Here’s the thing. A sitting president has the right to declassify anything he or she chooses. I’m not saying he did this, just that he could have.
To be honest, Donald Trump doesn't strike me as the kind of guy to pull a chess move like that. His lifelong reputation as an impulsive, instinctive counter-puncher makes it highly unlikely that he thought that far ahead. But that's really not the point, at this particular moment. The real point is simple: he took official US government documents that didn't belong to him, and stored them in an unsecured location. At this particular moment, he is no longer a sitting POTUS, so he is now a
private citizen in possession of material that he isn't lawfully allowed to have.This isn't complicated, and it doesn't require arcane lawyerly arguments about the breadth and scope of Presidential privilege. A private citizen was in possession of property that lawfully belongs to We The People. That's why the rule is on the books. We made the rule after Richard Nixon tried his "Tricky Dick" s# back in the '70's.
_______________________
From the start of his presidency, I told everybody that his biggest problem would always be that he'd insist on running his presidency in the same fashion that he's always run his private enterprises... and as a result, he'd always have legal and ethical troubles because of it. Ummmm... did I call it in 2017, or what?
Now, that same energy is following him 1.5 years after he left 1600 Penn.
Because he can't help himself.
Look at his life history... those 4 years he spent in DC were lived exactly like he's lived every day of his adult life: slippery, shady, loose with rules, and always just a half- step ahead of The Law.
Some people are already saying that this FBI search warrant is purely political in nature. My Occam's Razor cuts a much shorter path. I think it's more a case of 'chickens coming home to roost'- all at once. This man is facing potential prosecution on at least 3 legal fronts simultaneously. Years ago, I told my Dawgtalkers' friend 40YEARSWAITING that DT was too corrupt to avoid ethics trouble, too venal to separate his money from his job, and too stupid to avoid impeachment. Still batting 1.000. Hit the base-clearing home run on that impeachment thing, didn't I?
He should have kept his ego in check.
He should have never run for public office. If he'd not risen to Barack Obama's public mockery of him at the Press Corps dinner, he'd have been able to continue his life of grift and usury, staying just 1/2 step ahead of The Law, and insulated from the kind of scrutiny this impulsiveness has earned him. The minute he took office, he became a civil servant...
beholding to public account before us all.
Ever since, his life has been a steadily-opening book of many revealing pages.
Like I said: impulsive, instinctive counter-puncher. Now experiencing The Law of unintended consequences, indeed.
Chickens. Roosting.
Sometimes, the simplest path with the fewest turns really is the correct path to follow. Occam's Razor.
In my opinion, this man's story is one of those.
.02
