all ph calls between POTUS & foreign leaders are automatically classified, whether or not the conversation can be hyped into a supposed cover up of some arguable crime. ...all based on leaks of a partisan presumption of criminal activity, based upon a small selective portion of witness testimony.
Who's being dense ? ..

Why make it even more classified then?

Salty is well aware that there are various levels of classification, but is indeed being 'dense' on purpose.

Frankly, we have no idea what level of actual classification this or any other conversation has been put into, specifically, beyond the base level of Confidential. What we DO know is that not all conversations get moved to this super secure, very limited access server, but this one did. And, at least from the summary released of the call, that call did not involve actual national security matters... other than the effort to leverage Ukraine into digging up/making up dirt on the Bidens and Dems, consistent with the various other efforts to do so, most notably with Rudy, but also implicating Barr.

That's it, nothing else.

We don't actually know whether a formal decision was made to upgrade the security classification from say Confidential to Secret or to Top Secret or to Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information. But the treatment appears to be TS/SCI, the highest level of classification.

So, what was the actual motivation to treat this call this way, given that it did not otherwise involve any sort of actual high security information, ie sources and methods, etc?

Was it just SOP for 100% of calls between Trump and any world leader as Salty wants us to believe?
I don't think that's the reporting to date, but if accurate, that would indeed be a benign explanation as per gait's post above.

However, if it was to hide from Congress or the public this explosive revelation, whether simply political damaging or actual criminal behavior, then uhh ohh that's a big problem: malign. Especially the latter, the effort to cover-up actual criminal activity. That's flat criminal itself.

[Typical Lax Dad]

And, more specifically, the point is that if 'classification' is being used to cover-up a crime, that 'classification' act is itself also a crime.

The question I have for you, Salty, is whether you are actually dense as a rock or just pretending? Sorry if that sounds a bit aggressive, but this has been explained very, very clearly.

...except for the fact that all ph calls between POTUS & foreign leaders are automatically classified, whether or not the conversation can be hyped into a supposed cover up of some arguable crime. ...all based on leaks of a partisan presumption of criminal activity, based upon a small selective portion of witness testimony.
Who's being dense ? ..

Why make it even more classified then?

To prevent it from being leaked. The higher classification of these calls began after 3 early ones were leaked.

Why worry about the content being leaked? It was a perfect call? Trump didn’t want the Russians to know were were supporting Ukraine. Why not give them the approved money back in July. Wouldn’t have to have worried about a potential impeachable offense being leaked.

[seacoaster]

Deposition testimony of Yovanovitch:

https://context-cdn.washingtonpost.com/ ... 877b33.pdf

[seacoaster]

Deposition testimony of McKinley:

https://context-cdn.washingtonpost.com/ ... f925d2.pdf

[a fan]

Deposition testimony of Yovanovitch:

https://context-cdn.washingtonpost.com/ ... 877b33.pdf

Seems I'm not the only one who takes the rules surrounding classification procedures in their entirety seriously.....


Moreover, E0-13525 states that, quote, "in no case shall
information be classified, continue to be maintained as
classified, or fail to be declassified, " unquote, for the
purpose of concealing any violations of law or preventing
embarrassment of any person or entity.

[Typical Lax Dad]

Deposition testimony of Yovanovitch:

https://context-cdn.washingtonpost.com/ ... 877b33.pdf

Seems I'm not the only one who takes the rules surrounding classification procedures in their entirety seriously.....


Moreover, E0-13525 states that, quote, "in no case shall
information be classified, continue to be maintained as
classified, or fail to be declassified, " unquote, for the
purpose of concealing any violations of law or preventing
embarrassment of any person or entity.

Nah... you left out the part about it being ok if folks are being mean to Trump.

[seacoaster]

Deposition testimony of Yovanovitch:

https://context-cdn.washingtonpost.com/ ... 877b33.pdf

Just a note; these are brief bios for the two Staff Attorneys for the GOP for the Committees involved in the examination of these witnesses:

https://fedsoc.org/contributors/steve-castor

https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-brewer-84316521/

So they had numerous Congressional Representatives there for the depositions, along with what appear to be experienced counsel to carry out the examination of any witness and any points of fact that might have come up. Seems like everybody got a fair shake at the witnesses.

[Trinity]

Smart lawyers don’t ask questions they don’t know the answers to?

[dislaxxic]

PEOPLE WHO ILLEGALLY WITHHELD DULY APPROPRIATED FUNDING REFUSE TO EXPLAIN TO CONGRESS WHY

"...if Eisenberg is claiming only Executive Privilege, those claims will quickly expose the President to evidence of guilt that Senators are busy trying to explain away. That’s because he should only have Executive Privilege for stuff that actually involves the President. And given that he wasn’t on the call with Volodymyr Zelensky, he shouldn’t have it, at all, here, unless the President wants to claim that before Eisenberg engaged in a cover-up of Trump’s extortion, he asked the President for guidance first.

In fact, if Eisenberg showed up, he’d likely have to invoke the Fifth Amendment rather than Executive Privilege. And once someone does that, it’s usually child’s play to force that person to resign from government service.

As for the others, Robert Blair and Brian McCormack were being called to explain how the funds duly appropriated by Congress got withheld. Withholding those funds is a crime, as Mick Mulvaney helpfully admitted (in public discussions that likely void any Executive Privilege claims over the decision to withhold the funds). But it’s also a crime not to explain to Congress why you withheld funds they told you to spend.

In other words, for at least three of these men, the excuses for not testifying probably amount to crimes in and of themselves, either for the President (if he really were to claim Executive Privilege over Eisenberg’s efforts to cover-up his crime) or for the men themselves."

..

[old salt]

And, more specifically, the point is that if 'classification' is being used to cover-up a crime, that 'classification' act is itself also a crime.

The question I have for you, Salty, is whether you are actually dense as a rock or just pretending? Sorry if that sounds a bit aggressive, but this has been explained very, very clearly.

...except for the fact that all ph calls between POTUS & foreign leaders are automatically classified, whether or not the conversation can be hyped into a supposed cover up of some arguable crime. ...all based on leaks of a partisan presumption of criminal activity, based upon a small selective portion of witness testimony.
Who's being dense ? ..

Why make it even more classified then?

Salty is well aware that there are various levels of classification, but is indeed being 'dense' on purpose.

Frankly, we have no idea what level of actual classification this or any other conversation has been put into, specifically, beyond the base level of Confidential. What we DO know is that not all conversations get moved to this super secure, very limited access server, but this one did. And, at least from the summary released of the call, that call did not involve actual national security matters... other than the effort to leverage Ukraine into digging up/making up dirt on the Bidens and Dems, consistent with the various other efforts to do so, most notably with Rudy, but also implicating Barr.

That's it, nothing else.

We don't actually know whether a formal decision was made to upgrade the security classification from say Confidential to Secret or to Top Secret or to Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information. But the treatment appears to be TS/SCI, the highest level of classification.

So, what was the actual motivation to treat this call this way, given that it did not otherwise involve any sort of actual high security information, ie sources and methods, etc?

Was it just SOP for 100% of calls between Trump and any world leader as Salty wants us to believe?
I don't think that's the reporting to date, but if accurate, that would indeed be a benign explanation as per gait's post above.

However, if it was to hide from Congress or the public this explosive revelation, whether simply political damaging or actual criminal behavior, then uhh ohh that's a big problem: malign. Especially the latter, the effort to cover-up actual criminal activity. That's flat criminal itself.

You're being dense. Examine the facts. The leaking of the calls stopped when the classification was upgraded & the access limited.
That's the reason information is classified in the first place. Not just to protect it from foreign spies, but from those within the govt with malign intent.
It doesn't have to be 100% of the calls. It just has to be 100% of the calls likely to be leaked.
It's really a simple concept. The classifying authority determines the classification level & limits access, as necessary to prevent unauthorized disclosure.

[Typical Lax Dad]

And, more specifically, the point is that if 'classification' is being used to cover-up a crime, that 'classification' act is itself also a crime.

The question I have for you, Salty, is whether you are actually dense as a rock or just pretending? Sorry if that sounds a bit aggressive, but this has been explained very, very clearly.

...except for the fact that all ph calls between POTUS & foreign leaders are automatically classified, whether or not the conversation can be hyped into a supposed cover up of some arguable crime. ...all based on leaks of a partisan presumption of criminal activity, based upon a small selective portion of witness testimony.
Who's being dense ? ..

Why make it even more classified then?

Salty is well aware that there are various levels of classification, but is indeed being 'dense' on purpose.

Frankly, we have no idea what level of actual classification this or any other conversation has been put into, specifically, beyond the base level of Confidential. What we DO know is that not all conversations get moved to this super secure, very limited access server, but this one did. And, at least from the summary released of the call, that call did not involve actual national security matters... other than the effort to leverage Ukraine into digging up/making up dirt on the Bidens and Dems, consistent with the various other efforts to do so, most notably with Rudy, but also implicating Barr.

That's it, nothing else.

We don't actually know whether a formal decision was made to upgrade the security classification from say Confidential to Secret or to Top Secret or to Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information. But the treatment appears to be TS/SCI, the highest level of classification.

So, what was the actual motivation to treat this call this way, given that it did not otherwise involve any sort of actual high security information, ie sources and methods, etc?

Was it just SOP for 100% of calls between Trump and any world leader as Salty wants us to believe?
I don't think that's the reporting to date, but if accurate, that would indeed be a benign explanation as per gait's post above.

However, if it was to hide from Congress or the public this explosive revelation, whether simply political damaging or actual criminal behavior, then uhh ohh that's a big problem: malign. Especially the latter, the effort to cover-up actual criminal activity. That's flat criminal itself.

You're being dense. Examine the facts. The leaking of the calls stopped when the classification was upgraded & the access limited.
That's the reason information is classified in the first place. Not just to protect it from foreign spies, but from those within the govt with malign intent.
It doesn't have to be 100% of the calls. It just has to be 100% of the calls with criminal intent or politically embarrassing.
It's really a simple concept. The classifying authority determines the classification level & limits access, as necessary to prevent unauthorized disclosure.

There... I fixed it

[njbill]

Smart lawyers don’t ask questions they don’t know the answers to?

Smart lawyers also don’t ask questions when they know the answers will be damaging to their client’s interests.

[old salt]

Deposition testimony of Yovanovitch:

https://context-cdn.washingtonpost.com/ ... 877b33.pdf

Seems I'm not the only one who takes the rules surrounding classification procedures in their entirety seriously.....


Moreover, E0-13525 states that, quote, "in no case shall
information be classified, continue to be maintained as
classified, or fail to be declassified, " unquote, for the
purpose of concealing any violations of law or preventing
embarrassment of any person or entity.

EO, not law. Who writes & enforces EO's ? -- The Exec branch.

We will likely learn that there's some written authorization in the file, from some authorizing legal counsel in the Exec branch, authorizing the classification level & limited distribution (via the NICE server) which authorized the handling of this call & previous calls with foreign leaders.

I have seen reports that previous calls with foreign leaders were handled this way. (I think in the WP).
I will post a link if I stumble across them again. If accurate, that will come out in open hearings.

[old salt]

Deposition testimony of Yovanovitch:

https://context-cdn.washingtonpost.com/ ... 877b33.pdf

Seems I'm not the only one who takes the rules surrounding classification procedures in their entirety seriously.....


Moreover, E0-13525 states that, quote, "in no case shall
information be classified, continue to be maintained as
classified, or fail to be declassified, " unquote, for the
purpose of concealing any violations of law or preventing
embarrassment of any person or entity.

EO, not law. Who writes & enforces EO's ? -- The Exec branch.

We will likely learn that there's some written authorization in the file, from some authorizing legal counsel in the Exec branch, authorizing the classification level & limited distribution (via the NICE server) which authorized the handling of this call & previous calls with foreign leaders.

I have seen reports that previous calls with foreign leaders were handled this way. (I think in the WP).
I will post a link if I stumble across them again. If accurate, that will come out in open hearings.

Here ya go MDLF76 & afan. Google makes this stuff ez :

https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/27/politics ... index.html

While the practice of limiting access to foreign leader calls began in earnest last year after the leaks of Mexico and Australian calls, it's not clear precisely when the initial steps were taken begin that effort.

A former administration official said that despite the code word protection, you didn't necessarily need a special clearance to view the records and there was a process for officials to access the calls they wanted.

Check out Nasty Natasha's headline & lead paragraph :

https://www.politico.com/news/2019/10/0 ... ode-015194

White House ordered ultrasecret system upgraded to prevent leaks

The Trump White House upgraded the security of the National Security Council’s codeword system in the spring of 2018, according to two former Trump White House officials familiar with the matter, as part of an effort to ferret out and deter leaks.

The changes included a new log of who accessed specific documents in the NSC’s system — known as NICE or NSC Intelligence Collaboration Environment — and was designed in part to prevent leaks of records of the president’s phone calls with foreign leaders and find out the suspected leaker if transcripts were disclosed, one of the former officials said. Prior to the upgrade, officials could see only who had uploaded or downloaded material to the system but usually not who accessed which documents.

[MDlaxfan76]

Deposition testimony of Yovanovitch:

https://context-cdn.washingtonpost.com/ ... 877b33.pdf

Seems I'm not the only one who takes the rules surrounding classification procedures in their entirety seriously.....


Moreover, E0-13525 states that, quote, "in no case shall
information be classified, continue to be maintained as
classified, or fail to be declassified, " unquote, for the
purpose of concealing any violations of law or preventing
embarrassment of any person or entity.

EO, not law. Who writes & enforces EO's ? -- The Exec branch.

We will likely learn that there's some written authorization in the file, from some authorizing legal counsel in the Exec branch, authorizing the classification level & limited distribution (via the NICE server) which authorized the handling of this call & previous calls with foreign leaders.

I have seen reports that previous calls with foreign leaders were handled this way. (I think in the WP).
I will post a link if I stumble across them again. If accurate, that will come out in open hearings.

Here ya go MDLF76 & afan. Google makes this stuff ez :

https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/27/politics ... index.html

While the practice of limiting access to foreign leader calls began in earnest last year after the leaks of Mexico and Australian calls, it's not clear precisely when the initial steps were taken begin that effort.

A former administration official said that despite the code word protection, you didn't necessarily need a special clearance to view the records and there was a process for officials to access the calls they wanted.

Check out Nasty Natasha's headline & lead paragraph :

https://www.politico.com/news/2019/10/0 ... ode-015194

White House ordered ultrasecret system upgraded to prevent leaks

Salty, the reason I say you're being purposely dense is that we keep saying that if this action was innocently done, no sweat. I went so far as to say that such is at least 'plausible'.

Yet, you keep ignoring that ALL we're saying is that if it was done for the purpose of hiding information from Congress or the public, particularly information about a criminal activity, that itself would be a crime...which was what Morrison, or his legal counsel, could have been worried about.

The intent matters. Yet you want to claim that you know something no one else on this board claim to know, the actual intent of the players involved.

And no, it's not just an Executive Order that concealing information about a crime would be illegal itself.

One test of your theory about the 'intent' will be whether 100% of Trump's calls were put in the server... or whether this was selectively just the ones they wanted to hide from Congress or the public...or prosecutors...

Time will tell.

Indeed, I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that certain calls went in the NICE server, others did not.
And I'd also not be surprised if ultimately all of those calls were examined by independent readers to see what actually was said by Trump with say, Putin, or Khashoggi, or Erdogan...

[old salt]

Deposition testimony of Yovanovitch:

https://context-cdn.washingtonpost.com/ ... 877b33.pdf

Seems I'm not the only one who takes the rules surrounding classification procedures in their entirety seriously.....


Moreover, E0-13525 states that, quote, "in no case shall
information be classified, continue to be maintained as
classified, or fail to be declassified, " unquote, for the
purpose of concealing any violations of law or preventing
embarrassment of any person or entity.

EO, not law. Who writes & enforces EO's ? -- The Exec branch.

We will likely learn that there's some written authorization in the file, from some authorizing legal counsel in the Exec branch, authorizing the classification level & limited distribution (via the NICE server) which authorized the handling of this call & previous calls with foreign leaders.

I have seen reports that previous calls with foreign leaders were handled this way. (I think in the WP).
I will post a link if I stumble across them again. If accurate, that will come out in open hearings.

Here ya go MDLF76 & afan. Google makes this stuff ez :

https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/27/politics ... index.html

While the practice of limiting access to foreign leader calls began in earnest last year after the leaks of Mexico and Australian calls, it's not clear precisely when the initial steps were taken begin that effort.

A former administration official said that despite the code word protection, you didn't necessarily need a special clearance to view the records and there was a process for officials to access the calls they wanted.

Check out Nasty Natasha's headline & lead paragraph :

https://www.politico.com/news/2019/10/0 ... ode-015194

White House ordered ultrasecret system upgraded to prevent leaks

Salty, the reason I say you're being purposely dense is that we keep saying that if this action was innocently done, no sweat. I went so far as to say that such is at least 'plausible'.

Yet, you keep ignoring that ALL we're saying is that if it was done for the purpose of hiding information from Congress or the public, particularly information about a criminal activity, that itself would be a crime...which was what Morrison, or his legal counsel, could have been worried about.

The intent matters. Yet you want to claim that you know something no one else on this board claim to know, the actual intent of the players involved.

And no, it's not just an Executive Order that concealing information about a crime would be illegal itself.

One test of your theory about the 'intent' will be whether 100% of Trump's calls were put in the server... or whether this was selectively just the ones they wanted to hide from Congress or the public...or prosecutors...

Time will tell.

I'm not being dense. How many posts ago did I point out that it had apparently become SOP to handle calls with foreign leaders this way, in order to prevent leaking ? You choose to continue to extend the conversation, despite my posting the obvious.

[MDlaxfan76]

Deposition testimony of Yovanovitch:

https://context-cdn.washingtonpost.com/ ... 877b33.pdf

Seems I'm not the only one who takes the rules surrounding classification procedures in their entirety seriously.....


Moreover, E0-13525 states that, quote, "in no case shall
information be classified, continue to be maintained as
classified, or fail to be declassified, " unquote, for the
purpose of concealing any violations of law or preventing
embarrassment of any person or entity.

EO, not law. Who writes & enforces EO's ? -- The Exec branch.

We will likely learn that there's some written authorization in the file, from some authorizing legal counsel in the Exec branch, authorizing the classification level & limited distribution (via the NICE server) which authorized the handling of this call & previous calls with foreign leaders.

I have seen reports that previous calls with foreign leaders were handled this way. (I think in the WP).
I will post a link if I stumble across them again. If accurate, that will come out in open hearings.

Here ya go MDLF76 & afan. Google makes this stuff ez :

https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/27/politics ... index.html

While the practice of limiting access to foreign leader calls began in earnest last year after the leaks of Mexico and Australian calls, it's not clear precisely when the initial steps were taken begin that effort.

A former administration official said that despite the code word protection, you didn't necessarily need a special clearance to view the records and there was a process for officials to access the calls they wanted.

Check out Nasty Natasha's headline & lead paragraph :

https://www.politico.com/news/2019/10/0 ... ode-015194

White House ordered ultrasecret system upgraded to prevent leaks

Salty, the reason I say you're being purposely dense is that we keep saying that if this action was innocently done, no sweat. I went so far as to say that such is at least 'plausible'.

Yet, you keep ignoring that ALL we're saying is that if it was done for the purpose of hiding information from Congress or the public, particularly information about a criminal activity, that itself would be a crime...which was what Morrison, or his legal counsel, could have been worried about.

The intent matters. Yet you want to claim that you know something no one else on this board claim to know, the actual intent of the players involved.

And no, it's not just an Executive Order that concealing information about a crime would be illegal itself.

One test of your theory about the 'intent' will be whether 100% of Trump's calls were put in the server... or whether this was selectively just the ones they wanted to hide from Congress or the public...or prosecutors...

Time will tell.

I'm not being dense. How many posts ago did I point out that it had apparently become SOP to handle calls with foreign leaders this way, in order to prevent leaking ? You choose to continue to extend the conversation, despite my posting the obvious.

No, you have never been able to show that this applied to 100% of the calls.
Because you don't know, nor do I.

Was the concern with "leaking" just the ones embarrassing in some way or implicating Trump criminally?
Or was it 100%?

Eventually we'll know, and I'd bet that eventually we will know the details of those that were protected that way, if selectively.

One question I haven't seen asked is whether there are recording of these calls. Hard to understand why there would not be.
Seems to me there's all sorts of technology to evaluate voice stress, etc, much less to capture them accurately.

Surely folks on the other end of these calls are recording them..

[old salt]

No, you have never been able to show that this applied to 100% of the calls.
Because you don't know, nor do I.

Was the concern with "leaking" just the ones embarrassing in some way or implicating Trump criminally?
Or was it 100%?

Eventually we'll know, and I'd bet that eventually we will know the details of those that were protected that way, if selectively.

One question I haven't seen asked is whether there are recording of these calls. Hard to understand why there would not be.
Seems to me there's all sorts of technology to evaluate voice stress, etc, much less to capture them accurately.

It doesn't have to be 100% of the calls. It may be at the discretion of the classifying authority to apply it to information likely to be leaked.
.. ...again I quote Nasty Natasha.
NSA contractors (Fusion GPS) probably already have the tape recordings & they're conducting voice stress analysis.

That highly classified system is being newly scrutinized in light of a whistleblower complaint alleging that national security officials used the system—meant for storing information classified at the highest level — to conceal politically embarrassing conversations, including a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on July 25 in which President Donald Trump urged Zelensky to investigate his political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden and his son.

If hiding politically embarrassing material, rather than protecting national security secrets, was the motive, experts and former officials said, it would be an abuse of the codeword system. While not necessarily an illegal act, it does run counter to an executive order signed by President Barack Obama in 2009 that says information can’t be classified to “conceal violations of law, inefficiency, or administrative error” or “prevent embarrassment to a person, organization, or agency.”