The key to the Mar-a-Lago documents case is not the bare fact that Donald Trump left the White House with classified documents in his possession. That might have been accidental. The bigger question is whether Trump refused to give up the documents even after they had been subpoenaed and Trump knew he had them.
Indeed, the Washington Post says today that the investigation "has come to focus on the obstruction elements of the case." And there's growing evidence that Trump deliberately tried to withhold documents even after the government asked for them back:
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.
Investigators now suspect, based on witness statements, security camera footage, and other documentary evidence, that boxes including classified material were moved from a Mar-a-Lago storage area after the subpoena was served, and that Trump personally examined at least some of those boxes, these people said. While Trump’s team returned some documents with classified markings in response to the subpoena, a later FBI search found more than 100 additional classified items that had not been turned over.
....Investigators have also amassed evidence indicating that Trump told others to mislead government officials in early 2022, before the subpoena, when the National Archives and Records Administration was working with the Justice Department to try to recover a wide range of papers, many of them not classified, from Trump’s time as president, the people familiar with the investigation said.
The Post story adds some more detail to this, including evidence that Trump asked others for advice on how he could keep the documents he wanted.
And what were these documents about? The Post suggests they were related to Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who Trump turned against during the final weeks of his administration.
Needless to say, this is all sort of bizarre, even by Trump standards. And since the documents are classified, I suppose we'll never find out for sure what they were about.
POSTSCRIPT: This is yet another case of Trump being a moron. In the Stormy Daniels case, Trump should have delivered a suitcase of cash to her and kept everything anonymous. Instead, in order to save a pittance in taxes, he called the hush money "legal expenses," thus opening himself up to prosecution.
In the documents case, Trump could have photocopied the stuff he wanted to keep and given back all the originals. Why didn't he? Was he somehow under the impression that if he turned over the documents they'd become public record? Or what?
I wonder if one or more of the documents contained something unflattering or incriminating, and he thought that if he held onto them then nobody would find out? (It obviously wouldn't work, but....)
If it's just about Mark Milley that sounds like the least of classified material he could have tried to absquatulate with.
If that's the case there may have been something about it that he imagined would 'prove', in some manner, that the Deep State really existed.
Why are we still trying to parse this - close the vice!
Marcy Wheeler seems to think that if obstruction can be shown he gets charged under the espionage act. So it may be more than just vanilla obstruction.
"In the documents case, Trump could have photocopied the stuff he wanted to keep and given back all the originals. Why didn't he?"
Lots of possible reasons. The original document is the only one of value to collectors. Nobody pays big money for even a perfect copy of the Mona Lisa. Trump seldom misses an opportunity to monetise whatever he can. Another possibility is that some of the documents may well be the only copies in existence, and Trump instinctively feels that having sole possession of them gives him a benefit (e.g. remember his vague warnings to DeSantis about knowing some bad stuff about him?). Thirdly, some documents may have information that Trump wants to keep, but that also puts him in a bad light (e.g. a memo from Anthony Fauci dismissing the lab-leak COVID origin theory but with Trump's hand-written notes proposing a longer national lockdown).
In addition, if he merely has possession of the documents, there could be room for reasonable doubt whether he did so knowingly. If he makes a copy and hands in the original, that shows that he deliberately held onto classified information illegally. It's much easier to prove criminal intent in that case.
"Nobody pays big money for even a perfect copy of the Mona Lisa."
Uh, the ML is not for sale. However, I learned a couple of years ago that the Prado Museum in Madrid has an almost perfect copy of the Mona Lisa thought to have been painted by one of Leonardo's students that is easy to view and in much better condition. The real Mona Lisa is difficult to view due to crowds of selfie-taking tourists, it's shielded by glass, and you have to keep moving along in a crowd to even see it. And if you do, her eyebrows are gone due to improper cleaning at some point.
That might have been accidental.
Stuff in a box, maybe. In his desk drawer, next to his passport?[1]
I'm still amazed that people give him the benefit of the doubt, after so many years of consistently malevolent, shitty behavior. Steve Jobs's reality distortion field seemed limited to making computers sexy. Don's is amazing
[1] Remember Fail Don huffing about them taking his passport? There are reasons they seize everything in the same container with improperly stored classified documents, and being able to point out things like that is one of them.
I wonder if by now the investigators have figured out who packed the boxes. If investigators have interviewed them, they may know Trump's involvement and instructions to them.
You get a stronger case if investigators keep in mind everything the defence might do with their case so that they make sure they collect the evidence to refute all those defences. In this case, we want the investigators to be thinking "how do I prove to a skeptical jury that this was NOT an accident"?
Exactly -- obstruction helps bigly to prove that this was willful retention, not just an oversight.
Also, obstructing the investigation carries the same penalty (up to 20 years) that unauthorized removal and willful retention of classified documents does. So it's not a minor point, as many seem to think -- even if they can't get him on the primary crime they could still get him just as bad on this one. As I understand it.
“ Trump could have photocopied the stuff he wanted to keep and given back all the originals. Why didn't he?”
Here’s a proposed reason. We have a term “functioning alcoholic.” We have a term “high functioning autistic.”
Maybe we need a term “high functioning moron.”
A high-functioning sociopathic narcissist.
Trump might be called a "high functioning moron", but his actions have a very specific character. Trump has no problem with projecting physical force in the world, and is quite skilled at it. He has a LOT of problems with understanding facts and with projecting the future.
He took those papers for the same reason that a dog might steal a bone. The dog stole the bone because it could, the bone might be useful in the future, the dog might get away with it (who knows what will happen, right?), and in the very worst case, stealing the bone guarantees that the dog will get some attention in the future.
Not everyone is a genius at picking stocks from the trends they see around them. Some people have very low-functioning characteristics, like the ability to put two facts together and draw a conclusion. Here is an example:
A guy is sitting in his car in a gas station. The rent is due and he doesn't have the money, so he has a problem. However, he does have a gun in his glove compartment, and the manager in the gas station has some money.
Five minutes later, the guy is back in his car in the gas station, counting a stack of bills. Problem solved!
Suddenly, the parking lot fills with police cars. The guy wonders how the hell the cops knew he was there?
That's an example of a guy who projects force in the real world, but who has a very poor sense of the future. Most guys like this are in prison, and it looks like Donnie might soon join them.
Interesting. And thus, for this kind of guy, the penalties and punishments are very little deterrant, because they don't think that far ahead.
(Another reason to phase out the death penalty?)
Yep. Most folks who commit crimes don't think they'll get caught, ergo punishment is no deterrent. There's no evidence that the death penalty prevented any crime. Indeed, many mass shooters commit suicide, either by their own hand or death by cop.
i find the whole thing baffling. there's no reason i can think of that makes any sense for trump to try to keep these documents once he knew the FBI knew he had them.
Because he is a maroon?
/s
Entitlement and not wanting to let the evil, corrupt FBI/DOJ boss him around. After all, he is the legitimate president. So tell the FBI peons to piss off.
In the documents case, Trump could have photocopied the stuff he wanted to keep and given back all the originals. Why didn't he?
How many total pages are we talking about? Thousands?
I've long suspected one of the reasons for Trump's initial evacuation of the multiple boxes of documents—and perhaps his foot-dragging on those the government eventually subpoenaed—is that there was just so much to go through.Trump simply feared what might be in there. Better to hold out to the last minute (in the hope that the situation will go away, and the government will simply give up) than fork over documents that might be incriminating.
This is a fundamental aspect of how Trump's psyche works. He believes he can bend reality to his will. If there's something out there he fears or dislikes (say, the potential effects of a pandemic on the US economy), he does his best to ignore reality in the hopes it will sort itself out.
Trump couldn't quite bring himself to face the unpleasant truth that the government has the authority to insist on getting its property returned. Inability to squarely accept reality is a sadly all too common attribute in homo sapiens. But it's obviously not a quality you want to see dominant in the personalities of political leaders.
"...In the Stormy Daniels case, Trump should have delivered a suitcase of cash to her and kept everything anonymous .."
You pay a blackmailer a suitcase of cash they just ask for more.
Yep, so obvi the smart move is to take the deduction every time you fork over . . .
"... the smart move .."
The better move is to pay in installments, say $1000 a month indefinitely.
From petty cash, no invoices or paper trail. But then he wouldn't be able to write it off. Talk about a dilemma!
Srsly, I was being sarcastic. But a habitual chiseler like him would see it exactly that way-- every time she demanded more, he'd be looking to expense it again. Wouldn't be able to stop himself.
“ The better move is to pay in installments, say $1000 a month indefinitely.”
Ask Dennis Hastert how that worked out for him.
He just needed her silenced until the election was over.
Cash from where -- his own bank accounts? You're asking a tiger to change its stripes.
It's not just a deductions issue. He had his company repay Cohen for his personal expenses. He did not reimburse his own company for it. That's unreported income. The Trump company reported it as legal expenses. They got dinged for tax evasion. Because it involved multiple people, it's a criminal conspiracy -- a criminal conspiracy to evade taxes.
Remind me, how did they take down Al Capone?
Even if Trump's company did not take the deduction, it still would have inappropriately reduced the company's taxable income.
Nay. The problem Trump had, and will always have, is that he left one-time allies (in this case, Cohen) out to dry. Cohen is no Bannon; he doesn't have a Chinese sugar daddy.
Precisely, on all points.
Very concise comment which helps explain it to me. Thank you.
No wonder Republicans are so upset over this indictment. There really is no upside for the Party over this matter. Sure, it might help Trump get the nomination, but is that an upside for them?
in a sense yes. if he loses the nomination, dolt45 likkely runs a third-party campaign all but ensuring republican defeat.
And if he runs not as a republican, he will also trash other republican candidates, not only the one for president. If he runs as a republican, he has an interest to stay "friendly" with the other candidate until the election.
I think the chances that Trump loses the nomination are pretty close to zero.
What I meant is that Trump's base is not big enough to win general elections. We saw in the 2022 midterms that Trump was responsible for a number of Republican defeats. Trump will be an even weaker candidate in 2024.
Of course, he can still win. But the odds are tipping against him, or so it seems to me. Of course, the electorate might have other "ideas".
There's only no upside because they don't have the cojones to force him to withdraw from the race.
"Even if Trump's company did not take the deduction, it still would have inappropriately reduced the company's taxable income."
If you don't deduct it or otherwise expense it, it doesn't reduce your income.
You mean, if I mysteriously take money out of the company and not mark it anywhere? Isn't that embezzling?
"You mean, if I mysteriously take money out of the company and not mark it anywhere? Isn't that embezzling?"
I don't think you can embezzle from yourself. I am not a business accountant but perhaps it would be recorded as a non-deductible expense like some employer provided parking.
And reportedly the amount was deducted by the company but was income to Cohen so the taxes were more or less a wash.
BUT! "TrumpCo" isn't "Donald J. Trump". Even if it's an S-corp, its books are separate from Individual One's. Or ought to be, as the law requires. If he pulls money out, it's either a documented "draw" (not sure of the legal accounting term) which increases DJT's personal income, an embezzlement, or a falsified "legal" expense to "TrumpCo.".
"the taxes were more or less a wash"?? You are assuming that the vast, world-spanning juggernaut of "TrumpCo" is taxed in the same bracket and the same way as Simple Lawyer Cohen? I tend to doubt this...
(although I also suspect that Simple Lawyer Cohen pays his taxes at an exponentially higher rate than his erstwhile employer, who rarely pays at all.)
The pictures of the checks I saw were drawn on Trump’s personal account, not a company account.
Apparently nobody quite knows the details yet, but trump's businesses seem to be mostly proprietorships and partnerships of various kinds that interlock in complicated ways. Partnerships apparently aren't unusual in real estate, especially big commercial properties, and there's nothing standing in the way of a corporate entity like Equitable Life partnering with a sole proprietor like trump in something like trump tower.
In fact iirc he actively avoided anything that involved incorporation until the Atlantic City casino was going bust, and then he incorporated it in order to foist off the shares on suckers and walk away with the cash while shareholders ended up with wallpaper. This is what I remember from David Cay Johnston.
Bottom line seems to be that it's all very loosey-goosey and opaque and that he's probably avoided even LLPs that might require some independent scrutiny of his doings. Really, can anyone imagine him answering to a board of directors? Even one he put there himself? Anyone watching him could see that he'd never done that and couldn't ever do it, not even to save his own skin.
I think Keith B above has it most right....copying is a very specific crime, each folder has boldly noted, A Federal Crime, 10 years, $50,000 penalty on the front and often on each page.
If you have someone copy these files for later perusal...1st who has the guts to do the copying? And if they do, you have a permanent guest in your life forever...a very real co-conspirator.
I certainly wouldn't this no matter how much money, no matter how much I loved the Don...ain't nobody this stupid.
This is probably exactly the scenario. He tried to get people to do it, and they all refused, pointing to the text on the document. So HE tried it and found that "DAMN! These copy machines are confusing!"
Just as intelligence is an all-purpose tool, morony is an all-purpose fail.
This would be another plus to hiring illegal aliens who don't speak English, which it has been established that Individual One always does.
Possession and copying of classified documents is in itself a crime. IANAL, but if he shared copies to people w/o security clearance (or with foreign actors), wouldn't that be chargeable under the Espionage Act?
I encourage everyone to read Marcy Wheeler on these issues. What he might possess and might have done with it is pretty unsettling. https://www.emptywheel.net/2023/04/03/the-espionage-act-evidence-wapo-spins-as-obstruction-evidence/
The most damning thing (of many damning things) seems to me to be his allegedly asking his advisors and lawyers to make false statements about having already returned all documents. That alone would be the nail in the coffin if the evidence proves it.
Is it true that a President can make photocopies of any and all documents and take those home with him after his term is over?
That doesnt sound true....but it certainly sounds like something that team Trump would like everyone to believe. This isnt a big deal, its just a paperwork error. We should have stolen copies instead of the originals, lets move onto important matters like Huntet Biden.
I think it would be unproblematic if the departing president wanted to keep copies of unclassified documents. Classified documents are very much another matter.
I don't think he cared if he got caught; I don't think he perceives the threat of legal action as anything other than a normal part of doing business. That's how he functions, in a world of lawsuits and counter-suits and just keep going to court until you exhaust the other parties funds and attention. Meanwhile use the proceedings to keep yourself in the spotlight.
Legal proceedings are Trump's battery pack.
Well said! Individual One has been doing this for at least 70 yeare and barely gotten a wrist slap in all this time. So he's teflon.
He should have used bitcoin.
Isn't this what bitcoin is for?
you think trump can figure out bitcoin?
Do you think Stormy Daniels would have been fool enough to accept it?
He could have tried giving her some golden candlesticks he found in a cupboard.
No, but he must have understood at once it's a scam and he'd have wanted to be in on it, but anyone he'd have relied on to make it work, say Weisselberg, probably wanted nothing to do with it.
Kevin, can you comment on Marcy's post regarding this?
https://www.emptywheel.net/2023/04/03/the-espionage-act-evidence-wapo-spins-as-obstruction-evidence/
Much more concerning than obstruction.
Proposition: Donald is smart, not stupid.
Proof: If a person's behavior is economically and socially rewarded their entire life, and if the person is smart, they won't change. Q.E.D.
Proposition: Donald is ignorant, not wise.
Proof: Self-evident. Q.E.D.
That might have been accidental.
Narrator: "It was not."
He's also very lazy.