Again, I’ll follow the facts wherever they lead, but I’m a little skeptical that Trump could have made off with truly dangerous classified material.
I wrote about this yesterday in the New York Post:
We’ve learned that some of the documents taken by the FBI were marked as so-called top-secret/sensitive compartmentalized information, indicating that they should be viewed only in secure government facilities.
The designation, though, doesn’t mean that they were blueprints for hypersonic missiles or lists of classified agents. The government routinely over-classifies, and it wouldn’t have been easy for anyone to waltz out of the White House with the nation’s most sensitive information.
The materials in the president’s daily brief are carried into the White House in a locked bag and carried out in a locked bag. The protocols around the handling of documents included in meetings in the Situation Room are very strict. The agencies that bring secret materials to meetings with the president and White House officials are responsible for bringing them back out.
It must have been a hectic scene when Trump was leaving the White House in January 2021, but that doesn’t mean that the White House ushers and military aides packing up for him would have been able to access, say, a triple-locked safe and box up the nuclear codes for shipment to Palm Beach. If they had tried, someone would have stopped them, or, failing that, immediately called The Washington Post to blow the whistle.
Then, there’s this from the New York Times:
So, why did Mr. Trump keep all of these things in his private residence?
People close to the president say it was part of his pattern of collecting keepsakes. His office at Trump Tower was so crammed with memorabilia, including Shaquille O’Neal’s gargantuan sneakers, visitors had to edge their way inside to avoid knocking down a knickknack. His critics see more sinister potential motives, rooted in his cozy relationships with authoritarian leaders.