Firstly, I don't care for Hillary and didn't vote for her. That election I voted Libertarian, and this despite the fact that she had the most official government and especially global governmental experience. In retrospect we may have been better off with that experience than what President Trump did to the Supreme Court among a few other issues. Please don't misunderstand me, since I don't discount everything Trump enacted (he did do some good by my estimation) and that is common in that most people consider elections to be of "the least bad" to one degree or another. I think that's just democracy in action and humanity in general. Some evidence for this is seen in the general rule that the sitting president, if not the entire party, is commonly taking a nasty bath in midterms.

That said, I don't recall any Hillary incited or other "rioting mobs" at all in 2016, let alone any "Hang the Vice President" rhetoric. Regardless of what Mrs. Clinton's private thoughts might be, it is my recollection that she publicly conceded. That is nowhere near the same as "Stop the Steal". Perhaps more to the current point, AFAIK NOBODY EVER cast doubt on elections that hadn't even happened yet, setting the stage for further denial. Finally, it is now a matter of record that beyond public concessions and private thoughts I am dead certain that nobody ever tried to stop the counting process, convince interdiction by the military and militia groups, and declare privately that whatever the count showed, a "landslide victory" would be announced with zero backing evidence. Maybe it was just another "declassification by thinking about it".

I wanted to trust that Trump would ultimately "grow into the mantle" and become a truly good president, but it appears to me he cannot rise above his ultra rich, entitled existence nor his incredibly infantile narcissistic personality. That he expected in his own words that his team behave more like WWII German Generals which at least in his mind exhibited unwavering loyalty to Der Fuhrer, was the capstone for me that reversed my position.

To be very specific, what Hillary Clinton said was "I think it’s also critical to understand that, as I’ve been telling candidates who have come to see me, you can run the best campaign, you can even become the nominee, and you can have the election stolen from you,” And she said it in 2019, not during or after the election in 2016.

I believe she was exactly correct. Also, there was some good REASON to believe that her election was stolen. If you recall, there was a leak from the justice department of baseless information that impacted her campaign, and it violated every policy of main justice and normal government investigative procedures. Despite that, she did not claim it was stolen form her in 2016 (although other people DID) but conceded the election honorably.

Note that in several states the redistricting process has been managed so that one party can get only 40% of the popular vote and still win 60% of the seats! I would call that a "steal", no matter what party did that. Note that new district maps have been determined to be unconstitutional in four states, and only corrected to the extent to delay additional court action to after the current election rather than generating a fair and legal map or plan.

That said, what has this to do with Elon Musk and his corruption of "free speech" on Twitter?
(Note that parody accounts that mention Musk are being removed from Twitter even as I type this, so his version of "free" has interesting restrictions. Russian Propaganda is, as far as we can tell, not being restricted very much at all.)

I seem to recall a case involving clearly illegal storage of confidential information on an insecure, private server, and the deliberate destruction of evidence after an FBI warrant had been issued. That may have painted Mrs. Clinton in a somewhat negative light.

No rules have been changed at Twitter since the acquisition. Impersonation/identity theft has never been allowed; parody accounts are required to clearly indicate both in the username and bio that they are indeed parodies.

Numerous verified users started impersonating Elon Musk without any indication in the username that they weren't him, which means their tweets appeared as being written by "Elon Musk (verified mark)". These users were banned, as they should be according to both the rules and indeed the law. (And also common sense.)

No, there was an FBI investigation and no laws were broken, so there was no illegal server. There were actually two email servers involved in the investigation: one government server that you do not hear about much because nothing was ever wrong there, and a private server that was not run to government standards and was intended for only personal traffic. Some things that should have been sent to the government server were sent to the private server, and #1 that violates department policy (not a matter of law), and #2 those were sent TO HC not BY HC. Investigation determined that #1 no ill intent could be proven and no case could be successfully brought, and #2 had there been a case it would not have been against HC, rather the senders of those emails. This was all reported after the election.

By Justice policy that investigation should never have been mentioned to the media unless or until after the election, and only then if a indictment resulted.

You might note that Justice statements and reports have been very sparse statements after some other party pushed data to the public and Justice was asked to respond by the party under investigation. This is the normal state, and has been the pattern for all other cases. In that ONE HC case where there was no actual evidence of illegal activity, there was one man who made an exception corrupting the election process. Concluding that this constituted a "steal" of the election would depend upon your judgement of how much it affected the outcome and if that was the intent.

None of which has anything to do with Elon Musk or Twitter dorectly, as far as I can tell.

Sorry, that's just factually wrong. Storing confidential data in a non-governmental system is plainly illegal. And unlike a certain other person who's been accused of mishandling confidential information, the Secretary of State doesn't have the power to declassify documents.

The FBI concluded that laws were indeed broken (link), and that it is indeed possible that confidential information on the Clinton server was accessed by foreign powers.

However, in the Clinton case, the FBI director decided that an entirely new standard for prosecution was to be applied, namely that data would have to be intentionally exposed to foreign interests for someone to be held criminally liable. And for some reason, this logic also made the "intentionally destroying items that were under subpoena" problem just disappear.

But I'm sure the fact that the FBI director shares Mrs. Clinton's political affiliation is just a coincidence, and that this is not at all an egregious example of political corruption at the highest levels.

Yeah apparently the President can declassify documents just by thinking about it <sarc>. After all, "The State is Me" right?

You may not like it, but yes, the President of The United States has absolute authority with regards to declassifying documents.

Perhaps the logic is that he's an elected official, while the various three-letter agencies and branches of government that classify information are controlled by bureaucrats, and unless he could override their decisions, there would be very limited oversight (if any). Or perhaps it's due to something else entirely.

But that is indeed how things are.

Yes and No. There are some secrets the President can not declassify or declassify alone.

A federal appeals court in a 2020 Freedom of Information Act case, New York Times v. CIA,
“Declassification cannot occur unless designated officials follow specified procedures.”

This includes the President however, the legal authority to unilaterally declassify materials without following formal procedures has not be challenged in court.

Classified documents that have been declassified are still the property of the Federal government.

The President can not declassify documents by thinking about it.

"'But that is indeed how things are.' - Ser Olmy" LOL! C'mon man... "thinking it" is not sufficient in ANY legal sense. You do realize in the hierarchy of identity and Letter of the Law that there are more important things than party affiliation, right?

https://twitter.com/Ki_PenYakki_ay/s...20609658384385

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Elon Musk
@elonmusk
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2:21 AM · Nov 10, 2022

Elon Musk
@elonmusk
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2h
Replying to
@Ki_PenYakki_ay
Coming" Emphasis mine.

Which are those? I couldn't find any such limitations on the President's powers to declassify.
I looked it up (link), and it's not really relevant here. The matter in question was whether a statement by the President regarding certain facts could be interpreted as a de facto declassification of all materials regarding that matter. The court ruled that it could not.

In that case, the President had not made a statement regarding declassification, nor did he claim to have made such a statement or decision.You say the President is bound by some limitations, but I've yet to see any law laying out such boundaries.

As you say, his authority in such matters has never been challenged in court, and it still won't, as the critics of the former President have not issued a legal challenge. Probably for good reason.
And that's why there's been talk about the Presidential Records Act, rather than any laws specifically related to classification.

The FBI seems to agree that the documents at Mar-a-lago were declassified, as they published a picture of some documents allegedly seized in a raid. Had these been confidential documents, even publishing a picture of the front page of the folder would have been a crime.On the contrary, it seems he can indeed do just that. After all, that's precisely what "absolute authority" means; you simply decide for yourself how to exercise it.

Show me the law laying out any limitations or procedural requirements, and I'll agree.

In your view, what does "absolute authority" mean, if not the ability to simply decide for yourself how and when to exercise that authority?

The problem with the documents Trump stole form the US government was not that they were classified. (I mean, "I" have a problem with that but that was not the basis for the warrant or charges as presented to the court.) The problem is that those were GOVERNMENT documents and property of the US government as once he was no longer President he did not have any authority over them and return the the national archives is REQUIRED by law. To store or display any document belonging to the US government and required by law to be under the archivist authority (as ALL of these documents were) would require a document request, approval, and monitoring. This is generally a time limited permission, and is the procedure followed by all previous presidents when displaying official records in their presidential libraries.

In this case Trump did not follow the law, did not seek or obtain proper permission, did not allow official monitoring, and did not return the documents even after repeated requests, and LIED about the documents repeatedly. Any discussion of the POTUS ability to declassify is irrelevant.

Had I done that with ONE of my official documents I would have been in Federal prison for years by now, and unlikely to see freedom for several more! THAT is the base of the official legal issue in this case, not that the items contained classified material.

Note: the classified nature of the documents, and the sensitivity of the contents, will create an intelligence nightmare for the USA for a decade or two. That IS a real problem, but that is not Trump's problem.

Are you actually serious? Democracy depends on record keeping communication exactly because only autocrats are "King for life". Presidents get four years. Maybe one day if Elon or someone else succeeds with something like the NeuroLink what you're suggesting could come to pass. Right now? Nah. Agreed?