Erickson on Indictments

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I’ve read the indictment, and I’m just smacking my head with how stupid this all is — not the indictment, but Trump’s antics as alleged in the indictment. This was all so avoidable.

Let me give you the highlights.

First, we’re not discussing love letters with the North Korean dictator. According to the indictment, after leaving the White House, President Trump kept plans for invasions of other countries, locations of American spies around the world, classified locations of soldiers, military vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies, classified assessments of nuclear capabilities of various nations, etc. That’s not small ball stuff.

Second, on an audio recording, Trump showed classified documents to people without a security clearance and — and this is the kicker — admitted the documents were still classified because he had not declassified them before leaving the White House.

This is important because some claim Trump, by taking the documents, automatically declassified them. But this audio recording shows that, in Trump’s mind, he did not believe that to be the case and knew the documents were still classified.

But this is the really bad stuff, beyond what he had.

According to the indictment, the National Archives demanded Trump hand over documents. Trump sent them 197 documents. Six months later, a federal grand jury demanded Trump hand over every other classified document he had. Trump sent the grand jury 38 more documents. When the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago, they found another 102 classified documents. In other words, Trump withheld classified documents from the federal grand jury.

More damning, the indictment alleges Trump ordered his valet to move classified documents to Trump’s residence so that Trump’s own lawyers could not find them. And then Trump’s own lawyer says Trump asked him to hide documents from the FBI.

Trump’s own lawyer admits that!

The indictment also alleges, with photographic evidence, that Trump stored documents on a stage in the ballroom at Mar-a-Lago and that some boxes fell over revealing highly classified information.

Keep in mind that a Chinese spy tried to steal intelligence from Mar-a-Lago in 2019.

All he had to do was hand over all the documents. But he lacked impulse control. It is all so, so stupid. We can “but Hillary” and “but Biden” all we want, but none of them were caught on audio tape admitting to showing people classified documents, and, to our knowledge, none of them ordered a valet to hide documents from their own lawyer, let alone asked their lawyer to hide documents from the FBI.

At the very least, all of this should lead you to conclude Trump just isn’t responsible enough to be president again. But if it holds up in court, it could lead a jury to conclude he needs jail time.

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