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What people's impressions of the putative "stolen documents" in Trump's possession? I'm currently set to be highly skeptical of each new claim regarding what I won't believe Trump did this time, but the specifics here just seem weird - he supposedly has something like 200,000 pages of government documents. My immediate instinct to hearing that is that it's so many pages that he must have been operating out of his home as a remote office, staffers moved tons of documents, then didn't really bother returning them. I have no idea if prior Presidents have done anything similar. I could see it being pretty common and no one cares, but I also wouldn't be surprised if it's unprecedented since Trump really is a weirdo.
But the thing I'm really getting at is that I see people referring to "stolen documents" and claiming that these are really important docs... and that just doesn't square with it being a massive volume, from where I sit. What are these docs supposed to be and what do you think the odds are that they're anything anyone actually cares about beyond getting Trump?
Three postulates:
The US government over-classifies documents on a massive scale. This has been an ongoing issue reported on for years in the press, it was widely pointed out in HRC apologia circa 2015-16 in NYT op-ed columns. Given the choice between risking something coming out and classifying it, they classify it every time.
The regulations surrounding declassification are byzantine, labyrinthine, require a lot of paperwork and a sharp knowledge of bureaucratic procedure. This is reported on, and also obvious if you have two drinks with anyone with a clearance and chat about it.
Donald Trump doesn't care about regulations or "doing things the right way;" his team is inexperienced and incompetent at paperwork and following bureaucratic procedure to a degree unprecedented in modern American history.
So he almost certainly broke the law, but I'd bet none of it was done with malice. Probably just carelessness, or kept them as sort-of "props" to talk about how important he was. I'd reckon the odds are it is just a bunch of random paperwork stamped "Top Secret" because he liked the look of it.
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The PRA states that Presidential records must be saved and returned, but the president gets to hold on to "personal records". There are always disputes between the archivist and the ex president's office.
The only legal precedent is Judicial Watch v NARA from 2012 which found:
"NARA does not have the authority to designate materials as “Presidential records,” "
So the designation is at the former presidents sole discretion.
The outgoing Obama admin packed up all the records in the white house and stored them in a commercial facility to go through later.
Basically the raid doesn't have a good foundation.
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Very close to zero. It is absolutely clear ploy to attach something to Trump to a) hurt Rs chances in midterms (Trump is not in the run, but anything that smears him also reflects on any Trump-supporting R) and b) if possible, kneecap him for 2024 and c) grab some papers in which something facilitating a) and b) could be found. Well, I guess there's intimidation value too - if we could do this to former President, do you really want to talk about reforming the FBI this much?
Now, can they make anything stick or not is anybody's guess (my guess is no because they couldn't do it previous 9000 times they tried). There are rumors that Trump may have some documents that he could use against people who performed the whole "collusion" thing if he ever comes back (or maybe even if he doesn't) and they were looking for those. But I think it's not the case as Trump already proven his inability to take on the FBI when he was a President, and he's certainly haven't become more capable since then. So no documents could help him with that.
There could also be some documents for which Trump failed to check some required boxes before taking them, likely because same happened to previous presidents, but nobody gave a hoot then (see the whole FARA story or the Logan Act story) but this comes to "who has lawyers with better knowledge of obscure never-before-used regulations and comes down again to politics more than anything. Ultimately, the President has authority to declassify anything he wants, and there's no constitutional limit to that, but who knows what supplementary regulations may be lurking around. Likely all ends in a ton of "walls are closing in" reports after which it quietly dies with D being sure Trump almost sold nuclear codes to Putin but FBI stopped them and Rs being sure it's another in the long list of abuses they suffered at the hands of the corrupt DOJ, and nothing else comes out of it.
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The warrant does specify the "45 Office," so I think it's pretty clearly leftovers from POTUS work. I don't really see that as a problem; if he needed to look at the black budget or an intel report outside a SCIF, that was his prerogative. The warrant does mention standard safe/alarm/inspection requirements as part of the standing, but I would argue that's moot given the Secret Service presence.
Once he leaves office, things get complicated. Legally, I don't know if presidents are subject to the usual brief/debrief process complete with NDA. Either way, the PRA is very clear that he's supposed to return what he worked on. Practically, uncleared individuals should not hold onto controlled information. The obvious reason is risk of disclosure or espionage. But it's also important to keep a chain of custody and know who has a hard copy at any given time. SCIF ingress/egress procedures are (sometimes frustratingly) complex for this exact reason.
What's strange is that his team halfway complied. See the affidavit--fifteen boxes were returned on Jan 18th "in accordance with the PRA." It's not like they were hiding that they had anything classified, because there was a bunch mixed in to the fifteen boxes. And 200k pages doesn't exactly suggest sentimental keepsakes.
Side question--where'd you see that number? 200k pages would be 80-100 banker's boxes. They didn't seize anything close to that unless the boxes were huge.
Anyway, there are a couple categories in the stuff seized.
Unclassified documents covered under the PRA. Stuff like "3 - potential Presidential record" or "1 - Executive Grant of Clemency re: Roger Jason Stone, Jr." (lol). He was probably obligated to hand these over, but there's no indication of how many he would have wanted to hold onto. I could believe that it was hardheadedness or just an oversight. Either way, not a big deal.
Classified documents, improperly stored. Some of these contain national defense information. I don't know why Trump would think he could keep these, or how he would expect to benefit from doing so. That suggests a mistake--but then why return some and not others?
Unclassified stuff stored with the other categories. I understand this is standard for the warrant type, and that they'll have to give it back, or maybe already have.
We don't know how big each category is, just that all this stuff was mixed together on the premises. I'm of the opinion that it would be both unwise and unseemly to prosecute him on pure PRA grounds. Even if the man admits he did it to flip them the bird, whatever, they have their documents back and it ought to be water under the bridge. But I am much less comfortable with the presence of classified documents.
A Security Classification Guide (SCG) is a document which indicates which parts of a given special access program are classified, and at which level. When new documents are created under that program, they inherit such rules. If a report mentions X, and the SCG says X is Top Secret, then the new document must be marked accordingly. The SCG is also classified at such a level.
Simple budgets can be enough of a risk to be classified. There are two types of special access programs: acknowledged and unacknowledged. Information, including funding sources, for the latter may be heavily restricted. Our rivals would surely like to know that Y branch of the military just spent a few billion on prototypes of platform Z.
There's also the well-trod ground of intelligence sources. I'm not so familiar with that field, but it's arguably more likely that the POTUS would have those lying around.
Sometimes classified documents are long with only a few nuggets of dangerous information. Sometimes they're not. Neither one should be made visible to those without a need to know. Trump had the highest access in the country, and the opportunity to pick up a great number of potentially damaging documents. "TS" is reserved for "exceptionally grave damage to national security." Not everything in a TS document will clear that bar--but how many times do we want to roll the dice?
The real risk isn't "Trump took home the nuclear codes and now we all die." It's closer to "Trump accidentally burns an intel source" or "China beats us to a key technology." My biggest fear is that he uses blanket declassification as a defense--can't charge him then!--at which point everyone and their mother gets to FOIA thousands of pages of military secrets. Even if he did so completely legally I would consider that a tragedy for the country.
In the absence of a smoking gun, like actually selling documents, I still think it would be a poor choice to push charges. However, I will continue to argue against the idea that his withheld documents must be harmless due to the amount or complexity.
Thanks for this, much appreciated!
The "200,000 pages" I was referring to was underspecified Twitter threads declaring his villainy, with the number of pages seemingly used to suggest that this is worse than if it were fewer pages. That was what set my alarm bells for, "wait a second, did he steal something specific that anyone is worried about, or is this just literally an office that didn't get emptied out?". The number apparently comes from this court filing. Per WaPo:
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Agreed. I just dont put it past the FBI or any other federal agency to be acting in almost equal-and-opposite stupidity/corruption...which unfortunately seems to have the effect (on a particular group of people) of bolstering trust in Trump, rather than just making them more jaded about everything and everyone.
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