One of the most fascinating parts of Mar-a-Lago-gate, or whatever we're calling it, is why Trump left the White House with stacks of classified documents. I can think of lots of reasons, but none of them really make any sense:
- Trump just took anything he wanted to have around, refusing to admit to himself that they weren't "his" documents. That's all there was to it.
- He took the documents because he hoped to sell them to someone in some way.
- He wanted them because they were potentially useful as material to be leaked to the press.
- Everything was chaos in the final days of his administration and no one knew what boxes were being hauled out to the moving van. When the National Archives demanded much of it back, Trump grudgingly let them have some of it but dug in his heels at the rest because that's just what Trump does. He's a ten-year-old.
- Trump kept stuff that he wanted to eventually share with kinda-sorta-allies (e.g., Israel), people he personally considered allies (Putin), and regular old allies (Great Britain).
That's off the top of my head, and maybe I'm forgetting something obvious. But none of it strikes me as plausible aside from the general argument from idiocy and childish obstinacy. Anyone have any other ideas that seem genuinely likely?
The question of when and how those things got to Mar-a-Lago is yet unresolved, we don't know they didn't accumulate there over a span of years.
Which sort of suggests the store room they were in may have acted as a dead drop, even if inadvertent.
When he was president, the CIA maintained a SCIF at mars a lago. They would have taken all of the classified documents when they hut that down.
I remember once reading something about them setting up a sort of makeshift or field SCIF at some point, but I don't remember ever seeing anything about an actual built-in secure chamber, such as they had in Hillary's basement, which never gets any publicity.
I will bet at some point someone casually mentioned some kind of intelligence was
'like the crown jewels'
and that's all it took for him to start collecting it, but randomly, as the mood struck him, and then, being the god-emperor, of course he's not going to part with it.
This is curious. So many here are hell bent on giving trump some excuse to explain what is treasonous behavior. He's already given the most damaging info to Russia. Let's start there then make him prove that he's not a traitor.
Then again MSB gave Jared 2 billion - they have been jonesing to get nukes and it's been leaked that the documents included info about nukes.
With Trump, stupidity and incompetence are always safe assumptions. I think people find more comfort in him being some sort of arch-villain rather than just a glorified timeshare salesman.
Quite good, "glorified timeshare salesman"
although by sheer animal instinct, a very good and thus within that limits, dangerous timeshare salesman.
Maybe yes but maybe no. Remember, there’s a huge trove of published evidence showing that Donnie “two scoops” Trump presided over a large and successful money laundering operation, various fairly sophisticated confidence games (the Mexican real estate scam, Trump University, etc), and he managed to have enough control over the SDNY, the FBI, and the Manhattan DA to avoid even a cursory investigation for decades.
He has obviously mental health issues and his extremely severe narcissistic personality disorder is sufficiently dominant in his life that it makes him extremely vulnerable to manipulation. Nevertheless, he has operated a highly successful organized crime family and successful functioned as, essentially, an associate of at least one of the five LCN families in New York City.
So, yes, Trump’s very much of a “Fredo” who lost vast fortunes and largely ran the crime/real estate organization he inherited into the ground but he does have a certain low animal cunning and I think it’s a mistake to dismiss him in this way.
Look at the enormous amount of attention Trump is getting from this ongoing saga. That could be explanation enough.
My somewhat conspiratorial theory is that he intentionally set up this whole thing so he could play victim to the FBI. Look how it's helped his chances of winning the nomination. At least, as others have said, it's been a good way to get attention and show defiance.
I agree with many of the comments here/
One thing that struck me today was Joe Scarborough claiming that it's time for the GOP to move on because Trump will hurt them in the mid terms. This was AFTER Lara Ingram said on her podcast that voters are "exhausted" by Trump, and perhaps it's time to move on. Scarborough also alluded to the fact that the raid thing is only going to get worse for Trump and the republicans. If the FBI had found NOTHING then Trump would be justified to complain, yell and scream - BUT the FBI has obtained secret, top secret and SCI information FROM Mar a Lago. They can;t divulge the info of course but the fact they even found it there is trouble enough for Trump/GOP.
But I also have to give DEMs credit here. They are letting the media, in particular FOX News, come to grips, publicly with what Trump has done and how it's hurting the republican brand. The DEMs are letting the media tell the story
It's also fun to watch politicians twist in the wind over this.
Thank God we have MTG telling white guys it's OK to watch porn because we're so persecuted !!!! Nice try at changing the subject there Marge
There really is no mistery to this if you know anything about Trump. He knew the documents were important to the US and contained information the country wouldn't like divulged. That's all he needed to know that meant he could use them later to do any of these:
1)When the moment is right blackmail or embarrass someone he didn't like (like Maceon).
2) Exchange the information for favors or money from foreign allies of his (Putin, MSB, Kim, etc)
3) To show off and brag to his sycophants when they come to kiss his ring. "See, right here in this folder I have all the information about the US nuclear weapons, as President I can just grab grab grab and they let me, because when you are President they let you do anything you want"
How does that first one not make any sense?
"Trump just took anything he wanted to have around, refusing to admit to himself that they weren't "his" documents. That's all there was to it."
That seems like exactly the kind of person he is, doesn't it? He consistently displayed a strong sense of personal ownership of the government. He literally could not grasp the concept that people in the government's employ had any duty other than personal loyalty to him.
He still uses the Great Seal in any way that suits him, like it's the logo of some company he acquired.
Of course he felt entitled to grab absolutely anything he wanted on his way out.
Just a hoarder, hoarding.
(All his adult life he's had domestic staff to keep the symptoms under control, but WH residence staff wouldn't touch official documents.
Number 1 and 3 or most definitely true. As bad as trump is there isn't going to be any truth to 2. He simply isn't that organized and competent for that to be reality. AS far as 4, Trump refused to give any back until he was subpoenaed, and even then he refused to cooperate and committed felonies by having his lawyers lie to the agents sent to collect the stuff. 5 is also ridiculous giving Trump far more credit as a human being the he deserves.
What/why did he take is the question I have been asking myself since this imbroglio began. One thing he would take is stuff that would directly incriminate him (whatever that may be), but I don’t think that comes nearly close to covering all the files . Also, I think he is incapable of “looking” for stuff so my working hypothesis is that people brought him “stuff” and the motivation for that would depend on the given individual - so did Kushner get some nuke stuff for the Saudis? Did Flynn get some Russkie stuff? I’m guessing there is also a lot of election baloney. The point is to think of the inner circle and how they could/did monetize the stuff.