In case you haven't gotten enough of Trump and his inexplicable desire to hold on to classified documents, today brings yet more news:
Buried in the supporting documentation for one of the motions was a document that contained a new public revelation: Once Trump realized that security cameras at Mar-a-Lago could capture his employees moving classified government information that officials were attempting to retrieve, he allegedly ensured that they would avoid the cameras when moving boxes.
Jesus. What is the deal with Trump and classified documents? Why was he so hellbent on keeping them? The answer, as with all things Trump, is most likely "because his brain is broken," but I can't stop wondering if there's anything more to it.
I think with Trump the simplest explanation is always the right one: he hated doing the *job* of President, he loved the *theater* of being President. He loved people saluting him. He loved people calling him "Sir" (and always adds that little snippet, whether true or not, to all his stories). Having classified documents is *cool*. Knowing something that others don't know, that you can wave in front of them to make yourself feel more powerful, is *cool*. I don't think it's anything more complicated than that.
As long as your principal motivation in being President is self-aggrandizement, it's a pretty easy job that's probably a lot of fun. If you're actually trying to accomplish something and trying to keep the world from going to Hell, it's probably the most miserable job on earth.
The documents case (and really, the fact that they're classified is really just icing on the cake -- they're not his whether they were or weren't classified) + obstruction (and again, regardless of whether he had a right to them or not, once he was asked for them to make that determination, and he actively hid them, that's obstruction) is such a slam-dunk that it's a true shame that it's never going to be tried before the election, and never-ever if he wins.
That's a very benign way of looking at Trump. I think that the truth is far worse--he's not (just) some doof in love with pomp, he actually thinks he still is the president and/or that those documents were valuable things that he could take/own/use to benefit himself.
My thoughts exactly.
If Trump 1. could read and 2. evinced even the slightest interest in and/or knowledge about foreign policy or intelligence gathering, I might concede that he kept some stuff that he thought could benefit him in the future. My hunch, though, is that, as Solarpup observes, he simply liked the idea of having classified stuff around because it reminded him of the time when he got to play being a president and everyone pretended he was important and he got to authorize stuff and look at cool pictures with His Generals. Dollars to donuts he doesn't have a fucking clue what's in any of that stuff, and doesn't give a shit about any of it, except for that its Top Secret and Really Important and its All His!
I certainly don't think that Trump is some sort of evil genius--just that it is very unfortunate how much people discount him as like a goofy clown.
Yes, he's an idiot. Yes, he's delusional. But the broad characterization of him as a bumbling joke is part of his armor.
Absolutely.
And as with all humans, people do things for a balance of many reasons, rarely because of one and only one. Trump likely has many reasons for having kept those documents. For show and self-aggrandizment sure, but also because he knew they were valuable. I'm sure he was thinking blackmail and extortion for some, favours to trade for others, stuff to "prove" stupid shit that they don't prove for another batch etc.
You give the man too little credit. Dude knows the value of those docs.
I have a theory that he's aping some of Fidel Castro's moves. Castro famously shopped his (extremely sharp) intelligence hauls to all-comers, that's a big part of how he supported his regime.
(And Don Trump knows a lot of these stories - he's clearly hanging out with Cuban Republicans. His whole schtick about Mexico sending us rapists and drug dealers is a warped rehash of how Castro manipulated the Mariel boatlift for his own benefit grafted onto modern concerns.)
A bathroom full of highly-classified secrets can be used both defensively and for offensive, depending on what you're planning. Not to mention for money and possibly other things.
I think solarpup has part of it -- it was a kick, it flattered his ego.
I think some of it also was reaction -- somebody said he couldn't, and nobody tells Mister President Trump what to do or not to do! They're his and he's gonna hang on to them, so fk you!
And given everything we know about him and his history, I certainly don't think we can rule out darker motives. Some of those documents (eg the ones having to do with Iran) would be / are / were (who knows who has them now) worth major bucks to some very deep-pocketed buyers (eg MBS), and it's a short step from "I'm President so I get to decide what to do with them" to "they're mine and I'm gonna turn a few bucks here." AND also there's the question of just what kind of hold Russia has on him (I happen to think it's implicit financial blackmail) and whether he might have wanted to use some of them to attempt to buy them off, at least in part.
So it ain't just that "his brain is broken." He is in important -- and dangerous -- ways thoroughly unprincipled and untrustworthy. He shouldn't be trusted with even a letter to mail, much less sensitive national defense information.
I agree with you (and Solarpup) but I have to wonder...
What the hell could the Russians possibly have to blackmail Trump on? At this point, it's blazingly obvious that 40% of the country doesn't care at all if Trump actually did commit any crimes (financial or otherwise). And another 30% or so of the country - including approximately 95-99.999% of the law enforcement personnel, state and federal government agencies like the DOJ and FBI, governors, legislatures and judiciary at all levels - won't lift a finger to arrest, prosecute, incarcerate, fine, shun or otherwise impose any negative penalties on Trump, regardless of what evidence exists that Trump has committed crimes or non-criminal acts that are still embarassing. So... what value does blackmail have when 40-70% of the country would just shrug if the Russians dumped all their supposed kompromat out there for everyone to see?
I don't think the legal and political consequences would be quite that negligible, although certainly a big chunk of the country would just shrug, or worse would join him in his inevitable hysterical reaction. A shift of even a few points of the electorate, especially in the right places, would doom his chances, and while most Republicans are cultists, and many more are Good
GermansRepublicans who will look the other way, there are still some for whom it would be the last straw. And unless he were re-elected, I think sooner or later some prosecutor would be after him.But there's two other reasons. First, it would simply be embarrassing and destructive of his image as a self-made billionaire. Nope, just a puppet of Russia. He wouldn't like that. And second, and I think more important, they might well cut him off. Both Dumber and Dumberer have volunteered, independently and on separate occasions, that a lot of Trump Org money has come from Russians. I'm entirely sure that (1) somebody in Russia has receipts (or could manufacture some), and (2) Putin's control is strong enough that the spigot could be cranked shut in no time, and/or some notes called in, and/or some Trump-branded properties dumped at fire-sale prices. He's got half a billion in judgments against him, a whole lotta refinancing coming due, still a very soft commercial market (especially for his properties), and a buncha stock that may or may not be worth even pennies on the nominal dollar. That adds up to a lot of potential leverage.
"So... what value does blackmail have when 40-70% of the country would just shrug if the Russians dumped all their supposed kompromat out there for everyone to see?"
Even if what you suggest is true, the answer is "more than nothing," so any Russian kompromat won't be "dumped" anywhere.
Further, I don't think anybody is seriously suggesting that the Kremlin has dirt being used to extort an unwilling Trump to do Putinsky bidding--the Kremlin realized long ago that nudges here and there to amplify strategicly-selected morons can have a stochastic benefit, and they won the lottery with Trump.
Trump may have been cultivated or he may have come by it honestly, but to the extent that the man has any beliefs, a lot of them happen to help autocrats in general and Russia in particular. Russia need not blackmail him--it's enough to give him a boost here and there.
The non-kompromat answer is he is dependent on the Russians to keep his financial ship afloat.
The only kompromat he'd be desperate to keep secret is impotence.
Kevin asked, "Why was he so hellbent on keeping them?"
Two answers:
1) Money. Russia and China and other governments would pay a fortune to have a look at those documents.
2) Showing off. We have Trump on tape pulling random people aside at Mar-a-Lago to show them classified docs. This clearly stoked his ego.
Thank you.
How can people spend 8 horrid years following Trump and not put money at the top of the list?
trump knows that the US legal system was designed to protect right wing assholes, so just do whatever the hell you want
"Why was he so hellbent on keeping them?"
For sale. The Saudis had been trying to get nuclear weapon plans for years; suddenly that's not a priority and Jared Kushner has been given over $2B assets to "manage" (no reason to believe he's limiting his take to "typical" 2%/year levels but that would already be >$40M/year).
My left-conspiracy-aware wife let me know of a belief among some that Ivana's "coffin" was full of documents (evidence: coffin appeared very heavy for the pallbearers; weak IMO) that were transferred to the Saudis at the golf event they held at the same golf course 3 months later. While the coffin bit seems silly, there were court reports of boxes that Trump sorted out to be taken to Bedminster where, AFAIK, if searches have been done they have not found anything.
Nothing is of value to Trump except money - that's the scale he uses for everything. Why would he be interested in the classified documents? He thinks he can get paid, and that's really all it takes.
Chris Christie said the Mar-a-Logo documents case should be tried only on the obstruction charge - in order to circumvent all the nat sec issues - and that such a trial would be simple, fast, and over by the end of last year. Instead we got Jack Smith shooting for the moon, which meant a Trump-friendly judge could use classified material as a reason to very-slowly-walk the case.
Some blame falls upon the hubris of judges who are content, for a **major** case with national security aspects, with random assignment, even if it means getting someone totally unfamiliar with classified document issues, has had very little time on the bench, and was appointed by the defendant. But judges think they are all special and of great moral character, so anyone chosen randomly is sure to be fair-minded. There's no other way to explain the random assignment system that has been in place for decades.
Christie is wrong. You can't have "obstruction" without an underlying crime. It's the same problem that New York faced. Now the whole classification frou-frou is certainly a distraction, but the Espionage Act does not require that the documents retained by "classified", just that they are the property of the United States government.
I'm still confused that a judge "nominated" by T is allowed to hear a case with him as the "defendant"
Or is this just another on the list of government perks like insider trading, revising congressional comments and ez loan motor homes?
To flip the question, should Trump -- as he often demands -- get to have another judge dismissed just because they were appointed by Obama or Biden or are registered Democrats? The question of outright bias in the courtroom (as opposed to the slant of one's overall "judicial philosophy") based on what president nominated you has never come up until now because Trump appointed a slew of federal judges, including Cannon, who were completely unqualified save for their hackish loyalty to MAGA.
The question hasn't arisen before now because other presidents and former presidents have generally avoided major legal issues other than those of the "official" variety (e.g. a challenge to the constitutionality of an executive order).
Your flip is not really a flip at all. A judge's political slant is by no means equivalent to who appointed him. If a judge was appointed by a particular president the judge can be expected to feel gratitude to that president, putting the judge's objectivity in serious doubt; it would be reasonable to forbid judges to preside over cases in which the person who appointed them is a party (same logic applies at state level in states where judges are appointed). On the other hand, Republican leaning judges try Democrats and Democratic leaning judges try Republicans all the time. If judges are seen to be biased against members of the opposing party, presumably they are biased in favor of members of their own party; the upshot is that no judge could ever try anybody with known partisan leanings. That, obviously, would completely cripple the court system.
This judge was directly appointed by the defendant. That's a considerably bigger conflict than just saying toss the case because the judge was appointed someone in the other party. imo
Reenforces my cynicism about that folks inside the beltway having a different set of rules
Not all Trump appointed judges are in the bag for him (even if they are otherwise dedicated to the right wing cause) and such there are lines they won’t cross to help Trump. For example quite a few ruled against him in the election cases in 2020 as they weren’t willing to completely do away with democracy for Trump. So forcing all Trump appointed judges is not appropriate. However Cannon appears to be on the Trump wagon - I’m guessing asking a judge to recuse isn’t a lightly taken action and hasn’t met the threshold that would likely convince the committee of her peers that would review the request.
He did it. He had them and refused to return them. He hid them in a bath room and all types of people had access to them. He’s guilty. Why the delays?
He thinks he can get away with anything. He always has. And so far he still is. The American justice system isn’t.
Yep. And thus far our political and legal systems (and the media that report on them) have simply been unable to cope with the scenario of what happens when a deranged supervillain becomes president.
I don't know. Trump isn't very smart, so you would have a hard time convincing me that he thought anything through.
Plus, he loves projecting the image that he's successful, regardless of the facts. And he loves money, in spite of the fact that he's terrible at making it.
Maybe he thought he could use the documents to "make a deal" with someone, anyone, in the future. Or that he could sell them. Or that his continued possession of them was proof that he was still important, because, of course, he's a tiny, tiny man inside. Or maybe he secretly wants to be caught and punished.
I know a lot of guys in business, and more than a few of them who inherited their father's business feel like fakes and want to destroy everything around them, but not in an obvious way. Not in a way that they could be called out on. That way, everything bad that happens is someone else's fault.
For some reason, Trump reminds me of Steve Carroll.
https://www.trulyadventure.us/death-of-a-really-good-salesman
Except that Trump is a genuinely bad person, and Carroll was merely a "hail, fellow, well met" kind of guy. With a gun.
Although investing in a stock market fund would have made more money over the years with the small amount, I mean a million or so, oh wait hundreds of millions of dollars he got from Dad he used for his businesses and lawyers, he's really not "terrible" at making money.
For example he paid himself something like a million dollars a year to manage his casinos into bankruptcy. He's good at collecting money anyway.
He is the world's purest Rodney Dangerfield-- he don't get no respect.
He believes with every fiber of his being that he is owed bottomless respect, recognition, and earthly tribute as the world's foremost individual. As such, by rights he is owed everything of value that exists, and recognition by everyone. So not getting respect is a problem.
He resolves it by concluding that almost everybody else in the world either *is* working to deprive him of what's rightfully his, or will be. Therefore anything he does to amass what's rightfully his-- which is to say everything-- is righteous in and of itself, because it helps the world adjust to his understanding of what it needs to be like; he's recovering what's already his.
Classified and other restricted documents have value as things only special people get to see. Because he's the most special person of all, they're of course his to see, and once he's seen them, or once they have been in his proximity whether he's seen them or not, they're his. They confirm his specialness. And they can't belong to the government or to the Archives or to anyone else or to no one, because in the truest sense everything *already* belongs to him, and other people only have things because they've stolen them from him.
It's a closed circle, like a brainworm eating its tail.
Not to say that he wouldn't monetize some of them if he had a chance. But fundamentally I think we're looking at Smaug amassing and sitting on the gold hoard.
I agree; he really is that Barking Mad. How half the country can want to put this man in charge of anything at all is a testament to the complete unusability of the default human brain in a technological world. We are smart enough to have created it and unwise enough to destroy all life as a result.
"inexplicable"
I don't think that word means what you think it means.
I will note that yet again our resident MAGA trolls, MF and Leo, are avoiding a classified-docs thread. They know when their side has no defense.
Meh. They only show up when you mention a Black or trans person. Then they descend like the pus buckets they are.
The hiding of dox, the moving of boxes, the avoidance of security cameras, the attempts to erase the security camera footage: these demonstrate consciousness of guilt. The Defendant can't claim ignorance, or that he had "declassified" all that stuff "with his mind" or any other way. Not if he tried this hard to hide the evidence.
I think part of this is that Trump almost certainly believes that the rules do not apply to him. He has lived a life of where if he wants something, he takes it (like a woman who he grabs by the pussy, for instance) and never suffers much in the way of consequences.
It is hard for a normal man (can't talk about women) to show self-control when he has a ton of money, a bunch of sycophants, and access to attractive women.
Money. It's already net his crime family $2B.
Next easily answerable question.
I keep thinking of my friend who requested a new desk from stores, and when it arrived, found a "Secret" doc that had somehow gotten lost, being jammed in back of the drawers. I don't recall whether it was RD or FRD (restricted data, formerly restricted data), but around our shop, "Secret" was a big deal.
The man had nothing to do with the improper handling or storage; all he did was find, report, and return it ... but he got an infraction anyway. Which, in those days was a Big Effin' Deal. Of course, he was a known Democrat.
So ever since, anyone who ever heard about that incident, and found him/herself in a similar situation, knew to keep his/her mouth shut, wait until everyone else was gone for the day, and then slip the classified document into the best shredder in the building.
Indeed. No evidence, no crime. Or, as the auditors like to remind us, If it isn't documented, it didn't happen.
It isn't inexplicable. Trump collect souvenirs. The best souvenirs are the ones that demonstrate how powerful and important he is. Classified documents slot right into that desire -- "Look at all the things I know that you don't."
Why did trump work so hard to steal and hide the classified documents? Well surely "because his brain is broken", but the primary reason is that in the amorality of his mental illness, he recognized the personal financial gain their sale would bring.