5 ms·

Removing these records from the public internet could likely be considered illegal under the OPEN Government Data Act, 44 U.S.C. § 3506: > (d) With respect to

Removing these records from the public internet could likely be considered illegal under the OPEN Government Data Act, 44 U.S.C. § 3506: > (d) With respect to information dissemination, each agency shall— (3) provide adequate notice when initiating, substantially modifying, or terminating significant information dissemination products; (4) not, except where specifically authorized by statute— (A) establish an exclusive, restricted, or other distribution arrangement that interferes with timely and equitable availability of public information to the public; (B) restrict or regulate the use, resale, or redissemination of public information by the public If these datasets were actually permanently deleted then the incident should be investigated by NARA [1]. The people responsible could be charged with a crime under 18 U.S.C. § 2071: > (b) Whoever, having the custody of any such record, proceeding, map, book, document, paper, or other thing, willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies, or destroys the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both; and shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States. As used in this subsection, the term “office” does not include the office held by any person as a retired officer of the Armed Forces of the United States. 1. https://www.archives.gov/records-mgmt/resources/unauthorizeddispositionoffederalrecords https://www.archives.gov/records-mgmt/resources/unauthorized...

juujian 2y ago
Damage done, mission accomplished... If you do something illegal and can get away with it relatively unscathed, then it isn't in practice illegal.
- astrange 2y ago
  How do you know you've gotten away with it? That takes the rest of your life. (Well, statute of limitations.)
  - viraptor 2y ago
    It's going to be a couple months at most. If it's not punished immediately, it's practically legal with the current gov. And the next one will have way bigger things to unfuck than some missing documents.
    - latexr 2y ago
      > And the next one will have way bigger things to unfuck than some missing documents. Assuming there is going to be a next one which isn’t wholly aligned with the current one. That’s far from a given.
      - astrange 2y ago
        The federal government has no control over the elections that replace it.
  - thanhhaimai 2y ago
    The question becomes: Is this crime pardonable? If yes, how likely the current administration will pardon those people?
    - astrange 2y ago
      They can't do anything about state AGs. Federalism is kind of silly but it works out here.
      - alwa 2y ago
        Can state AGs prosecute federal crimes, like this one?
        astrange 2y ago
        No, but if it affects someone in the state there's usually something to get them on.
        johnnyanmac 2y ago
        My understanding is that anyone can sue anyone in theory. Ideally, yes. In practice, the State AG's are one of the most respectable powers to sue for a federal law being broken, which would then go to federal court. Ideally the SCOTUS would step in itself and injunction all this stuff so it doesn't get to this point, but Trump sure is working them overtime.
  - zellyn 2y ago
    Trump is just going to blanket pardon anyone involved.
- dataflow 2y ago
  Who would even prosecute? State attorneys general?
ilrwbwrkhv 2y ago
Lol I think anyone who thinks legal and illegal mean anything, has still not gotten the plot.
- dataflow 2y ago
  Yeah that was basically my point with my earlier comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42905289 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42905289
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  Courts are still fighting. Something are being overturned already (which is lightning quick). The moment we throw our hands up and give up is when the administration wins.
  - _y5hn 2y ago
    [dupe]
throw101010 2y ago
If this was an order from the President as an official act, no scrutiny can be applied here in any court (broad immunity recently granted by the SCOTUS: absolute immunity for actions within his core constitutional powers and presumptive immunity for other official acts)... so good luck proving any wrongdoing without any evidence... If you go after any of the underlings who executed such order, they are likely getting auto-pardonned by Trump if he gave the order (otherwise it will make it harder to find people to execute his "illegal" orders next). There is no such thing as illegal for this administration. Wake up.
- achierius 2y ago
  That's not true. The restriction applies only to scrutiny of the President himself -- his agents still can be prosecuted.
  - chgs 2y ago
    His agents can be pardoned. He’s done that for thousands already.
  - trashtester 2y ago
    And he can pardon them, without even specifying what he pardons them for. Indeed, this seems to be becoming the the norm. The US really needs to reign in the pardoning power. There are 3 areas in particular that need coverage (I'll cover pardons by the President, but the same might apply to Governors): 1) Most pardons come with a political cost, either for the president himself or his party. The main exception is just after an election, especially during the President's last term. This could be solved by outlawing pardons during the last 6 months of a term. At minimum, morally questionable pardons should come with such a cost. 2) All pardons should specificy specifically what actions and potential crimes they apply to. They do not specifically need to be admission of guilt (as they may be for gray zone behavior that could need protection against political prosecution by the next administration), but they do need to specify what actions or allegations they apply to. 3) Congress' ability to specifically contest pardons should be clarified. Specifically, congress should have the ability to contest a pardon, if the pardon is made from personal interest, seriously undermines the rule of law or national security. Also, since the sitting president's party may controll the Speaker seat at the time, even the NEXT congress should have a chance to start proceedings. This requires that congress retains the right to do this even if the sitting president resigns before the term ends. (Since the new congress starts before the president's normal term ends). Taken together, the above 3 points would ensure that IF a president is seen by the general public to abuse the pardon power, voters would get one chance at voting for representatives (and senators) that promise to "restore justice". The time to introduce such a system would be now, while there's still outrage over Biden's pardons among Republicans. Democrats would also want to go along with this to prevent Trump from abusing the power in similar (or worse) ways near the end of his term. In fact, if they're sufficiently scared of this, they may even allow an opening to impeach Biden for potentially corrupt pardon's that were granted during the last weeks of his term. This would allow Republicans to go after Fauci, Hunter, etc, in congress by impeaching Biden over those pardons, even now, even if they wouldn't actually be able to reach a guilty verdict in the Senate without significant Democrat support. Still, being able to run this show may be so tempting to Trump and Republicans that they may be willing to make the new law effective immediately, while Democrats
aurareturn 2y ago
Side question: If Trump just pardons the people responsible, does it matter if it's illegal?
- llamaimperative 2y ago
  I have a sneaking suspicion that pardons aren't going to mean much at the end of this term.
  - spencerflem 2y ago
    if the term ends ...
- vkou 2y ago
  I'm afraid you're not going to get an answer that you're going to like.
- perihelions 2y ago
  I think Trump would fire any US Attorney who forces him to actually write a pardon. The clear expectation of federal prosecutors is that it's off-limits to criminally pursue Trump functionaries carrying out his orders. He's fired 30+ AUSA's just *this week*, because they had previously prosecuted Trump allies.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    I guess it's up to the states to sue the government then. Trump can't fire publicly elected state AG's. If he's gonna try to privatize everything with "state's rights", we gotta use those state's powers against him. Using the rulebook he's bound by.

juujian 2y ago

Damage done, mission accomplished... If you do something illegal and can get away with it relatively unscathed, then it isn't in practice illegal.

astrange 2y ago
How do you know you've gotten away with it? That takes the rest of your life. (Well, statute of limitations.)
- viraptor 2y ago
  It's going to be a couple months at most. If it's not punished immediately, it's practically legal with the current gov. And the next one will have way bigger things to unfuck than some missing documents.
  - latexr 2y ago
    > And the next one will have way bigger things to unfuck than some missing documents. Assuming there is going to be a next one which isn’t wholly aligned with the current one. That’s far from a given.
    - astrange 2y ago
      The federal government has no control over the elections that replace it.
- thanhhaimai 2y ago
  The question becomes: Is this crime pardonable? If yes, how likely the current administration will pardon those people?
  - astrange 2y ago
    They can't do anything about state AGs. Federalism is kind of silly but it works out here.
    - alwa 2y ago
      Can state AGs prosecute federal crimes, like this one?
      - astrange 2y ago
        No, but if it affects someone in the state there's usually something to get them on.
      - johnnyanmac 2y ago
        My understanding is that anyone can sue anyone in theory. Ideally, yes. In practice, the State AG's are one of the most respectable powers to sue for a federal law being broken, which would then go to federal court. Ideally the SCOTUS would step in itself and injunction all this stuff so it doesn't get to this point, but Trump sure is working them overtime.
- zellyn 2y ago
  Trump is just going to blanket pardon anyone involved.
dataflow 2y ago
Who would even prosecute? State attorneys general?

ilrwbwrkhv 2y ago

Lol I think anyone who thinks legal and illegal mean anything, has still not gotten the plot.

dataflow 2y ago
Yeah that was basically my point with my earlier comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42905289 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42905289
johnnyanmac 2y ago
Courts are still fighting. Something are being overturned already (which is lightning quick). The moment we throw our hands up and give up is when the administration wins.
- _y5hn 2y ago
  [dupe]

throw101010 2y ago

If this was an order from the President as an official act, no scrutiny can be applied here in any court (broad immunity recently granted by the SCOTUS: absolute immunity for actions within his core constitutional powers and presumptive immunity for other official acts)... so good luck proving any wrongdoing without any evidence... If you go after any of the underlings who executed such order, they are likely getting auto-pardonned by Trump if he gave the order (otherwise it will make it harder to find people to execute his "illegal" orders next). There is no such thing as illegal for this administration. Wake up.

achierius 2y ago
That's not true. The restriction applies only to scrutiny of the President himself -- his agents still can be prosecuted.
- chgs 2y ago
  His agents can be pardoned. He’s done that for thousands already.
- trashtester 2y ago
  And he can pardon them, without even specifying what he pardons them for. Indeed, this seems to be becoming the the norm. The US really needs to reign in the pardoning power. There are 3 areas in particular that need coverage (I'll cover pardons by the President, but the same might apply to Governors): 1) Most pardons come with a political cost, either for the president himself or his party. The main exception is just after an election, especially during the President's last term. This could be solved by outlawing pardons during the last 6 months of a term. At minimum, morally questionable pardons should come with such a cost. 2) All pardons should specificy specifically what actions and potential crimes they apply to. They do not specifically need to be admission of guilt (as they may be for gray zone behavior that could need protection against political prosecution by the next administration), but they do need to specify what actions or allegations they apply to. 3) Congress' ability to specifically contest pardons should be clarified. Specifically, congress should have the ability to contest a pardon, if the pardon is made from personal interest, seriously undermines the rule of law or national security. Also, since the sitting president's party may controll the Speaker seat at the time, even the NEXT congress should have a chance to start proceedings. This requires that congress retains the right to do this even if the sitting president resigns before the term ends. (Since the new congress starts before the president's normal term ends). Taken together, the above 3 points would ensure that IF a president is seen by the general public to abuse the pardon power, voters would get one chance at voting for representatives (and senators) that promise to "restore justice". The time to introduce such a system would be now, while there's still outrage over Biden's pardons among Republicans. Democrats would also want to go along with this to prevent Trump from abusing the power in similar (or worse) ways near the end of his term. In fact, if they're sufficiently scared of this, they may even allow an opening to impeach Biden for potentially corrupt pardon's that were granted during the last weeks of his term. This would allow Republicans to go after Fauci, Hunter, etc, in congress by impeaching Biden over those pardons, even now, even if they wouldn't actually be able to reach a guilty verdict in the Senate without significant Democrat support. Still, being able to run this show may be so tempting to Trump and Republicans that they may be willing to make the new law effective immediately, while Democrats

aurareturn 2y ago

Side question: If Trump just pardons the people responsible, does it matter if it's illegal?

llamaimperative 2y ago
I have a sneaking suspicion that pardons aren't going to mean much at the end of this term.
- spencerflem 2y ago
  if the term ends ...
vkou 2y ago
I'm afraid you're not going to get an answer that you're going to like.
perihelions 2y ago
I think Trump would fire any US Attorney who forces him to actually write a pardon. The clear expectation of federal prosecutors is that it's off-limits to criminally pursue Trump functionaries carrying out his orders. He's fired 30+ AUSA's just *this week*, because they had previously prosecuted Trump allies.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  I guess it's up to the states to sue the government then. Trump can't fire publicly elected state AG's. If he's gonna try to privatize everything with "state's rights", we gotta use those state's powers against him. Using the rulebook he's bound by.