The MeidasTouch Podcast - Trump slammed by his own NSA Lawyer who calls declassification claim 'preposterous'

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Starting point is 00:00:58 Hey, this is Jordy Maiselis, co-founder of Midas Touch, and you are listening to The Mighty. On The Mighty, we feature some of the most impactful responses, reactions, narratives, musings, and rants of Midas content creators. New episodes of the podcast I do with my brothers, the Midas Touch podcast, well, that releases every Tuesday and Friday morning. The rest of the week, it's The Mighty. Over the weekend, there was plenty of breaking news relating to the search conducted at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate. That said, for today's episode, let's focus on one story in particular. And that story is the top NSA lawyer from 2015 to 2019, Glenn Eskerstel, slamming Donald Trump, saying that claims of having a standing order to declassify documents is not only irrelevant, but preposterous. Midas Touch contributor, lawyer, co-founder,

Starting point is 00:01:45 and my older brother, Ben Micellus, breaks it all down. Ben, take it away. This is Ben Micellus from the Midas Touch Network, and this is a breaking news alert. We are hearing from the top lawyer at the National Security Agency, the NSA, from 2015 through 2020. So this individual served while Trump was president, individual by the name of Glenn S. Gerstel, who said it is absolutely preposterous that Donald Trump somehow declassified these records that would be found at Mar-a-Lago without going through proper protocols, without logging what it was that was being declassified or notifying the agencies. And so you have this top NSA lawyer slamming Donald Trump who claimed that these records

Starting point is 00:02:30 were somehow declassified. But let me be very clear. Declassification is not an element and is not relevant to the crimes that Donald Trump is being investigated for. Recall, Donald Trump is being investigated for 18 U.S.C. 2071, concealment, removal, and mutilation of records. 18 U.S.C. 793, gathering, transmitting, or losing defense information. That is the Espionage Act.

Starting point is 00:02:59 And also 18 U.S.C. 1519, destruction, alteration, falsification of records. Recall our breaking news update from yesterday where Trump's lawyers signed off to top counterintelligence officials that they returned records to the Department of Justice, which they didn't. So all of the crimes I just listed, declassification is not an element. Ownership is. Theft is. Taking records that don't belong to you and showing them to people who shouldn't see it. Taking the records and destroying it and hiding it. Those are what the elements are.

Starting point is 00:03:35 And they have very stiff criminal sentences. We're talking about five years, 10 years, 20 years for obstruction, 10 years for the Espionage Act per document. We're talking about potential life sentences here for Trump, but I want to show you what the radical right extremist fascists have been doing and the disinfo that they've been injecting, harping on this issue that Donald Trump automatically declassified records. Let's watch a clip from earlier today of Kash Patel, who was the former chief of staff to the acting secretary

Starting point is 00:04:06 of defense, Christopher Miller. Recall that everybody in Trump's orbit who were cabinet level positions mostly were all acting. Trump didn't even go through the proper appointment process. Essentially everything this grifter did was a lie and was a crime to begin with. And Kash Patel was one of the people who was trying to obstruct the peaceful transition of power. But listen to what Kash Patel, the lies that he's telling this morning on Fox News. Play the clip. President Trump made it his mission to declassify and be transparent. In October of 2020, he issued a sweeping declassification order for every Russiagate document and every single Hillary Clinton document. Then on the way out of the White House, he issued further declassification orders, declassifying whole sets of documents.

Starting point is 00:04:48 And this is a key fact that most Americans are missing. President Trump, as a sitting president, is a unilateral authority for declassification. He can literally stand over a set of documents and say, these are now declassified. And that is done with definitive action immediately. So total BS coming from Kash Patel, total BS coming from the fascist right-wing network known as Fox and directly contradictory from Trump's own lawyer. Let's play this other clip from Fox of this guest. Now on this clip, Fox invokes Richard Nixon and says that even Richard Nixon stated that isn't it true that whatever the president does becomes lawful because he's

Starting point is 00:05:25 the president. Presidents can't commit crimes. Play this ridiculous clip. We have a Fox News alert. Sources tell Fox News that the records seized by the FBI during the raid on Mar-a-Lago were covered by attorney-client privilege. And back in June, the former president's lawyer certified that no classified material was even at the property. Fox & Friends contributor Bill Bennett joins us now. Bill, great to see you this morning. Thank you. I think I want to go straight to this issue with you, Bill.

Starting point is 00:05:54 You've been around, you've covered and been within administrations for quite some decades. You know, if I listen to alternative media today and I, oh, classified documents, famously, President Nixon said, if the president does it, then it is not illegal. Is that not truly the standard when it comes to classified documents? The president has the ability to at any time declassify anything. The president has the ability to at any time declassify anything. The president does, so there is a procedure that the president must follow, but the president can declassify these documents. So that's where Fox and the radical right fascists are, right? They want to defund and abolish the FBI.

Starting point is 00:06:39 They want to repeal the Espionage Act. These radical right extremists called Republicans now, they want to abolish the FBI. They want to repeal the Espionage Act. These radical right extremists called Republicans now, they want to abolish the FBI. They want to repeal the Espionage Act. They're for espionage. And now they're invoking the name of Richard Nixon to defend Donald Trump and saying there's nothing a president can do that's criminal at all. That is what their talking points are. It's completely deranged. And speaking of deranged, Donald Trump on his failing social media platform this morning, Truth Social, said the following, oh great, it has just been learned that the FBI and its now famous raid of Mar-a-Lago took boxes of privileged

Starting point is 00:07:18 attorney-client material and also executive-privileged material, which they knowingly should have not taken. By copy of this truth, I respectfully request that these documents be immediately returned to the location from which they were taken. Thank you. By copy of this truth, this man is deranged and it would be funny if he wasn't so dangerous and these radical right fascists weren't so dangerous. By virtue of this truth, are you kidding me? And let's also take a pause to look at what radical right-wing fascist Russian Ron Johnson is saying to the media.

Starting point is 00:07:57 Play this clip. Are you concerned at all about national security breaches with those classified documents being at the Mar-a-Lago estate? First of all, I think Mar-a-lago is a pretty safe place it has secret service protection sounds like these documents might have been in a safe so i'm not overly concerned about some top secret information getting leaked out yeah they don't give a they don't care oh i don't care. Oh, I don't care if the documents all leak out of Mar-a-Lago. These people are deranged. These people are dangerous. These people are not competent and these people need to be stopped. Okay. That is why we've created the Midas Touch Network to educate you with the truth. I'm Ben Maiselis and I'll be back with more breaking news updates here on the Midas Touch Network. Thanks, Ben. And thank you for listening to this episode of The Mighty.

Starting point is 00:08:50 Please make sure to subscribe now to the Midas Touch podcast channel and leave a five-star review. Also, please check out store.midastouch.com for all the best Midas Touch gear. Thank you again for listening. And as always, shout out to the Midas Mighty. Hey, this is Jordy, co-founder of Midas Touch. Person, woman, man, camera, prison. Midas Touch just came out with a brand new t-shirt with this perfect message. Make sure you check out store.midastouch.com. That's store.midastouch.com and grab yours today. Thank you.

The MeidasTouch Podcast - Trump slammed by his own NSA Lawyer who calls declassification claim 'preposterous'

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