The Darkest Habit That Could End trump's Reign of Error (w/ Update)

Can you imagine it? Twenty years from now, Netflix will produce a miniseries where an intrepid reporter will meet with a shadowy deep informant from the donald trump Administration, and the informant - whom the producers will label "Deep Stoat" and look suspiciously like John Bolton (no, the idiot with the mustache, not the Michael Bolton with a pirate hat) - will reveal how chaotic the White House was, due to trump's insane habit of trashing every document that came his way.

Deep Stoat will lean back into the shadows of the dimly lit parking garage and utter the immortal line, "Follow the clogged toilets."

...

No, I am NOT making that detail up.

Okay, getting serious here. This week saw a number of revelatory reports regarding the National Archives recovering at least fifteen boxes from trump's Mar-a-Lago resort of White House documents he took with him once his administration ended back in January 2021. Quoting from Jonathan Franklin's article at NPR:

As first reported by The Washington Post, the documents retrieved last month from the Florida property contained important records of communication along with Trump's self-described "love letters" with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, as well as a letter addressed to Trump from his predecessor, former President Barack Obama.

According to the newspaper, keeping the boxes of records at Mar-a-Lago violated the Presidential Records Act — which requires that the government keep all forms of documents and communications related to a president's or vice president's official duties.

As required by the act, the records discovered at Mar-a-Lago should have been transferred to NARA from the White House at the end of the Trump administration in January 2021.

"The Presidential Records Act mandates that all Presidential records must be properly preserved by each Administration so that a complete set of Presidential records is transferred to the National Archives at the end of the Administration," said David Ferriero, archivist of the United States...

I've mentioned the National Archives before, when discussing how Presidential Libraries come into existence as depositories of paperwork for each administration. It's their job to sort through the hundreds of daily documents generated by the actions and decisions that comes out of each presidency, especially because a lot of those documents were - and perhaps still are - highly classified pertaining to national security matters.

These are matters that have to go through a vetting process independent of the President in order to determine what can go public and what remains under security clearance... which trump and his people interfered with by taking at least 15 boxes worth of stuff and holding them for a year without likely safeguards for those classified documents. Ever hear of Chain Of Custody, the means of protecting sensitive documents to ensure the information is not compromised or broken? The minute trump took papers that had to go to NARA, he broke that chain. 

And he made matters worse by taking all this to Mar-A-Lago, well-known trumpian retreat notoriously vulnerable to spies and leaks. You could pretty much imagine the joy a lot of trump's "guests" had being in close proximity to paperwork most likely shoved into some office cubicle without supervision.

It doesn't help trump's argument - whatever it is, probably along the lines of "The papers belong to ME, donald trump" - about why he took all these papers. What we do know is that the National Archives did ask the Department of Justice to open an investigation into this because they DID find classified materials among the boxes making it likely there were national security breaches (Via Charles R. Davis at Business Insider because I can't link to the original Washington Post article behind its firewall, yes I operate on the cheap):

Former President Donald Trump took documents that were clearly marked as "top secret" with him to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, The Washington Post reported Thursday, citing two unnamed sources.

"Top Secret" is the highest level of classification, referring to material that could harm national security if released.

According to The Post, the documents were found by the National Archives, which stores and preserves presidential records...

After uncovering the documents, officials referred the matter to the Department of Justice, which in turn asked for the National Archives' inspector general to conduct an investigation.

Under the Presidential Records Act of 1978, the last administration's records are owned by the public, not the former president.

In addition to taking documents, Trump has also been accused of destroying them. Reporters at The New York Times and Bloomberg have both said sources confirmed that torn-up records were found near White House toilets...

Yes, this is when you'll see more reports of toilets as the story deepens.

Just as an aside, the national media punditry accused Hillary Clinton back in the 2016 election cycle of ignoring or violating national security matters by maintaining her own email server, and their constant jumping on half-baked reports that turned into nothingburgers is often viewed in hindsight as a major reason she failed to secure more votes in close-contested states. "But Her Emails" enjoined with trump followers' cries of "LOCK HER UP" kind of points out a serious case of irony here. Hillary turned out to be better with national security stuff than trump ever did.

Because trump never took any of that shit serious. Look at his history with top secret materials. He blabbed in 2017 about an ongoing joint US-Israeli operation to a couple of Russian buddies that ended up shutting it all down. He Tweeted out sensitive surveillance photos of a failed Iranian rocket launch that pretty much told Iran how much info we're getting on them (and likely exposing human resources our intel agencies had in Iran's government). That was so egregious a reveal that the intelligence experts in the media couldn't even look at those photos without risking their own clearances (Adam L. Silverman at Balloon Juice had a massive meltdown over this one).

All of this because trump has no understanding or respect for anything outside of his own limited world-view. This is a man who does not read much as a hobby, nor a man known for focusing on the topics at hand other than if it's something that makes him richer or more worshiped.

His mistreatment of paperwork, his willingness to hide documents and visitor logs and phone conservations, all of it tied into trump's background as a businessman where hiding questionable paper trails seem to be a habit... and in trump's case an obsession, considering all the failed business dealings he'd committed over the decades.

This is a man in trump who spent more time - allegedly, as the ongoing criminal investigation in New York keeps uncovering on a weekly basis - figuring out tax loopholes and rigging accounting ledgers to cheat the legal system as much as possible.

So what happened when trump jumped from the private sector of his business dealings into the public sector of government paperwork and accountability was a clash of styles. trump's willingness to shred everything ran into the legal requirements that nothing gets shredded (until vetted by the proper agencies).

There have been stories for years about trump's mishandling of White House papers. In 2017, Politico reported the National Archives had to remind trump not to destroy any documents. In 2018, Time published a report about trump staffers retaping torn up shreds in order to comply with NARA demands. By 2020, the watchdog group CREW sought to file a restraining order on trump's outgoing administration - because yes by then trump lost the November elections - because there were still reports that trump and his aides were destroying files.

All of this leading up to reports from Maggie Haberman coming out with a tell-all book later this year about it (via Igor Derysh at Salon): 

Trump, who reportedly had a habit of tearing up documents and failing to follow federal document preservation laws, needed a repairman on more than one occasion to fix his bathroom plumbing, according to Haberman's upcoming book "Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America," which was recently excerpted by Axios.

Staff at the "White House residence would periodically find the toilet clogged," Haberman told CNN on Thursday. "The engineer would have to come and fix it, and what the engineer would find would be wads of, you know, clumped up printed wet paper."

Haberman stressed that this was "not toilet paper."

No duh. Anyone who survived middle school bathroom hazings will tell you that printing paper is too thick to disintegrate or soften in water the way toilet paper does. Yet trump kept trying like the blabbing idiot that he is to flush unwanted documents away. It never occurred to trump that there are working fireplaces in the White House and he could have easily burnt all that paper along with the kindling on cold nights when nobody else was looking. (Not like I'm trying to give out tips here... You're not supposed to destroy any of these papers in the first place, okay!)

(Also, Haberman deserves some scorn here for failing to adequately report these stories to media outlets when the damn reporting mattered between 2017 and 2020. She's one of the people responsible for the over-reaction to Hillary's emails and in some ways trump is her bloody fault.)

I'm not going to comment yet on the alleged report from 2018 of trump caught in the act of EATING some of those papers because so far it's just one source and we need more verification. 

With all of this in play - trump's history of destroying documents, trump's horrifying habits of mishandling classified top secret documents, and the fact he rolled out of the White House with 15 boxes of documents he shouldn't have taken - the question arises, "Is this one more legal scandal that trump is going to have to weasel his way out of?"

Because yes Virginia, it is looking like trump violated a couple of serious laws here.

First off is the Presidential Records Act, a set of laws created after Nixon's Watergate and other scandalous fiascos. It ranges from 44 USC s2202 that spells out the UNITED STATES and not the President owns those papers, to 44 USC s2203 how the President and his office cannot dispose of such papers until the National Archivist says so (44 USC s2203(f)) AND that the Archivist is the one who possesses all the documents when the President's term ends (44 USC s2203(g)(1) so skating off to Mar-A-Lago with 15 boxes is a serious no-no).

Then you get to Title 18 of the US Code, where the criminal penalties kick in. 18 USC s2071 makes it clear: 

(a)Whoever willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, or destroys, or attempts to do so, or, with intent to do so takes and carries away any record, proceeding, map, book, paper, document, or other thing, filed or deposited with any clerk or officer of any court of the United States, or in any public office, or with any judicial or public officer of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

(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.

In short: donald trump has been caught red-handed violating various provisions of the Presidential Records Act and can get punished for willfully - you have to go out of your way to flush documents down a toilet for God's sake - destroying and willfully concealing/removing all those documents, records, maps - yes, he took the hurricane map he Sharpied, remember THAT one boys and girls! - and other things that SHOULD HAVE gone to the Archivist instead.

Consider this: For all the illegal things trump has done, documented over all these years but that he's never had to answer for, with all the criminal and civil trials he's still facing... The one thing that is fucking airtight is that trump broke the rules over his mishandling, destruction, and theft of official documents. The one person who can push for trump's downfall, imprisonment, and banishment from any hope of future political office will be a career civil servant in our National Archivist.

Basically, trump can go to jail for pissing off one of the highest-ranking librarians in the United States.

Schadenfreude, do your thing!

BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

(Update 2/12/22): Two national security experts - John Gans and Jon Wolfsthal - weigh in at The Atlantic on how serious this matter is, and why trump must answer for the rules he broke (paywalled):

...Everyone from the president down to the most junior federal bureaucrat swears an oath to protect the Constitution and is informed that keeping records is a crime. Many citizens, including those who are in or have left office, have been charged in violation of these rules, their careers destroyed or damaged, some sent to prison. Even with these “lesser” cases, it is the Nixon example that sets the bar, indicating that this is not some minor issue or mere convention. Protecting the paper of a presidency is about nothing less than the rule of law, government accountability, and whether everyone in our government, and in this country, is held to the same standards...

...The president has to follow the same rules as anyone else. This is part of why we were infuriated to learn that former President Donald Trump is reported to have removed unique materials from the White House that later had to be recovered from his Mar-a-Lago resort. And it is why we believe that the Department of Justice must investigate Trump for his handling of government records and, if the facts justify it, prosecute him, just as other less prominent Americans have been for similar behavior.

The Presidential Records Act and other archival regulations are intended to ensure that all documents and materials are protected and preserved for posterity. Executive privilege protects the president while in office; afterward these documents explain what the commander in chief and his teams did or did not do, as well as why. This accountability is linked directly to the core of the American government’s creed—that the governed, not an individual sitting in government, are the source of all authority. The law ensures that Americans will eventually know just what their government and their elected and appointed officials do with the power granted by the people. Although reasonable disagreements exist over how and when the National Archives can make these records accessible, advocates for good government and democracy agree as to the importance of eventual disclosure and accountability.

This is why Trump’s behavior has caused an uproar, and why the National Archives has also asked the DOJ to investigate. Although the 45th president’s predilection for tearing up documents (and also reportedly flushing some down the toilet) has gotten the most attention, the brazen theft—and it is theft—of at least 15 boxes of materials from the White House is most alarming... On Thursday The Washington Post reported that some of the information taken to Mar-a-Lago was designated “top secret.” This is no longer just a case of removing materials important for historians and accountability. This has morphed into a full-blown intelligence scandal that could undermine both national security now and democratic norms in the future...

If the DOJ does not hold a president accountable for misconduct, it will weaken a standard, perhaps irrevocably, that has prevailed for nearly 50 years. When you serve at the pleasure of a president, as so many in the federal government do, knowing whether the person in the office will be held accountable matters. If they are not, anyone taking the oath on their first day or closing up their files on their last will do so with the understanding that the rules only matter in certain cases, or that they do not matter at all...

For the LOVE OF GOD, Merrick Garland, investigate trump for his theft of Presidential records.