While everyone is paying attention to the indictment drama - reportedly 34 (!) felony counts (!!!) -unfolding in Manhattan tomorrow afternoon - GINGER, GET THE POPCORN - David A Graham at the Atlantic would like to remind us that there's an even bigger indictment awaiting donald "BREAK ALL THE LAWS" trump regarding the classified documents he pilfered when he left the White House in 2021:
The documents matter is different. Unlike the DOJ probe into Trump’s attempts to steal the 2020 election (which, like the documents investigation, is being run by Special Counsel Jack Smith) or an investigation into the 2020 election in Fulton County, Georgia, it does not cut straight to Trump’s worst damage to American democracy. Yet absconding with presidential records is a crime that only a high-ranking official like the president could commit. Beyond that, the case has long appeared to be the most straightforward to prosecute, as I explained in January. The law is simple, and the general outline is clear: Trump took the documents, and he refused to give them back when asked.
What happened to make this case more important came from developments revealed by the Washington Post over this weekend, which Graham gets to:
As has now become clear, classified documents do occasionally end up in former officials’ possession, as in other recent cases involving President Joe Biden and former Vice President Mike Pence. Many officials caught with such documents complain that they are victims of overclassification, but the law is the law. Even so, two things set Trump’s situation apart: First, the documents are extremely sensitive, reportedly covering nuclear secrets and programs aimed at China and Iran. Second, when the government asked Trump for the documents, he (unlike Biden and Pence) refused to hand them over. This truculence is why the FBI ended up making an unannounced search in August, which turned up more than 100 documents marked classified.
According to the new report: “Federal investigators have gathered new and significant evidence that after the subpoena was delivered, Trump looked through the contents of some of the boxes of documents in his home, apparently out of a desire to keep certain things in his possession, the people familiar with the investigation said.”
If true and provable, that would be a major development. Trump has tried to muddy the waters related to the documents. He has argued that the papers he took belonged to him. Questions also exist about who actually moved documents and what Trump knew about what was in them, and he has historically been clever about maintaining a veneer of deniability. But evidence that shows that Trump personally went through the documents after the subpoena would strongly suggest that obstruction had taken place and set the case even further apart from other classified-material probes. No legal theory suggests that the target of a subpoena can pick and choose whether to comply with some parts and not others...
When confronted with the reality that the National Archives working with the Justice Department were coming to reclaim the documents that should have gone to NARA in the first place, trump personally sorted through what he had to keep the ones he desired. That's STILL not how the Presidential Records Act works, yet trump didn't care.
It isn't just his alleged behavior documented in the WaPo. Graham flashes back to an interview last week trump had with his ally Sean Hannity, where Hannity tried to give trump a way to gaslight his way out of this and trump instead blurted out his complicity:
“I can’t imagine you ever saying, ‘Bring me some of the boxes that we brought back from the White House. I’d like to look at them,’” Hannity said. “Did you ever do that?”
“I would have the right to do that,” Trump replied. “There’s nothing wrong with—”
“I don’t think you would do it,” Hannity pleaded.
“Well, I don’t have a lot of time, but I would have the right to do that. I would do that,” Trump said. “There would be nothing wrong.”
On that last sentence alone, trump reveals both his ignorance and arrogance. Part of this may stem from his background working in the private sector where the CEO is boss and he gets all the perks and the high-value documents. But trump honestly does not seem to understand why the Presidential Records Act even exists. In that Hannity interview trump crows how Richard Nixon got paid $17 million to turn over his papers after he resigned, not grokking that the legal fight over that is what led to the Presidential Records Act getting passed in 1978.
All that trump seems to understand is that those classified documents have value, value he can exploit to make himself richer or run again for office in 2024. Rumors floated around after August of last year that some of the documents found in trump's Mar-A-Lago bedroom were personal intel on various international political leaders (specifically the French President Macron). trump is not about to hand those documents back to National Archives, which is where the WaPo report that trump personally sorted through what he kept makes a ton of sense.
trump doesn't care that he's openly violating laws regarding archiving, national security, and acts of obstruction (which that file-sorting he did counts). There's serious evidence trump still has a number of high-level documents in his possession that are high-risk if they ever got exposed to outside agencies (and serious evidence that has already happened).
It's been said that "ignorance of the law is no excuse." trump's actions may speak to ignorance, but he's been told over the years and he still doesn't care, which makes this all his arrogance. Either way, he's breaking federal laws that will impose serious ramifications when trump gets indicted on these counts.
Tomorrow is just trump facing accountability in New York City. The week after that he's expected to face accountability in Fulton County. After that, we better hope Special Counsel Jack Smith brings trump to account in DC for his sins as a thieving former President Loser of the Popular Vote (Twice).
Keep popping that popcorn, Ginger.
1 comment:
He's got another legal hit coming each week in April, the way I understand it. You get away with what you do until the day you don't, and he has a few of those days on the horizon now.
-Doug in Sugar Pine
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