This whole argument about Trump illegally removing government documents and storing them at Mar-a-Lago was getting ridiculous, especially given the gaslighting by his attorneys and supporters. The whole debate about whether he declassified documents was a waste of time - neither the search warrant nor the statutes it cited as justification make any distinction between classified and unclassified documents; the issue surrounding the search is simply whether or not he possessed government documents he was not authorized or entitled to have in his possession. The answer to that is yes, he did.
So now we know he had government documents that did not belong to him and he was not authorized to have. We also know that among the documents he wasn't supposed to have were a number that were clearly marked as classified, ranging from "Classified" to "Top Secret" to "Special Access Program", which is the highest security level there is. And now, despite that fact that it wasn't important to the search warrant, the classification question suddenly takes center stage.
These documents are supposed to be kept in a highly secure location - he had some of them in his desk drawer, along with his passports, in an office his own attorney said that "hundreds" of people visited. One of the things we know about Trump is that he doesn't like to read anything - so why did he have these documents in his desk drawer, and who was he showing them to?
More disturbing is the fact that the search found 48 empty file folders labeled "Classified". What we don't know is what was in those folders, and where the missing contents are now. The FBI collected over 10,000 pages of government documents - could the missing ones be mixed in with them? If not, where are they? Who has them and why?
I don't think these are unreasonable questions...
|
