Senator Marion Michael Rounds is in a good position to speak forthrightly about the grave threat to American security posed by Donald Trump’s violations of the Espionage Act. Senator Rounds said last year that the FBI’s seizure of classified documents hidden at Mar-A-Lago showed that Trump mishandled those national-security papers. Rounds has already endorsed fellow Senator Tim Scott over Trump, so politically he should be eager to amplify Trump’s own words that “We can’t have someone in the Oval Office who doesn’t understand the meaning of the word confidential or classified.”
But evidently still afraid that certain insurrectionist Republican voters will get rowdy at his next town hall meeting, Rounds has defaulted on this federal indictment, as he did on the New York State indictment of Trump two months ago, to evading the question of Trump’s guilt and undermining public faith in the integrity of the justice system. Let’s do the line-by-line:
Regardless of your political position or perspective, the news of another indictment against the former president should concern all of us. American citizens look to our leaders and our justice system to have integrity – and that integrity is once again being called into question [Sen. M. Michael Rounds, press release, 2023.06.10].
In his first lines, Rounds establishes the paradigm of cowardly Republicans everywhere: when talking about Trump’s bad behavior, don’t say Donald Trump’s name, and always lump Trump’s bad behavior in with allegations that everyone else is behaving badly—leaders plural, the justice system. Drown the lead—Trump committed grave offenses against national security and lied about it—in a vague soup of pervasive decadence.
The indictment that has been unsealed contains multiple charges against the former president for his role in retaining classified documents, some of which were highly classified [Rounds, 2023.06.10].
Rounds peeks out from his protective paradigm here and nods to the specifics of the indictment. He hews to the mild term retaining, which reflects the term used in the indictment for the 31 counts of “Willful Retention of National Defense Information”, but his reference to Trump’s “role” in that retention obscures the other key indictment verbs—conspired, obstructed, withheld, corruptly concealed, schemed, and “did knowlingly and willfully make and cause to be made a materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statement and representation”. The last charge doesn’t use the word lied, but we quite accurately may: Trump lied to the FBI and the grand jury. Yes, Senator Rounds, all of us, regardless of political perspective, ought to be concerned about that.
As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, I receive classified briefings multiple times per week. It is unacceptable that sensitive information, which could undermine our national strategy and security, has been treated so carelessly by current and former members of the executive branch [Rounds, 2023.06.10].
But Mike gets the heck back to Dodge, leaving the door open for those Trumpists whose votes Rounds continues to court to keep screaming about the fundamentally different and obstructionless cases of Joe Biden’s and Mike Pence’s papers and Hillary Clinton’s e-mails.
At the same time, I am concerned about the Department of Justice’s decision to pursue this case against the former president at a time when our current president has also admitted to the possession of classified documents while out of office [Rounds, 2023.06.10].
Rounds’s whataboutism gets a little foggy here. A separate special counsel continues to investigate the Biden case; is there any legal reason the special counsel and grand jury in the Trump case should have paused their work in investigating Trump’s crimes until the Biden special counsel concluded his work?
The unprecedented action of indicting in federal court a former president, who is also a current candidate for president…
The fact that a thing is unprecedented does not inherently mean the thing should not be done. My proposing to my wife 22 and a half years ago was unprecedented—I’d never proposed to anyone before!—but it turned out to be a pretty good idea. President Lincoln’s military campaign against the South was unprecedented, but it was a necessary response to the secession of the Confederate traitors. Sometimes unprecedented actions are good and necessary responses to unprecedented situations.
…cannot be taken lightly…
Who says anyone is taking the federal indictment of Donald Trump lightly? The grand jury evidently took its job seriously. The FBI and the special counsel so no signs of joking around.
…as it is inherently political…
Political in its purest sense means dealing with the affairs of the polis, the community. In that sense, sure, any criminal proceeding against any public figure has political implications. Those political implications have nothing to do with determining the validity of the criminal charges. Rounds is saying nothing here that directly refutes the validity of the charges and the evidence laid out in the indictment against Trump. Rounds is only invoking the term political to obscure the questions of fact and law and encourage people who say they hate politics and politicians to dismiss the indictment as “political” in the vernacularly mock-quote malarkey sense of the word and defend their preferred politician with political slogans while dodging the facts and the law.
…and will have a lasting impact on our nation [Rounds, 2023.06.10].
Rounds trails this great gob of a sentence off into a vague generality that, again, is all distraction and no refutation. Yes, indictments, prosecutions, and convictions of elected officials have lasting impacts on the nation. So do crimes committed by elected officials. The most lasting impact we can hope for from this prosecution is that future Presidents will understand that they cannot act with impunity in office or after, that, as Trump himself told his followers seven years ago, “No one will be above the law.”
The burden of proof is on the Department of Justice to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt. The former president should be considered innocent unless proven guilty [Rounds, 2023.06.10].
Out of good stuff, Senator Rounds ends as Captain Obvious. But…innocent until proven guilty? That doesn’t sound like what Rounds said in his third paragraph: “sensitive information… has been treated so carelessly by current and former members of the executive branch.” Rounds didn’t say “alleged to have been treated”; he stated the careless treatment of documents as fact. Does Rounds not consider Clinton, Biden, and Pence innocent until proven guilty? Is it Rounds whose assessment of guilt is inherently political, firming up when he needs rhetoric against opponents, but going soft when he needs to throw lifelines to Il Duce and his dupes?
Senator Mitt Romney also invoked the proper presumption of innocence in his reaction to the federal Trump indictment, but the Utah Republican felt no need to adopt Rounds’s mealymouthed evasion. Romney spoke directly to the gravity of the charges, upheld the integrity of the justice system, and said the indictment is Trump’s own darn fault:
Like all Americans, Mr. Trump is entitled to the presumption of innocence. The government has the burden of proving its charges beyond a reasonable doubt and securing a unanimous verdict by a South Florida jury.
By all appearances, the Justice Department and special counsel have exercised due care, affording Mr. Trump the time and opportunity to avoid charges that would not generally have been afforded to others.
Mr. Trump brought these charges upon himself by not only taking classified documents, but by refusing to simply return them when given numerous opportunities to do so.
These allegations are serious and if proven, would be consistent with his other actions offensive to the national interest, such as withholding defensive weapons from Ukraine for political reasons and failing to defend the Capitol from violent attack and insurrection [Senator Mitt Romney, press release, 2023.06.09].
Romney issued that press release Friday. Rounds issued his response to the indictment Saturday. Evidently it takes longer to write cowardly political dodgery than straightforward truth.
$20 says Mr. Rounds didn’t write a single word of that statement but was composed by his legal counsel instead.
The image of Rounds riding back to Dodge City. Poetic, love it.
Everyone read should read the following link, a true story behind the WIZARD OF OZ
https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vStMuQO6YokNsHQ4BBX_OoEcHk-ves_bZKvL8wyZLJLjKfN1G5HtNMrNcQFaDuGAE75iqDepncolEQr/
The Wizard of Oz is really a story about the central bank, in the book Dorothy wears silver slippers and walks the yellow brick road (gold) trail as she hops along to the Emerald city aka Washington DC under the spell of the Federal Reserve Bankers.
Frank Baum began his career as a newspaper editor, in Aberdeen-South Dakota, he would have lived through, and experienced all of the Banking Panics that occurred shortly after the Civil War between 1871 to 1890 of which the nation was still healing from, and recreating itself, first by the Act of 1871 where the Congress put back together, the Federal Union, first by incorporating the Federal Territory – all federal property, buildings, programs, persons became incorporated as one entity known as the UNITED STATES CORPORATION; while in 1874 they adopt a law of which created a Municipal Government for D.C.
In 1888 L. Frank Baum of Oz fame began editing the South Dakota newspaper The Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer where he advocated for the extermination of American Indians. In the early days of South Dakota statehood Indian agents embezzled federal funds meant for tribal nations, just like James McLaughlin did. Mount Rushmore is South Dakota’s premier example of white nationalist ideology. Its sculptor was a member of the Ku Klux Klan.
Little has changed.
In 2015 after Trace O’Connell and a wad of other entitled white guys from Philip spilled beer on a group of American Horse School students Rapid City businesses shat all over themselves trying to extinguish the wildfire of anger. Organizers of the Lakota Nation Invitational even sought alternative locations for the annual event — Sioux Falls, Bismarck and Spearditch were considered. That same year Watertown High School finally dropped a racist ritual called Ki-Yi.
In 2017 a South Dakota school board voted unanimously to cancel homecoming activities that would have featured a football game between the Sturgis Scoopers and the Pine Ridge Thorpes after a car bearing hate speech and a symbol painted on it that some said resembled a swastika was smashed by Sturgis students.
In April 2019 sleepy Vermillion became ground zero for Donald Trump’s war on America in South Dakota by hosting Charlie Kirk.
In 2022 five tribal chairpersons and presidents called for a boycott of Rapid City after the owners of the Grand Gateway Hotel leveled racist diatribes at Indigenous Americans there. Confederate flags routinely fly in Rapid City showing support for racism in like-minded states, South Carolina and Mississippi. Many more come out during the Sturgis Rally.
Rounds is a hack. Not worth the time. no different than this idiot legislator. https://www.nola.com/news/politics/clay-higgins-urges-war-over-trump-indictments-author-says/article_db78acde-0701-11ee-af01-73c2414fd4d7.html
Here is the smartest liberal media spokesperson, interviewing the dumbest conservative FBI head (Comey), who ironically compares our stupid, stupid flame thrower governor to the sickest GOP incompetent elected leader (Trump). @2:00 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_c0o547MjaY&feature=youtu.be
That SD Republicans are too stupid to realize they have been and are being spoon-fed billionaire bull-sheit by ridiculous radical right-wing faux disinformation media, but keep listening to Johnson, Thune, Rounds and Noem, and electing them, says all a reasonable rational human being needs to know about the death of the Republican Party. JFC
No wonder there is such fear of gun-fetish civil-war violence, impending the demographic changes that place liberals in the majority. Interesting that the illegitimate upending of Roe v. Wade has resulted in 12% of the nation wishing to violently restore the right to abortion, compared to 4% who wish to violently restore trump to the presidency. (recent U Chicago study)
Despite untaxed billionaire wishes, the top two election issues continue to be 1.) global warming, and 2.) economic inequality (https://harris.uchicago.edu/news-events/news/stone-center-research-wealth-inequality-and-mobility-launches-5-million-gift)
Thus the GOP war on our voting rights!
Round Mike had his chance to call out (and convict) illegal behavior on rtump’s part twice. He failed. What makes any sane person believe he can rationally act or judge in this case.
He’s a hack who will do as he’s told. We deserve better.
Rounds is a selfish pig, doesn’t care the damage drumpf has done to our country, only the damage to his political career if he angers drumpf’s voters. He consistently dishonors himself and his state. All magats do. That is all they do.
so MZ, you are two different posters, one illiterate, the other not so grammatically challenged (all thumbs on ‘yer fon, eh?) as above. Or some mix of disingenuousness of the two? All “respect” and stuff, eh?
Don’t worry, Cory will give you a platform, all day long, just like grdz. Cory follows rules and norms. You guys don’t. Truth, justice, patriotism.
Well, the best you can say about Rounds statement is that it is mush. I’m not sure why people like Rounds can’t just tell the effing truth.
I think we can all understand there is a problem with executive branch handing of classified information. I’m sure it has to do with how much of it there is and how important it is for certain leaders to have this information readily available to them. They also seem to have so much of it that it becomes like my current office with stuff piled here and there. Eventually you just stick it in a box and forget about it There has to be a far better system developed for chain of custody of these documents. That takes care of the Biden and Pence situation.
The people who looked at it seemed to think there was nothing criminal in Hillary’s case She did cooperate with the FBI during their probe of her use servers, etc., with classified information stored on them. They obtained emails contained therein, and didn’t need Russian assistance, as Trump called for. Republicans tried to make a big deal about it, but all that could be determined about it is that Hillary was “careless” with the information. I think, really, that conclusion applies to the entire way the executive branch over decades have treated this information.
Of the leaders who have been looked into, Trump was the only one who claimed he “owned” the classified information and refused to turn it over. Had he done that, this probably would have been a non-issue. In fact Trump actively participated in a conspiracy to hide the material from the FBI and Presidential records agency. Let’s hope he spends a good long stretch in prison, and Rounds starts actually doing his job and correcting the haphazard was the executive branch handles this information, rather than putting out mush.
In a bit of good news on the intel security front, Colorado congresswoman/Snakehead, LaurenBoobalert is considered a security threat, according to Pentagon.
https://www.rawstory.com/lauren-boebert-security-threat/
MZ, I tried to take a look at your linked document. I got this message” “sorry the file you have suggested does not exist.
There are a lot of theories about any hidden meanings in the Wizard of Oz. Baum certainly was a populist with all its good and bad aspects, but there are other theories as well.
https://www.vulture.com/2013/03/wizard-of-oz-theories-gold-standard-feminist-religion-jung.html
One of seven theories on the meaning of “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” by a high school teacher named Henry Littlefield uses the characters as an economic allegory.
The Tin Man represents the industrial workers, who faced soaring unemployment rates in the waning years of the nineteenth century. That’s suggested by the Tin Man’s rusty joints and creaky movements that keep him from being effective.
The oil that solved the workers problems is the socialism of FDR and that socialism is still keeping our country on its steady course to progressive eutopia.
That’s because we all know that the things the majority of us need are cheaper when purchased as a group.
I would like to get either of our Dog damn senators by the neck tie, look them straight in the eye and ask them exactly what could Trump do that might be too much. Could he actually shoot a person on 5th Avenue? If he is a “former president” and he “is running for office,” do we carve out a special set of laws that apply to only one person? Do you have to dye your skin orange and wear a mop on your head to get special treatment? What is the fascination with this guy? So far, our wonderful delegates have overlooked sexual assault, obstruction of justice, abuse of power, inciting an insurrection, bankruptcies, con jobs, nepotism, emoluments violations… Should I continue? Are we sure that these gents represent South Dakota values? Then again, what are SD values, these days? I’m starting to wonder.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mike-rounds-donald-trump-kkk_n_56d5e329e4b03260bf7840e7
drumpf in the Wizard of Oz is the coward lying, with bonespurs.
NYP has this to say about sinate magats…..McConnell, who avoids mentioning Trump’s name in public, has reportedly told his caucus the 76-year-old is a flawed candidate who will drag down GOP candidates if he is the party’s White House nominee.
Other GOP leaders — Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) — also don’t want Trump as the party’s 2024 presidential nominee, according to the report.
I can hear Marlboro Barbie mansplain he will make a statement as soon as someone gives him one..
Donald Trump is sleazy, corrupt, and entitled. He is a bad man. What is unprecedented is that we should elevate such a person beyond the side-show status of entertainer to public official. That monumentally poor decision is what is unprecedented. Every discussion about Donald Trump has to begin with his character demonstrated though his actions– in that context, how unprecedented are his legal troubles?
Bad people who break the law should be prosecuted.
e.p.o., right, cowardly Thune and Cornyn don’t want Florida Fats as their candidate, but both lack the spine to say anything. Besides, let the Democrats do the dirty work, then you can blame them for Trump’s downfall AND get rid of your problem. Win-win! What a couple of schmucks!
Kevin Woster called out Mr. Thune on twitter to release a similar statement and Thune’s comms, Ryan Wrasse blew him off.
https://twitter.com/rwrasse/status/1667219585592901652?s=46
* In the end, they’re not coming after me, they’re coming after you — and I’m just standing in their way,” Trump said Saturday at a rally in Georgia.
* “This is the final battle,” he added, saying “our people are angry.”
* “Never forget what the demented persecution of our movement is all about!” he told North Carolina supporters Saturday.
* Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis tweeted that he would “bring accountability to the Department of Justice, excise political bias and end weaponization once and for all.”
* Businessman and presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy said he will “commit to pardon Trump promptly on January 20, 2025 and to restore the rule of law in our country.”
* However…
On the FBI and DOJ’s handling: “I think the government acted responsibly.”
“They gave him every opportunity to return those documents. They acted with restraint. They were very deferential to him and they were very patient. They talked to him for almost a year to try to get those documents,” Former Attorney General Bill Barr said on Fox News.
Honestly? I’m terrified the GOP will assassinate our POTUS and VPOTUS then install the Republican Speaker of the House who would name Herr Trump his Veep then step down.
There is little doubt in my mind that damning evidence linking the Trump Organization to the Port Authority and Russia was destroyed on 9/11 and it’s impossible the Obama Administration didn’t know Donald Trump was being installed through a vast white wing conspiracy with at least one hostile government. Hillary Clinton knew that had she been elected in 2016 Paul Ryan would have been POTUS before the 2018 midterms.
Rounds would just as soon see Trump NOT be the Republican nominee but is fearful that without Trump, the Republicans will lose control of the Senate and then his accumulated seniority goes down the drain. It is no fun being a Minority member.
I view that this indictment confirms the integrity of our justice system, not calling this integrity into question as Senator Round’s states. The congress should stay in their lane and not attempt to execute the written laws. A reminder that when the Jan. 6th insurrection was over and everyone went home, Donald Trump was not in the way of the justice system. So if something happens again don’t expect Donnie Boy to help.
Rounds is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, I guess a member of the US Senate does not have to provide proof of an IQ greater than, oh say 60?
Cory, what Town Hall Meetings?
Have I missed some from Rounds, Thune, or Johnson?
Rounds’ and other SD politicians’ hypocrisy is on record:
https://www.argusleader.com/story/news/2016/07/07/thune-rounds-call-revocation-clintons-security-clearances/86820860/
https://www.mitchellrepublic.com/news/noem-serious-questions-remain-regarding-clintons-email-controversy
https://www.rounds.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/rounds-cosponsors-bill-to-revoke-former-secretary-of-state-hillary-clintons-security-clearance
Betsy Ross, Guardian US editor:
—From Elon Musk to Rupert Murdoch, a small number of billionaire owners have a powerful hold on so much of the information that reaches the public about what’s happening in the world. The Guardian is different. We have no billionaire owner or shareholders to consider. Our journalism is produced to serve the public interest —not profit motives.
And we avoid the trap that befalls much US media – the tendency, born of a desire to please all sides, to engage in false equivalence in the name of neutrality. While fairness guides everything we do, we know there is a right and a wrong position in the fight against racism and for reproductive justice. When we report on issues like the climate crisis, we’re not afraid to name who is responsible.—
—Rounds campaign Top Three $$$—
Leadership PACs $456,467 $567
Securities & Investment $424,328
Retired $335,648
https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/mike-rounds/industries?cid=N00035187&cycle=2022
Romney versus Rounds: The difference between a JD-MBA from Harvard University versus a BS in political science from SDSU.
Then there’s Noem with her BA in political science from SDSU, a cut below Rounds.
…not a reflection on institutional quality as much as a reflection on the potential –or lack thereof —of the matriculating student.
Rounds’ nonsense imparts a likelihood, that if able, he would have defended Agnew and Nixon. The weak DOJ allowed Agnew to resign in exchange for pleading no contest to one charge, a fine, and no prison time — the insurmountable evidence showed Agnew committed dozens of crimes over multiple years and thus should have spent a dozen years or more in federal prison. Nixon. The weak DOJ never prepared a prosecution of Nixon and any such prosecution was usurped by Ford’s pardon of Nixon. Treating criminals like adolescents did not bind up the nation’s wounds. Instead treating public criminals like this was a nation of men, not a nation of laws, fostered more and worse criminals in the public sphere.
Trump’s indictments are are sign that maybe, just maybe, the US, after almost 250 years, has grown up from its adolescent worship of men to become a nation of laws. Trump’s present indictments and future indictments are moments to celebrate. They are a national awakening for the rule of law.
Recall that foolish Rounds build a house in a floodplain – that is indicative that he’ll fall for anything.
Frankly, I’m fine with the republicans nominating the likely criminal trump. Nominating trump fleshes out the fools, the zealots, the cult worshipers. That is in the nation’s best interest to expose those anti-American traitors. Then maybe we can have an adult conversation about what to do with them.
Rounds and Thune and McConnell have a Republican obstructionist role in disarming the Federal Court System leaving SD federal judgeships vacant. https://www.sdnewswatch.org/stories/federal-judges-south-dakota-seats-biden-appointments/
Remember Rounds and Thune were Trumpists, protected Trump from dual impeachments, and remember the effect that the malign incompetent corrupt Trump’s Executive Department had on law enforcement: vaccination insubordination resulting in kidnapping in Trump’s US Marshals Service. https://www.inforum.com/news/judge-dismisses-charges-against-us-marshals-in-south-dakota
Here Rounds is still protecting Trump.
To trump: “if you want to die in jail, keep talking”.
https://news.yahoo.com/want-die-jail-keep-talking-114948115.html
trumpian zealots are correct — trump is being treated different. If trump wasn’t a past president, “If Trump were anyone other than a former president, he would not have been given the luxury of a summons to appear in court. There would be a team of armed FBI agents outside his door at 6:30 in the morning, he would have been arrested and the government would be immediately moving to detain. So the idea that he’s being treated differently is true – but not from the way his supporters seem to be arguing.”
“There’s only one reason the government could not bring this case, and that’s fear of violence or an attack on the republic. Once you do that, then you might as well close the Department of Justice and forget about any rule of law.” — That fool rounds and other republican zealots and cultists wanting to elevate trump to a a rule of man vs this being a nation of laws – – – is the imperative fault in rounds and their milquetoast support of trump.
A south Florida jury indicted trump. Not the DOJ, not Garland, not Biden. Rounds is casting aspersions against the citizens of south Florida and US jurisprudence.
Noticed that Trump’s colleague from North Carolina who had joined him in judging the DOJ and the Courts is now suggesting that he COULD HAVE done the deed. Mike seems to be worried about voters in other states passing judgement on him, as his fans in South Dakota never stop letting him have any office he wants for as long as he wants it!