View attachment 82742
At the moment of this post, it is most likely too early to determine the facts of the accusations, or the content of any documents :
https://www.allsides.com/story/politics-bias-alert-fbi-finds-russiagate-burn-bags-secret-room
However, I am confused as to the logic of the initial story. It's being heavily promoted in right-wing media, and scantly mentioned elsewhere.
* Why were documents stored in burn-bags, but then never burned, shredded, or pulpified ?
* If the FBI wanted to make these documents "go away", then hiding them in burn-bags would be silly because at that point, they were one step away from destruction.
* One
news spokesperson suggested that whomever hid the bags perhaps did not want to be "a party to a crime, by burning them". Although at that point hiding burn-bags is maybe criminal too (?) and the other suggested possible crime (according to this scenario) is the act of putting them inside burn-bags and sealing them, and thereby sealing their fate.
* What is the chain-of-custody for burn bags ? I read that such bags are taken seriously, where armed guards/agents escort the bags along the destruction chain/process. (see link below)
* In the chain-of-custody, once sealed for burning, it would seem unlikely for sealed bags to go missing. Is there an inventory ID # on such bags ?
* What does a bag look like ?
* And finally, why does this sound like a Nancy Drew mystery ?
"Mystery is everywhere. And it's up to us to solve it," -N.Drew
This is not the FBI directives, but from the Department of State....
https://fam.state.gov/fam/06fam/06fam1780.html
(see bold)
Breaking down your Qs but numbering em.
1 - Lax practices in that regard aren't unheard of. How stringently it's followed is very much subject to the specific unit and location etc. We'd need more details to indicate issues with that framing.
2 - This is only partially true. Generally the destruction of them isn't non-documentable and causes major issues (like congressional hearings). IF there was some coordinated skullduggery there, it would actually be the smarter idea to obfuscate and bury the documents. Entirely avoids any indicators to destruction of the documents, and simply isolated as a point alone doesn't mean there's a conspiracy behind it.
3 - Hiding a burn bag alone wouldn't really be a crime so the newscaster there is just fluff speaking there. Kinda like the #2 point there it's only an issue if you can pair it with something else. For example, if you hid it to prevent finding it in an investigation, that is still obstruction, just not the added charge or enhancements for destroying documents. Alone though definitely a regulatory issue.
4 - Technically correct for the destruction process itself, although, how it's handled before that process actually initiates is very location/what job you're doing dependent. Some spots have
very stringent requirements where it basically has to be handed over and intimately documented immediately, other places the person who put it in the burn bag might still have hold of it for a few hours (or days if someone fucks up). NOW, to be fair on this front, there's a lot of other things that could happen eg it could be stripped right before being burned but out-of-the-hands of the security escorts. You'd really only need that one person to be "in" on it.
Nothing has been indicated in this direction, so it'd be false to state that as happening or even a remote potential like some newscasters may try to do. With the information we have on that specific (next to none), pretty much all potentials are equal in weight (hilariously because they tried to conspiracize it, some definitely would not be equal in baseline if you leave out the conspiratorial view, shot themselves in the foot there).
5 - Unlikely yes fully correct there. From my understanding, if the burn bags are documented like that at all, it's only once the security escort does it. Even for some of the more serious places you can work, you generally aren't giving it a tracking number or anything. Would also be a poor practice from a CI & administrative OPSEC frame since if a burn bag did end up loose, you'd be able to discern quite a bit of information before even piecing together the shredded documents inside it. Eg we know X office uses these rotating tracking numbers, so this bag was most likely from X office, and can broadly presume it'd contain a rough type of materials that office covers. The markings everywhere are pretty similar to how State does it (minus the symbols some places don't do that at all for the above purpose).
6 - They look like lunch bags that were created as a Christmas ugly-sweater competition revamp for ugly bag wraps (0 idea why).
7 - Because it's framed like one. One thing I would caution there, that's important, is
framing. They did find actual issues, they have provided evidence of some of these issues, that, per the evidence, are actual legitimate issues. ALTHOUGH they frame that in a nonsense way to puff up their own claims.
We have to be careful with this, because this is one area they are
not stupid. They are conspriacizing too, but when we discredit it all based off that, we're doing the same and they can call us out and offer those bits of actual evidence as a predicate. This will work swimmingly well to reinforce perceptions amongst their base, and for those "in the middle" since the materials themselves are real it'll generally act stronger than counters to it not providing material evidence.
That question remains no matter how invented the story might be.
