This essay attempts to answer the above question. Now mind you, much of this cannot yet be proven, yet, but from what we know about Trump’s personality, I think we can speculate on this. Who knows, it may come out, just like that of Nixon.
Finally, Trump’s sins have caught up with him. He may still be popular now (June, 2023), but we still have a year before the primaries and a year and a half before the election, and a lot can happen in that period of time.
He still has two more indictments to go, one in Georgia, for trying to interfere their state election, by asking Secretary of State Brad Rafensperger to “find” 11,780 votes, and to use “fake electors” to certify to state for Trump to insure him a victory; and the charge in Washington, DC, for the January 6, 2021 riots.
There is also the indictment in New York for paying Stormy Daniel hush money for a sexual encounter in 2006.
It’s all piling on him like a ton of bricks, and Republicans, at least those with a shred of decency, along with other Trump supporters, may turn against him. Other Republican candidates for President are available for them to choose, so this may be more of a liability to Trump than an asset.
Now let’s try to the present indictments of stolen classified documents, the main subject of this paper. For the sake of this essay I will first summarize what everybody already knows.
Trump took classified documents with him when he left the White House on January 20, 2021 when President Joseph Biden took office.
The government knew he had these document and they wanted them back, but Trump denied that he had them. He later refused to give them back, so the F.B.I. raided his home at Mar-a-Lago in Florida.
Boxes by the hundreds were found, some knocked over and lying on the floor in a basement storage room, on a ballroom stage, and in a bathroom.
What these documents contained were secret intelligence reports on foreign countries, i.e. Iran; U.S. nuclear secrets; potential vulnerabilities to an attack on the homeland (that’s us); and plans for retaliatory attacks on foreign adversaries. (Feur, Alan and Maggie Haberman, “Evidence a President’s Actions Were More Overt Than Known,” The New York Times, June 10, 2023, pp. A1, A14.)
Imagine Trump saying to his friends, “This is secret information. Look, look at this,” and then showing them these documents. In fact, there is eyewitness testimony that he did do this, though the source is unavailable to the writer at this time.
Who did Trump tell? Trump supposedly showed classified documents to others on TWO different occasions.
When Trump answered the original request to return documents, he provided 15 boxes, being 184 classified documents with 125 marked “Top Secret.” (Top Secret means dangerous, possibly fatal to the U.S. if exposed!)
On June 3, 2022 a small batch of files were also provided, hoping to satisfy the F.B.I., being 138 documents with 17 labeled “Top Secret.”
Then on August 8, 2022, 100 more classified documents were found at the highest levels. (French, David, “Indicting Was the Right Call,” The New York Times, June 11, 2023, Sunday Opinion, p. 4, 5.)
It was when the indictments came out on June 9, 2023, that the real dirt came out, with photos of boxes of classified documents strewn out over Mar-a-Lago, as described.
Trump refused to turn over these documents, and even lied to the F.B.I. about having them.
When Bob Woodward interviewed Trump, Trump bragged that he had weapons that neither Putin nor Xi knew about. Here is his quote in an interview, Woodward confirmed on CNN.
“I have built a weapons system that nobody’s ever heard about before.
We have stuff that you haven’t even seen or heard about. We have stuff that
Putin and Xi have never heard about before.”
-Donald Trump to Bob Woodward
Even as a former President, Trump was not supposed to do this.
Here is what we know what he did do with some of them, so far!
He used many of these documents to show to his friends at social events at Mar-a-Lago, to impress them.
This act alone is dangerous! These people whom Trump showed the documents to could then go out and tell others about what they saw, boasting about what a former president has shown then, and then, like gossip, be repeated to other people still, until, and this is a possibility, a spy from an enemy country could pick this up from casual conversations and investigate what they heard.
What this can lead to can be very devastating to the security of the United States, affecting every person living here, in one form or another. It wouldn’t be in a good way, either.
From what has been uncovered so far concerning Trump and these documents, there are at least three charges, so far, that Trump could be tried:
- Obstruction of Justice
- Lying to the F.B.I.
- Sharing classified information with unauthorized persons.
There is a saying that came from World War II: “Loose Lips Sink Ships!” This means that no one, not even civilians with no part in the war effort, should discuss plans about military strategies, even if they come from their own imagination. This is because spies from Germany and Japan might overhear this, even in a place like a diner, report back to their superiors and use it against our own troops. There were posters of a soldier from a ship that was torpedoed pointing his finger saying “Somebody talked!” Look it up in a history book.
This applies even now, and Trump has already blown a lot of this wide open.
So what other purposes would Trump have used these classified documents? The following are my own personal guesses, but is very likely that others, including Trump, may have also thought of the following.
- Power - Trump loves power. He loves to control things and people so he could get his way. He wants to control people to get what he wants, when he wants it. For example, he had battle plans against our own enemies. Suppose he were to give these very enemies these plans?
- To hold onto perks he lost when he left office.
3. Revenge against his enemies. Trump is a man of revenge, and he has sworn vengeance against certain people should he return to office. Suppose these documents contained information against certain individuals he could use as leverage, or blackmail?
4. Trophies - Trump felt that he had personal ownership of these documents and could do whatever he pleased with them, leading to-
5. Turning over many of these documents, perhaps selling them, to our enemies, such as Russia, China, and North Korea. He has praised these leaders many times, and has buddied up to them. I believe that Trump would stoop to the level of selling, or giving, top secret information over to our enemies for special favors, regardless of what it may cost to the security of the United States or to the American people.
This could be the most damaging act of all.
6. Business deals - Trump is always broke, but he can raise money from his followers. Money is always given to him. He can sell secrets to businesses for millions, even billions of dollars.
There could be many reasons, but the bottom line is that these documents mean money, and that, along with power, are two of the main things Donald Trump craves.
Trump supporters need to wake up! He does not care about them, he does not care about anybody but himself.
Trump used his lust for power and wealth to blackmail and just plain abuse people to get what he wanted, never caring whom he would destroy.
Trump has never been held accountable for any crime he has committed in his entire life. His family always bailed him out with their wealth and prestige, but now his sins have finally caught up with him.
Greed and his thirst for power have always been his ambitions, and now they will be his downfall.
His day of judgement is coming soon.
Alastair Browne
