Even if it means collaborating with Russia to destroy the country…
FBI Search and Seizure at Trump's Mar-A-Lago Residence, August 8, 2022, Case Dismissed July 15, 2024
Preach.
Nm, hit “send” by accident in the middle of the post.
Do you really think if Hillary Clinton had been reading classified documents to a reporter who she knew was taping the conversation that she would be excused because the documents didn’t contain the actual blueprints for a nuclear bomb?
It seemed to be a BFD when she e-mailed a couple of lightly classified documents using non-government tech, even though there’s no evidence that those actions resulted in anyone unauthorized accessing those documents - actually it seems that her much maligned private server was the only server in the political universe that didn’t get hacked in 2016. Which is not surprising at all to me, as I’ve dealt with wealthy and powerful clients that had private servers, and they were way more secure than most commercial or business servers. And, IIRC, the only things in those documents that were classified were a couple of names, and the classification was at a very low level and didn’t happen until after the documents were sent.
It seems to me that the classification process is in place to keep officials from having to guess if a document is too sensitive to be shared, and allowing anyone, especially private citizens, to second-guess and override the classification status defeats the whole purpose of classification.
Let me propose a couple of “middle-ground” scenarios.
Suppose the documents in question include background, psychological profiles and non-public personal information on world leaders, information that was gathered for the purpose of increasing the effectiveness of negotiations with that world leader. Would it be OK if Trump shared that classified information with businessmen and/or other world leaders looking to negotiate with that country?
OK or not OK?
What if the classified documents included the private text and phone conversations of two FBI agents who were having an affair - and working on the Trump investigation? Would it be OK for Trump to do dramatic readings of those classified communications for his guests, simply to shame the agents?
Would that be OK?
Note that I suspect this one is true, because I’ve read reporting that he was trying to declassify Lisa Page’s and Peter Strzok’s intimate communications just so he could leak them to right wing news outlets.
I think there may be some truth in the idea that Trump just wanted to wave around classified documents, but that doesn’t explain why he kept so many of them. And even if he didn’t intend to misuse them, the people around him may have. I still suspect that Jared may have leaked classified information around Iran’s nuclear program to the Saudis, not necessarily by transferring the documents themselves, but maybe by briefing them on the contents.
Is that one OK?
I propose the Hillary standard, before you excuse Trump think about how you would react if Hillary did the same thing.
Well, I think you perhaps misunderstand me if you think I’m excusing anything.
For the record, my opinion is that the Clinton situation with the emails was a complete nothing - not criminal and hardly worth the chastisement she received for her “poor judgment”. From what I recall the highest thing she was known to have sent/created was Confidential. And most of the stuff was clipped from previous reports and sent to her by others. But honestly the details are hazy because I just didn’t care.
I believe intent matters in these things. Mishandling classified information is bad. Intentionally keeping classified material after the government has told you to give it back is worse. Intentionally keeping classified material with the purpose of selling and/or delivering it to a foreign power is worst of all.
I’m just saying (I think in agreement with you) that it is far more likely that the documents contain a combination of (a) things flattering to Trump or (b) things demeaning to his “enemies” than anything truly detrimental to US national security.
It is also entirely possible that the documents containing items from categories (a) and (b) also contain information the release of which would harm US national interests. That is possible largely because Trump is an idiot, and is much more interested in enlarging himself and demeaning others than little things like protecting sources and methods.
Finally, to allay any further concern that I am somehow “excusing” something, I fully believe Trump should be charged with obstruction of justice regarding his refusal to comply with the subpoena. I just also believe that focusing on the “highly classified” nature of the documents is likely to cause the public to react with a hearty meh when/if the contents are actually revealed. And that only plays into Trump and his supporters hands.
As to the possibility of Jared leaking something to the Saudi’s, why wouldn’t he have done that before Trump was removed from office? Why would he store the documents are Mar-a-Lago? That whole thing makes little sense to me.
The problem with this is that they won’t be marked “classified”, they will be marked with “confidential”, “secret”, “top secret”, and variants thereof (eg “NATO SECRET”) as well as a range of classifations more specialized and/or higher that I, even as a holder of them in my career, would be afraid to even name.
It doesn’t matter what material and data is actually under those classifications (some material could appear ridiculously innocuous but, if released, could cost someone his or her life, possibly at a minimum.
If Trump possesses or is known to have possessed material of that nature, he should be doing a huge amount of prison time.
And as one way of looking at this - it was a common expression that classified material should be thought of in the same way that weapons are, so damaging they can be to others and to oneself.
Which is, of course, why the Republicans were so upset about it.
Oh yes, I am well aware of that. That’s why I didn’t put “classified” in quotes. I meant it as a general umbrella term meant to cover everything from (C) to (S//SAR-XXX) to (TS//SCI) to various NOFORN and FGI markings. I too have been involved in such things in past lives.
But I am also well aware of, and have even been in possession of, documents that are stamped “S//NF”, for example, simply because they were printed from a document that had that classification and the originator didn’t do proper page marking. Then the appropriate procedures were followed, reviews happened, and the document was downgraded. Then the markings should be removed.
It’s entirely possible that the documents in question were of that nature, but without the correct markings removed or procedures followed. That is bad, but of a different sort of bad than “Trump stole nuclear information to sell to the Russkies” (straw-manning acknowledged).
I truly hope that the DOJ is doing their work well and that the full weight of the law will be brought to bear on Trump. But I also get very annoyed with all of these anonymously sourced articles breathlessly reporting about the high-level classification markings. Because that doesn’t necessarily mean anything at all.
On this we fully agree. But I’m not 100% convinced that the markings in and of themselves rise to that level. The content does matter.
All of this is balanced against the facts that (a) Trump is known to have been extremely cavalier and reckless with classified information and (b) he is a known idiot. Which could also lead to the “he grabbed stuff he wanted, shoved it in a box, and didn’t give two fucks if it was dangerous to store it at Mar-a-Lago”. Certainly another possible explanation.
With Trump, always expect the worst. Look at world leaders he admired. Look at which countries he was trying to do business with. Everything we eventually learn about Trump is always worse than we expect.
This is not at all surprising. Given that the main vulnerability in every system is the human element, private servers are likely to be more secure since fewer humans that have access . Unless of course the human that does have access is the sort of person who uses maga2020! as their password.
PEBCAK.
ID 10 T
I think we are basically in agreement. Frankly, I find a lot of the speculation around Trump sort of ridiculous, the theories that he’s selling nuclear codes for cash to foreign governments, the idea that he’s going to defect to Russia with sensitive information……those things just don’t fit with who Trump is.
I’ve always said that Trump doesn’t do quid pro quo corruption, because once he gets his quid you’re never going to see your quo ( or maybe it should be “once he gets his quo, you’re never going to see your quid”, I’m not sure if that debate was ever settled). But the bottom line is that he never acknowledges an obligation.
I think one of the most “schandenfreudy” things about Trump World is his treatment of all his buddies that failed to understand this. A lot of the people around him, guys that put a lot of time and money into helping him become President, Michael Cohen and Elliot Broidy and Tom Barrack, tried very hard to capitalize on the relationship once he was in office and basically got nothing but federal charges in exchange for their efforts.
Broidy took millions of dollars in exchange for arranging for one of his “business associates” to play a round of golf with Trump, and Trump couldn’t even be bothered to help him deliver on that……and he certainly didn’t expedite Tom Barrack and Mike Flynn’s scheme to build nuclear reactors in Saudi Arabia, which was one of those things that would’ve been the biggest scandal of any other administration but sort of slid under the scandal radar in the Trump years.
But I think there are a couple of other motivations Trump might have had for stealing classified information other than souvenir taking. One is simply the two-year old screaming it’s “Its MINE and you can’t have it! Those plans for destroying the Iran nuclear deal are MINE! Those love letters belong to ME!”.
The other is the idea, misguided as it might be, that he was depriving the Biden administration of information they needed to do their job. I only think this because Trump floated the idea in a weird Truth Social missive where he claimed the only reason Garland went after him about the documents was that Garland’s daughter is involved in renegotiating Iran’s nuclear deal, and that her team is mad because he took documents they needed.
And as to Jared / Saudi, I have two billion reasons to think there is something untoward going on there. Certainly, some of that may have been retroactive payback for Jared’s assistance in bringing MBS to power over his brother, who was the US State Departments favorite Saudi, but I would not be surprised if he’s still helping them, not necessarily by passing them documents but by sharing information in other ways. And I don’t think Jared personally took the documents and stashed them at Mar-a-Largo, but I think if he knows they are there, it’s not beyond him to use them.
I think you’re right. When it comes to trump himself, the best way to understand (so to speak) anything he does is to imagine it playing out at the emotional/cognitive level of a kindergarten sandbox. Apologies to normal kindergartners.
I think the idea of him selling classified documents, collecting the money and not delivering them fits perfectly with “once he gets his quid you’re never going to see your quo”
This, however, doesn’t really jive with the comments upthread that anything he walked out with isn’t the only copy in existence.
Would nuclear codes even be useful to anyone not the president? It’s not like I can just call NORAD, tell them “Alpha-Tango-Bravo-Niner, now nuke Cleveland”, even if that is the right code.
However, we do have an excellent intelligence apparatus, and other countries would be interested in our intelligence on their allies and opponents, and even to know what we know about them.
Yaeh, but the other way around works. A country is hesitant to give a tax break or favorable zoning to one of his projects, and I could see him either blackmailing them with what we have on them, or bribing them with what we have on someone they want to know about.
I think he just packed up all the documents he had in his possession at the White House, along with the ones that were already at Mar-a-Lago, and didn’t want to give them back. He may not have known what 90% of them contained.
Eh, the kindergartners will grow up and get over it. He won’t.
He may very well believe it to be. In any case, we certainly don’t know if they have copies or not. I’d think that when it comes to classified information, the fewer copies made, the better.
Yeah but that’s Trump talking. (Anne was paraphrasing him.) Is anyone else speculating that other than us random internet people?
And NARA thinks he has more he hasn’t returned yet, possibly at either Bedminster or the Tower.
This tracks with his chronic pettiness.
Its also possible he drank his own Kool-Aid to the point where he actually thought he’d be reinstated, so he’d need the documents himself to pick up where he left off.
Except all indications are he never did any of the actual work of the presidency with any seriousness, so I find it unlikely.
As many things, I think it’s a combination of a lot of factors all mentioned upthread.
- Too much work to pack all this stuff, they’re making me leave even though everyone loves me! (lots of unplanned stuff shoved in boxes)
- Oh, and this letter shows how awesome I am. And it’s addressed to me, so obviously it’s mine! (uncaring ignorance plus overweening pride).
- This looks useful down the road for raking in some new contracts. (not so much direct nuclear secrets, but stuff that he thinks might help him make shady but not illegal [by his standards] money)
And then, once confronted by the gov’t that he has it, and they want it returned.
- Screw you guys, no one tells me what to do!
- Ha ha, look how angry they are. You can’t make me do what you want!
- If it’s so important, then make it worth my while! My time is valuable!
- Everyone I talk too ( the Eastman’s of the world) says it’s mine anyway, so double down!
So yeah, greed, vanity, cupidity, contrariness, all backed up by insane levels of vainglory and childishness. And I just pray that it’s this little thing, the one that would have been the easiest to dodge with even the most basic effort, is the first domino that brings him and his ilk down.