It’s equal parts funny, sad, and horrifying to watch Donald Trump concoct increasingly risible excuses for improperly storing government documents just inches from where he gets his deep-tissue McNugget sauce massages. The latest whopper? The government wasn’t looking for the top secret classified materials he stole—they were trying to find Hillary’s emails! (No, really. He actually said that.)
But while Trump appears to be crafting messages exclusively for the consumption of his base, the law remains unconcerned with the ongoing public relations kerfuffle, such as it is. He either broke the law or he didn’t (spoiler alert: he did), and his usual bloviating (read the transcript, which demonstrates a clear pattern of abuse of power!) is unlikely to help him this time—unless by some wild coincidence Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham, Rand Paul, and Ted Cruz are all called to serve on the same jury.
Honestly, it’s hard to believe anyone is still trying to defend this guy. The latest Department of Justice filing felt a bit like the police emptying out Jeffrey Dahmer’s freezers. What’s left to talk about other than how many victims/top secret documents are yet to be discovered once investigators put on enough hazmat gear to deal with the bracing stench of dozens of bodies/skeletonized luau pigs?
Indeed, even some ex-MAGA mites are starting to wake up.
Andrew Napolitano, a former Fox News legal analyst who was once so Trumpy he told friends the ocher abomination was considering making him a Supreme Court justice, is now stating what should be abundantly clear to everyone by now: Trump is going to be indicted. To be fair, when the Mueller report came out, Napolitano bravely risked his place in line at the Mar-a-Lago omelet station when he said Trump had committed obstruction of justice “at least a half-dozen” times.
Well, now Napolitano is continuing that fine tradition of being full-bore Trumpy right up to the point where one’s brain can legally file for emancipation. In a recent Washington Times column, he was as blunt as blunt can be. Donald Trump will be indicted, he predicts.
Even a cursory review of the redacted version of the affidavit submitted in support of the government’s application for a search warrant at the home of former President Donald Trump reveals that he will soon be indicted by a federal grand jury for three crimes: Removing and concealing national defense information (NDI), giving NDI to those not legally entitled to possess it, and obstruction of justice by failing to return NDI to those who are legally entitled to retrieve it.
Napolitano goes on to speculate that Trump decided to shout “declassified!” when the gendarmes were at the door because he thought (read: knew) that they were looking for classified materials. But the FBI outsmarted him, just like countless tic-tac-toe-playing chickens before them.
Unbeknownst to him, the feds had anticipated such a defense and are not preparing to indict him for possessing classified materials, even though he did possess hundreds of voluntarily surrendered materials marked “top secret.” It is irrelevant if the documents were declassified, as the feds will charge crimes that do not require proof of classification. They told the federal judge who signed the search warrant that Mr. Trump still had NDI in his home. It appears they were correct.
As Napolitano further explains, it simply doesn’t matter whether the documents Trump squirreled away were classified, “as it is simply and always criminal to have NDI in a non-federal facility, to have those without security clearances move it from one place to another, and to keep it from the feds when they are seeking it.” So “declassifying” those materials is simply a tawdry parlor trick, much like Trump’s original oath of office. Worse, his feckless fucknuttery led him right into the FBI’s trap!
Yet, misreading and underestimating the feds, Mr. Trump actually did them a favor. One of the elements that they must prove for any of the three crimes is that Mr. Trump knew that he had the documents. The favor he did was admit to that when he boasted that they were no longer classified. He committed a mortal sin in the criminal defense world by denying something for which he had not been accused.
And Napolitano isn’t just limiting this assertion to the written word. He went on Newsmax—Newsmax!—on Thursday, and said the same thing.
Oh, gee, we’ve been waiting years for Donald Trump to slip up … again … for like the thousandth time … hoping that someone will finally notice and decide to do something about it.
Of course, this isn’t a garden-variety Trump grift, like running a scam university or becoming president so he can steal my kidneys while I hibernate. The charges against Trump will likely be for the same crimes allegedly committed by former NSA employee Edward Snowden and Wikileaks’ Julian Assange; as Napolitano helpfully points out, Trump argued that both should be executed.
Now, it’s far more likely that Trump will be electrocuted trying to make a Velveeta panini in his bathtub with a George Foreman Grill than that he’ll die in the electric chair, but none of this is a good look for the guy who breezed into office hyping a suite of far-less-serious accusations against Hillary Clinton.
So when will the rest of MAGA wake up? Hey, I get it. It’s hard to separate the art from the artist, and for some reason, lots of Republicans still like Trump’s “art.” (Though whenever anyone says they’re a fan of Trump’s policies, my mind invariably—and loudly—screams “What policies?!”) But most of us are able to jettison our heroes once we discover they’re irredeemable scoundrels. Who can appreciate the art of Bill Cosby, Woody Allen, R. Kelly, or Kevin Spacey in the same way anymore?
Hell, I can’t even separate Jared from the work of Subway’s sandwich artists.
That said, if there ever was a time to disembark from the Trump Train, it’s now—before it really gets embarrassing for them.
Your move, “patriots.”
Check out Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s four-volume Trump-trashing compendium, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE.