Why Trump felt he could mishandle Top Secret files

The BBQ Pit
21

The US doesn’t have a system to formally sanction a president for anything except major infractions. The system instead relies on informal sanctions and in presidents, their staff and everyone else in government believing in following rules. (This is more or less true in all countries.)

Trump was elected as a breaker of the norms of government, he surrounded himself with people who believed in breaking the norms of government, he often got rid of people who told him there were things he could not do, and he kept not suffering any consequences for doing things he was being told was not acceptable or illegal. Which of course is something he’d experienced all his life as a “successful” businessman.

He likely mishandled Top Secret files through his entire presidency, and suffered no consequence for this particular offense either. Even now legal minds are uncertain whether charging him with mishandling classified information would stick and he might end up going down for the offense of obstructing the investigation instead.

22

I don’t think the reason they’re hesitating is because they are worried they can’t make the charge stick. Rather, it may require them to reveal too much classified and sensitive information in order to try it. Jurors would be entitled to see the actual documents, and that may pose a real threat to national security.

They won’t make a determination about whether to indict on espionage until they know exactly what was stolen and concealed from them. But I don’t believe this charge is off the table, not at all.

23

I don’t agree. He doesn’t think in such specific terms.

He just did what he always does. He does whatever the hell he wants, planning only to delay, weasel, bluster, obstruct, threaten, and lie, with the hope that eventually his opponents will give up or he will otherwise just get his way. That’s the way he has always operated.

24

Where do people get the idea that Trump plans things?

25

Hillary was not POTUS. And it seems to me that Trump and the MAGAs think Trump was not elected President so much as declared Emperor. He could do whatever he wanted with the documents, and if anyone complained he’d just wave his hand and declare the law changed.

Much like he tried to claim they weren’t classified documents because he waved his hand and declared them declassified.

26

There’s no deep analysis required for why Tan the Conman “feels he could” do anything. He’s a toddler. He wants to do it; therefore, he can do it. I think it was on the SDMB that I saw this: “Trump is the poor man’s idea of a rich man and the stupid man’s idea of a smart man”. Well, he’s completely ignorant of the constitution, making his view of the US president a toddler’s view, or even an idiot’s view. He does not grasp that there are actually laws that apply to the president and there is a balance of powers in our government. I’ve said it often here, he thinks being president is like being Pharaoh in The Ten Commandments: “So shall it be written; so shall it be done”.

TLDR

“Nobody can tell me what to do! Waaaah!”

27

This is the answer, right here. The pos is constantly talking about how beautiful and best and wonderful everything he touched or does is. He thinks he’s the center of the universe and should be surrounded by the biggest and brightest (literally – that’s why he loves everything gilded with gold). Well, what’s more important than state secrets? He believes he’s god of the world so having secret files in his possession is simply his right.

I don’t think he’s smart enough to try to sell them. He probably doesn’t even know what nations would want them or how to even begin negotiating some sort of deal. Remember when he wanted Ukraine to dig up dirt on Biden? “Give me what I want or I won’t be your friend anymore.” (And then he literally said that when his bootlickers started looking for the exits.) He has no business skills, he knows nothing other than being a vulgar, loudmouthed showman. For him, having those documents in his possession is nothing more than a prestige thing. Its just more gold gilding.

He had said this exact thing. He clearly belives it. During the covid lockdowns he tried to force one of the states to lift the lockdown/mask rules (I want to say it was Michigan but my google-fu tonight is lacking) and was told that he didnt have the authority, that authority was held by that state’s governor. He basically said “bullshit, I’m the president I get what I want and they have to do what I say.”

28

Well, let’s not gild the lily here. I agree with those of you who are saying the explanation is his infantile, narcissistic, or just plain-crazy outlook, but I also think you’re taking those metaphors too literally. He had (has?) rational (if evil) people all around him swearing up and down that there will terrible consequences to his actions but he went ahead and did them anyway. “Do this and you will certainly go to jail, Mr. President, and along the way until that happens you will be massively inconvenienced trying to delay that eventuality. Much better not to do it at all,” they said and he promptly ignored all of them.

I think you can analyze why a baby, or a lunatic, or a spoiled child (all three slightly different metaphors) does that. It’s simplistic to say that these metaphors are self-explanatory. A spoiled child, for example, would have an answer if you could sit him down and demand that he answer your question of “What do you think the consequences would be?” (which you could never do with him, of course, because he is a very rich spoiled child). In this hypothetical case, I think this particular spoiled child’s answer would be “I won’t face these consequences because I’ll be President for the rest of my life with enough GOP senators to assure that I’ll never be impeached successfully.”

His interlocutors would, in my hypothetical, have come back “That’s highly unlikely, young sir. No one has ever done anything like that, and there are all sorts of laws against that, the 22nd Amendment,” etc. and he would have said “I’ll get those laws changed, and the army is on my side, so who’s gonna force me to leave the White House? And also I’ll declare a state of martial law and suspend elections, even retroactively if I lose but I’m so popular that I won’t lose anyway” and on and on.

These answers make little sense to you and me, but I think they satisfied Trump, who tried making them a reality (and is still trying his best). I’m not seeking to argue that he’s smart or a good planner or anything, just that mentally disturbed people have plans and I think this was his: “I’m going to be President forever.”

Once you accept that he intended to remain in power all along, everything else falls into place. No need any more to examine his motivations, ask why those classified docs were in his desk, wonder why he does the legal manuevers he tries to pull, etc.

29

L’etat, c’est moi, c’est tout.

30

The full quote is ‘Donald Trump is a poor man’s idea of a rich man, a weak man’s idea of a strong man, and a stupid man’s idea of a smart man.’ I don’t know the origin.

31

Run all the pool of prospective jurors through the standard TS clearance deal [reasonably painless, done it more than a couple times myself - but then I have had the FBI up my ass over stolen documents already, since neither mrAru nor I had them, having the phones tapped and a crew surveiling us from next door didn’t bother us, and we did send the guys across the street pizza more than once and set our own camera up watching their house … =)]

Once the jury is empaneled, swear them in, hand them their clearance and tell them that if they open their mouth about anything, they can go to jail. Problem mostly solved.

32

It’s a variation of a really old saying. See this 2011 article about using a similar one to describe Newt Gingrich.

As to how old?

Elizabeth Bowen writing about Aldous Huxley in the Spectator, December 11, 1936:

“Mr. Huxley has been the alarming young man for a long time, a sort of perpetual clever nephew who can be relied on to flutter the lunch-party … He is at once the truly clever person and the stupid person’s idea of the clever person.”

Someone tacked on the “strong” and “rich” parts but it doesn’t take much imagination. I could say the following:

“He’s a coward’s idea of a brave person.”

“He’s a traitor’s idea of a patriot.”

“He’s a villain’s idea of a hero.”

“He’s a bigot’s idea of a humanitarian.”

You could go all day with them. We could even do a whole thread coming up with them.

33

I read a book by Trump. You might think such a thing is without merit. You would be wrong.

True, it is full of anecdotes which seem unlikely in light of his consistency and exposure. But Trump has never hidden who he is. He has been consistent, authentic and horrible in many ways. But he has never been a closed book.

He often asks for more than he thinks he can get. This has often worked out for him. I don’t think he thought he could win the presidency, and the idea he planned that far ahead is very out of character. I think he came to believe he could impose his will on officials, may have believed and been told he could do anything as president (or felt he could persuade others this was so, or tie things up in court) including declassification, and in fact simply did not much care, feeling there would be few consequences.

34

OTOH

35

Have you never met a malignant narcissist? He fits every single criterion for the disorder, in spades. That constant lying in the face of all observable fact and reality? Bog standard narcissist. That aggrandizing of his own personal power and abilities? Bog standard narcissist. That “you can’t tell ME what to do/not do” attitude? Bog standard narcissist. Throwing tantrums any time someone contradicts or contravenes him? Bog standard narcissist. Seriously, they’re gonna have his picture in the next DSM.

36

No you haven’t. There is no such thing. There are several books commissioned by Trump, written by ghostwriters, with Trump’s name on the front. But though they probably contain something of Trump, it’d be foolish to not realize the level of filtering and organizing that the actual writer did.

37

I know it’s the pit, but this is unfair; autism isn’t narcissism; it’s not selfish; and it doesn’t lack empathy, no matter what Dustin Hoffman did in Rainman.

It’s also not retardation, but it is something a qualified professional would never diagnose in a person they’d never met face-to-face.

38

This, so much this.

39

Much like the local sewage treatment plant.

40

Tony Schwartz, the guy who ghostwrote The Art of the Deal, Trump’s most well-known book, has talked extensively about his experience: Donald Trump’s Ghostwriter Tells All | The New Yorker

Schwartz labels Trump a sociopath, and if you need a label or a category to explain his behavior, then that’s probably the best that you can find.

This story shows you how much Trump relies on the expectation that he can just cheat his way out of any rules: