What Trump doesn't (but should) understand about the 'Socks' case

[LetMyPeopleVote]

The Clinton socks case does not help TFG

Link to tweet

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/trump-doesnt-understand-socks-case-rcna89770

As NBC News reported last year, the 2012 court ruling “explicitly states that the Presidential Records Act distinguishes presidential records from ‘personal records,’ defined as documents that are ‘purely private or nonpublic character.’”

In contrast, Trump took highly sensitive national security secrets to his glorified country club. To see the two as comparable is to overlook every relevant detail.

University of Michigan law professor Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. Attorney and an MSNBC legal analyst, had a great Twitter thread on this yesterday, calling the former president’s argument “nonsensical”:

...Clinton’s recordings were from his own interviews, qualifying as diaries, which the Presidential Records Act says are not presidential records. No law precluded Clinton from keeping them. Trump is charged not with violating the Presidential Records Act, but instead with violating the Espionage Act. The records Trump is alleged to have illegally retained are agency records, such as records of the CIA, NSA, and Department of Defense, not presidential records.

How does any of this relate to “the Clinton Socks case.” It doesn’t. Trump will need to think of something else the next time he wants to pretend he's been "exonerated

[RockRaven]

1. The "socks" in the "Clinton Socks Case" are the clothing item, not the cat. MSNBC isn't helping

anyone's understanding of this matter with their choice of picture, least of all TFG.

RWers call it the "Clinton Socks Case" because of the apparently unevidenced talk-radio-conspiracy-theory claim that Clinton kept these tape recordings in his sock drawer. The word "sock" appears nowhere in the rulings associated with this case, IIRC.

[Kingofalldems]

2. Might as well be.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

7. The Socks refer to the sock drawer where Clinton stored some recordings for a book

[gratuitous]

3. The defendant puts forward a lot of arguments that aren't true or don't make sense

Whether or not he understands the Presidential Records Act is immaterial; he's counting on the average citizen not to understand it, and he's counting on the media not to explain it to their readers or viewers. While it's no big sin for the average citizen not to understand every last nuance of every federal law, the defendant is sadly spot on when it comes to the media not explaining things to their audience.

NBC acquits itself rather well in the excerpted portion of the post, but when other media outlets fail in informing their audience, NBC's good work can be disappeared by the defendant's nitwit supporters.

[Ray Bruns]

4. You could fill a library with the things trump and his minions don't understand.

[gotham]

5. Blame it on Newt

The 104th congress (the wellspring of all the current right wing vileness imho) went after the Clinton's every which way that not even Socks the cat was immune.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

8. A non-lawyer idiot is the one who told TFG that he owned these records

Link to tweet

[NotASurfer]

6. From a messaging point of view, when Individual One's post is confusing enough that

it sounds like he's mad about a cat, the thing he really shows ignorance of is that -unlike him - most people actually like cute furry animals, and DON'T like incoherent con men who paint their faces with Industrial Orange Dye #45

I expect him to double down and claim this is somehow about Socks. That's a no-win argument