During his short press conference Thursday, Attorney General Merrick Garland gave no real inclination as to the severity of the actual documents being sought by the Department of Justice in former president Donald Trump’s home at Mar-a-Lago.
All we’d known up until Thursday night is that the documents were related to the Presidential Records Act of the 1970s, and that the National Archives were demanding the remaining documents still in Trump’s possession. The raid happened despite the fact that Trump’s lawyers had been cooperating with federal agents in the months prior.
A new report by the however, Washington PostIt is clear that FBI sought materials other than presidential records. It appears that they are a matter of national security grave.
Classified documents relating to nuclear weapons were among the items FBI agents sought in a search of former president Donald Trump’s Florida residence on Monday, according to people familiar with the investigation.
Experts in classified information said the unusual search underscores deep concern among government officials about the types of information they thought could be located at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club and potentially in danger of falling into the wrong hands.
People who spoke out about the materials agents wanted to investigate were willing to keep their identities secret in order not be identified. These people did not give any further details, except that they wanted to know if the information was about weapons of the United States. They also did not say whether such documents had been found during the search. Trump spokesmen did not immediately reply to my request for comment. Both the FBI and Justice Department declined to comment.
We have a very serious, grave problem if this is the case. In reality, there are multiple issues.
Problem number one: Why was it so long for the government to discover that Trump may have had them/possibly still in his possession 18 months later? Whether it concerns our weapons or someone else’s, this isn’t stuff you should lose track of. Although Trump leaving with at least a dozen documents in his possession is troubling, someone ought to have done this years ago. These types of documents are classified and sensitive information that must be protected For a reason.
The second problem: If they are in Trump’s possession and not in the capable(?) Trump really has messed up. If it is this serious, PostAccording to their sources, this is the kind of information that foreign power will seek out. You don’t just stick it in the closet and forget about it. Trump may have this truth, so the Republican Party needs to reconsider its support for Trump. The GOP tends to be on the side for strong national security and not actively opposing it.
The third problem: And, on that note, if this is as serious as the Justice Department’s sources are making out to be, then You absolute lunatics, holy Mother of God! This is something that could quite literally get someone killed, alter the balance of global powers, and generally make certain people’s lives a nightmarish hellscape… and you’re just tossing it out to reporters like this is good to chum the waters with.
I already believed that all the people involved in this story were grossly incompetent. Now they seem determined to prove it.
All of this being said, here are some reasons I am still skeptical:
- Like I said, you don’t just leak that sensitive national security documents like those pertaining to nuclear secrets are just floating around out there.
- The fact that the Presidential Records Act had been a façade was well-known. Everybody was hoping to find something beginning January 6, 2021.
- If you think Trump has this information, you tell those in Congress – including the Republicans – on the committees with high security clearances what the issue is, because you can guarantee that those Republicans will call the de facto head of their party and say “Please for the love of God get those back to D.C. in a hurry.”
To be honest, both the FBI and the media have done a stellar job of demonizing themselves over the past six years. American citizens distrust both of these institutions. FBI acquired a fake dossier with FBI agents who had previously admitted to biases and plans against Trump. The media has spent the last six years breathlessly telling us the “walls are closing in” after each and every news tidbit came out — and many of those were just as fake as the dossier.
If even a small part of the story is accurate, we will have serious problems. Yet, it won’t matter because the same people who will attack Trump have ruined their credibility before we got to this point, and the same people who defend Trump would defend him if he launched our entire nuclear arsenal from 5th Avenue.
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