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    17 September 22 Live on the homepage now! Reader Supported News STAND UP FOR READER SUPPORTED NEWS: Come on folks don’t just sit there and let RSN struggle financially. What we need to function is a drop in the bucket. When you get involved, when you take an ownership stake good things happen. Help RSN! Marc Ash • Founder, Reader Supported News Sure, I'll make a donation!   FOCUS: David A. Graham | Nice Democracy You've Got Here. Shame If Something Happened to It. David A. Graham, The Atlantic Graham writes: "The line between imagination and delusion is thin, as Donald Trump's initial reaction to an FBI search at Mar-a-Lago in August demonstrated. In the first days afterward, the former president saw the search as a political gift, not a blow: a chance to rally his base, put would-be challengers like Ron DeSantis in their place, and reconsolidate his eroding position as the leader of the Republican Party." T he line between imagination and delusion is thin, as...

  SUBSCRIBE TO THIS NEWSLETTER Here’s What Americans with Security Clearances Are Saying About Trump’s Stash of Top Secret Documents at His Resort Hotel, Mar-a-Lago FBI Photo Submitted to Court Showing Top Secret Documents Found at Mar-a-Lago By  Pam Martens : September 1, 2022 ~ The above photo was released on Wednesday evening as part of the Justice Department’s  court response  to Donald Trump’s motion to have a Special Master appointed to review documents seized by the FBI in a raid of his  114-room resort hotel, Mar-a-Lago , in Palm Beach, Florida on August 8. Included in the items seized by the government were highly classified documents marked Top Secret/SCI – meaning they were Sensitive Compartmented Information that should have been maintained in a government approved SCIF – Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility. The FBI’s raid of Mar-a-Lago on August 8 followed months of stonewalling by Trump to return government records he had illegally retaine...

  September 2, 2022 Heather Cox Richardson Sep 3 Just a week ago, a judge ordered the release of the affidavit on which the FBI applied for a search warrant for Mar-a-Lago. That document revealed that Trump had taken highly classified documents from the government and held them in insecure locations. That document was horrifying, but it referred only to documents the government had already recovered, not the ones for which it would go on to search for on August 8. Today the unsealing of a court filing revealed that the August 8 search turned up more than 11,000 documents or photographs that were not classified, 31 documents marked CONFIDENTIAL, 54 marked SECRET, and 18 marked TOP SECRET. In addition, agents found 48 empty folders marked CLASSIFIED, and 42 empty folders marked to be returned to a military aide. Those documents were not filed with the envelopes. This story is unprecedented and explosive. As Sue Gordon, who was principal deputy director of national intelligence from 2...

      I don't think it's complicated—nobody is above the law. I don't care if you're incredibly rich or super famous or wield great power. You should have to follow the same rules as everyone else. Unfortunately, the MAGA Republicans disagree. A couple of weeks ago, the FBI served a warrant and seized 15 boxes of documents from former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence. The FBI reportedly found classified materials in those boxes, including some of the most classified documents there are—things even my staff with security clearances don't get to see. What was the MAGA response? To  defund the FBI.  You can't make this stuff up. They don't have a problem with the law-breaking, they have a problem with being caught. This isn't an isolated case. The MAGA crowd is also freaking out that the Inflation Reduction Act will crack down on billionaire and corporate tax evasion. I bet you pay your taxes. You probably don't have much choice in the ...

  We Should Not Become Inured to the Shock Dan Rather  and  Elliot Kirschner Aug 26 The Department of Justice has released the affidavit it used to obtain permission to search Mar-a-Lago and seize files from Donald Trump. The document fills in some details but leaves many questions unanswered, largely because it is heavily redacted — as it should be. The sanctity of the investigation demands it. So does the security of the nation. What we knew before has been further confirmed — Trump absconded with hundreds of classified documents. We now know these were incredibly sensitive and included information on clandestine human sources and secrets not to be shared with foreign governments. We may never know the documents' exact contents — that’s how sensitive this material is.  What is so striking, as many others have observed, is that as president, Trump was notoriously uninterested in details. He doesn’t read. He certainly doesn’t pore over policy details. He is famous (o...