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?
Trump saw that the documents had value, so he took them. He didn't need to know what that value was. He is insanely greedy
I agree with this but would include that it doesn’t have to be “monetary” value. It might also be something he could use for leverage or if someone is trying to use something against him he has something against them. In any event, I’m sure it was something he saw as of value to him.
I really want to know what the pictures are.
But why the documents themselves? Why didn’t he just make digital copies? Particularly after the subpoena. Why not just copy what you want to keep and then just say, “Ok, here you go!” And give up the originals?
Not that Trump ever considered the potential legal trouble that keeping highly classified docs could land him in, but I think copying classified docs then returning originals would be an even bigger no-no. Makes it easy to prove intent
Also, I am guessing people mostly did this document stuff at Trump’s behest and ground their heels a lot, getting his assistants to hold onto originals may be the most illegal thing he could get them to do
. Who says this is not exactly what he did?
It's like he walked off with the silver candlesticks figuring he could pawn them later.
Show off to Saudi, Russian, and local retiree bigshots as the "important" stuff he had access to as [former] President. Always has to have an ego booster. There might be some stuff he didn't want others to see, like his North Korean love letters, but I'm betting it was mostly whatever was really "cool looking" that was lying around.
bingo
I would strongly suggest the The White House housekeeping department take an immediate inventory of the towels!!
Trump's first impeachment was due to an attempt to extort a foreign nation to help rig the 2020 election. He continues to be obsessed with the 2020 election and is threatening a repeat in 2024. So I would suggest....
#6. Trump collected and retained classified material as part of a plot to further his chances in 2024. So the material could be (1) leverage to extort foreign countries to tilt the playing field in his favor as happened in 2016 and Trump attempted to do in 2020, or (2) dirt on domestic opponents that can potentially be used in 2024.
I like this.
"people he personally considered allies (Putin)"
Do I believe that Trump might have seen economic value be willing to sell or trade confidential materials to Putin? Short answer is yes, I would not put it past Trump.
However, Putin as an ally, my comment is seriously? That idea would require some sophisticated diplomatic vision of the the world....
He's been helping out the Trump Organization for a while?
For certain people, money makes allies.
This was pre-Ukraine when the MAGA wing of the GOP was more blatantly pro-Russian. Not inconceivable in 2020, inconceivable now though
"Christian" nationalists still want him...
But Trump has never said a cross word about Putin launching a war. The most he’s said is something watery like it’s unfortunate and both sides should knock it off.
Did his signed letter of intent to develop Trump Moscow have an expiration date?
& here we have the view from nowhe--... no brain.
Because he has a general disregard for laws, based on the belief that if you can get away with it, it is "legal".
Money. ….. Almost everything he does, including running for prez, is done with an eye on making money off of it. I seriously believe he didn’t want to be president —he initially just wanted to make money off the publicity of running — and was mildly surprised by all the possibilities for making money once he got in. Some of the trouble he got into stemmed from him focusing only on the money and not how his actions would affect other people or how it would be received/ yada yada yada . Rinse repeat.
He probably got misty-eyed imagining how much he was going to get on eBay for his letters from Kim Jong Un.
I never thought Trump wanted the job of being President. Trump thought of it as an honor deservedly bestowed on him due to his greatness. That’s why he wants the Nobel Peace Prize too.
Mar-a-Lago-gate, or whatever we're calling it ...
The informed label is "crossing the Rubicon". Because despite Trump and his cult spending the last six years demanding countless investigations and prosecutions of their political "enemies", serving a search warrant on a private citizen who used to be president is an irrevocable move towards lawless tyranny by the Biden Crime Family.
Beau isn't dead.
He's been the godfather the whole time.
Along with the Biden Family goldfish from the 1970s, Duke Brutus, kept alive in a plexiglass tank in a lab, his giant super-intelligent brain hooked up to the internet by a series of tubes.
That's the thing no one would believe.
I said this in a past thread on the topic, but if you think about the world the way he does, I think it is largely your second bullet-point, "sell".
And in the case of the Sauds, that's probably close. But normal people call the intended use for the rest variously extortion, blackmail and humiliation.
Their value to Trump might have lain in making sure the administration didn't have them, but destroying them outright was just too obviously criminal. For example, the document relating to the Roger Stone pardon might include evidence of bribery.
Perhaps he kept those "presidential" documents as a psychological tool to reinforce his self-image as "the rightful president."
We will probably never find out exactly what he had, for national security reasons. He may very well have already done whatever he was going to do and they searched him BECAUSE the Saudis suddenly seem to know something.
Another potential motive is that his team took things that would make him look bad, assuming they would stay hidden for at least his lifetime.
Saudi nuclear secrets. For leverage in case they turn off the money spigot (Kushner just got some big loans from Saudis)
How about "Trump took documents and refused to return them because they contain evidence of potentially criminal activity."
Mor elikely he doesn't actually know if the documents contain evidence for crimilaity or otherwise evidence that is bad for him. Destorying them all is too risky, getting somebody to go over create a risk of leaks, so he just keep as much as he dares.
Yes, this is my theory too. Seems to satisfy Occam's Razor.
Perhaps he took them because he thought he could deter his own prosecution (for 1/6) with them. Hold them hostage, as it were.
I assumed he kept some of them, like the nuclear documents, as something to offer Putin when he tries to flee to Russia to avoid criminal indictment.
Many seem to think he wanted to sell intel. Or at least steal the documents because of their potential monetary value. Possible, sure.
But maybe he just wanted as much stuff as possible to deprive potential investigators (of his crimes) of evidence. And, being in a hurry, he just hoovered up boxes of records...
That's my current working theory.
I'm sure he'd hide/destroy any incriminating documents, and he fears the FBI may have found some. But the classified documents probably do not show evidence of (other) crimes....though you never know with Trump...
Sure, but my point is, in the chaotic final days of the administration, he and his people may not have had time to carefully sort through all the potentially incriminating evidence. Remember, Trump very likely thought he was going to be able to hold onto power. So in their haste, it was easier just to pack up everything (or as much as possible) and worry about the consequences later. And it would appear, shockingly, that they weren’t too concerned that this project would mean stealing sensitive national security documents.
That is the obvious explanations.
Let's try this:
Throughout his presidency, he kept back some documents as "interesting" or "valuable" and took them upstairs to the Residence. Those documents were stored in boxes upstairs, and were moved to Mar-a-Lago because the movers assumed they were 'personal' not 'official'.
.
I think discounting the stupid and insane reasons in not reasonable when we're talking about trump. He does stupid, unreasonable things for stupid, unreasonable reasons all the time.
That said, a couple other possible motivations (also stupid and insane) could be
1) he thought retaining national secrets was just "cool" and made him important and kinda still really the president. Feeling important seems critical to his ego.
2) he thought it was a form of blackmail that he could use as leverage against DOJ, DoD etc to prevent them from moving forward with investigations into his varaious crimes.
3) he really is so deluded he believed is was legal and right that he could declassify anything by fiat and the FBI and NARA were harrassing him unfairly.
Trump's Razor cuts deeply.
During the transition period there was loose speculation that Biden would refuse former president security briefings for Trump due to the obvious security risk. With the emotional acumen of a toddler, Trump said, "I'll show them!" and grabbed stuff.
How 'bout all of the above?
Trump has always been willfully blind to the notion that a president is not a king, no one is above the law, and neither the country nor its government is the personal property of its leader. *Of course* he thought those documents were rightfully his. *Of course* he thought he could do whatever he wanted with them. *Of course* he thinks it's a massive injustice that he is being held accountable for breaking the law and endangering America's national interests.
This is how it always goes, with people who think they owe nothing to the rest of society and are exempt from the norms that bind everyone else. They may be quite successful for a while, if they can scare people into standing aside for them. But eventually they cross the line and the society whose laws they flouted musters its discipline and destroys them.
Lets take this one at a time:
'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."
Oh, I believe he "knew" the documents weren't his but as of Jan 20, 2021 he stilled believed, and vehemently too, that he would be "returned" to the White House. Therefore he wanted to IMPRESS everyone with his preparedness for his eventual 2nd term - that never came.
"He took the documents because he hoped to sell them to someone in some way."
These documents are too highly "toxic" to be sold. To "buy" influence is more likely. I think it would have convinced many a central banker to back Trump in any future business deals. Imagine Trump leveraging the names (for example) of German spies or other information to get favorable loans from Deutsche Bank after a phone call or two from the Bundesbank. And since they are a big part of the EU I would assume Trump and/or Kushner would get loans anywhere in the EU.
"He wanted them because they were potentially useful as material to be leaked to the press."
I don't buy this one. At the time Trump truly believed he was going to return to the White House
"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 is anything BUT a ten year old. He had plenty of time to have his staff review the papers and evaluate what he could do with, and what he could do without on the Archive's request. He gave them what was useless to him. You can call it stomping your feet, but I think that's far too soft.
"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)."
Netanyahu was already on shaky ground in Jan of 2021 and I firmly believe Trump knew he couldn't push Benjamin too hard because of all the troubles BN was having. I also think Trump didn't trust BN who has a long term friendship with Mitt Romney. The Russians? Maybe. Great Britain? I doubt that. Foreign governments are totally flumoxed by Trump's lack of moral compass. I think they would have rejected any type of document swap for leverage.
I do think Trump just took everything off his desk. It wasn't until later that he realized just what he had. Kushner probably convinced him to give some paper back to the Archives but keep the important stuff.
Trump got caught and he's telling one outrageous lie after another to squirm out of it.
How about it doesn't matter....at all! His behavior was criminal and he knew it to be criminal (though knowledge is not an element of these crimes), and to be treated fairly...is to be put on trial as would anyone else be.
Let us not over think this...and give Mr Trump avenues of possible escape.
He committed crimes...this is easy, keep it easy.
Traveller
...maybe I overspoke on the Knowledge issue...I would fix it now with more precision....but gotta run and see Better Call Saul....Finale...T...lol
The time was out of joint, if she hadn't been there . . .
“Hosts on Russia's state-owned Russia-1 television channel said that officials in Moscow have already been "studying" top secret and other classified documents the FBI sought through a search warrant of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort home.”
Trump already gave the info to the Russians. Payment for services rendered.
Typical behavior of narcissistic sociopath who thinks every thing is for him and everyone answer to him.
To make money for the organization. It's why rumors of his kids/Kushner ratting him out are most likely incorrect. I think it's somebody in the Republican party who at one time supported Trump, turned on him, somebody Trump trusted.
It's why the Republican reaction is a mess. It's either dead quiet or stupid conspiracy theories that need a laugh track by stupid sheep like Ted Cruz. The facts are the facts. A Republican mole went to the FBI that Trump "stole" classified documents. Then Wray went to Garland/Doj for a warrant which confirmed the mole's claims.
When you stare at the abyss, it stares back.
Judging from his past crimes, the first thing on his mind is always damaging his enemies. So maybe he thought there might be something he could use against his political enemies. He wasn't sure what or how or when, but just wanted to keep stuff in case there was something, especially if it could be used against Biden, Obama, or some of the hated RINOs that have turned against him.