Last month, TFG’s document problem went from bad to worse.  Breaking over the weekend, multiple news organizations are reporting that TFG’s attorneys have turned over more documents marked Classified to the FBI.  Along with those documents, they also turned over a laptop and thumb drive that contained classified documents scanned by a TFG aide who worked for the Save America PAC.  There’s only one reason for a non-government employee (especially one who works for a political PAC) to be scanning classified documents onto privately owned digital media – to sell it or use it for political leverage.  Of course, TFG’s lawyers said that the scanning of those documents was “inadvertent” and that the aide wasn’t aware the documents were classified, which doesn’t pass the straight-faced test.  Of course he/she knew they were classified, but in the end, that doesn’t matter…possessing and copying ANY government document not rightfully possessed or public is illegal.

To me this is the smoking gun that shows intent.  TFG stole, hoarded, hid, moved, and lied about the government documents that were recklessly taken and then mismanaged for over a year and a half.  Now that we know that he had an aide copying those documents clearly shows what he intended (or already did) to do with those documents – use them for his own benefit.

C’mon, Merrick, how much more evidence do you need?  Let’s get on with it.

The list of crimes, lies told, corruption, self-dealing, fraud, theft, extortion, sexual misconduct, insurrection, obstruction, conspiracy, and cruelty committed by TFG is long, growing, and in plain sight.  Predictably, though, that very same list is totally invisible to MAGA Republicans.  Fearful of retribution from their mouth-breathing base and TFG himself, they perform more gymnastics than an Olympic athlete to avoid seeing what is obvious to the rest of us.  Congressional Republicans had TWO opportunities to get rid of him, and made the wrong decision.  Since he’s left office, they have continued to cow tow to him, regularly doing the MAGA Hajj to Mar-a-Lago to kiss his ring (and his ass).

It’s no surprise then, that the GOP has been completely blind to the slow motion train wreck of TFGland including investigations and convictions for tax fraud, election denial, insurrection, and, of course, his hoarding and concealment of over 11,000 US government documents including 100 classified documents and 90 empty folders marked classified.  They’ve also ignored the fact that the National Archives tried to get the documents back for 18 months, finally getting a federal grand jury subpoena that TFG promptly ignored.  When the FBI took the radical step of going and getting the documents themselves, GOP screamers amplified his lies that it was a “smash and grab” and “all they had to do was ask.”   They then fabricated the story that he “declassified” these documents “in his mind” tryin to excuse TFG’s behavior.

Then comes the discoveries of classified documents at Biden’s home and former office.  Numbering about 20, having those documents was sloppy at best, but was immediately reported to the National Archives, and Biden is cooperating in the investigation.  The incident is certainly not helpful to Biden, but it’s extremely unlikely there was any nefarious intent in having these documents.  Conversely, Trump took something like 50 boxes of government documents when he finally left office, concealed them, lied about having them, moved them several times to avoid having them found, and even had his lawyers lie that there were no more documents after returning about 20 boxes last year.  Beyond his attraction to shiny things, a worse reason for keeping them, as Maggie Haberman of the NYTimes reported, TFG was trying to use his possession of US government documents as trade bait to get files from the DOJ about their investigation of his longstanding relationship with the Russians and their interference in the 2016 election.  Believing you can trade something you stole for something that you would never get in a million years is insane, which explains why TFG thought it was such a good idea.

Not surprisingly, while looking the other way on TFG’s hoarding of thousands of documents, Republicans are going apeshit over the discovery of the 20 documents in Biden’s possession, and they are already launching an investigation of the incident in the House.  I say fine, investigate your ass off.  However, the Dems must be uncharacteristically aggressive here.  Each time the Republicans introduce some testimony or evidence about the Biden documents, the Dems must introduce ten times that amount of evidence of TFG’s hoarding, and then concealing his possession of the thousands of documents he took.  This is eye for an eye, fighting fire with fire.  It’s time to take their selective outrage and turn it on them in public.

The Chaos Wing of the GOP is going after a jaywalker while a serial arsonist is burning down the Capitol. It fits.

In October of 2021 top US intelligence officials sent a Top Secret cable to all CIA stations around the world warning that an alarming number of agents (informants) were being killed, captured, or compromised.  This unusual warning was sent after the loss of dozens of agents around the world that sharply increased over the last several years, and correspond to the time TFG infested the Oval Office and since. What we didn’t know then, but do now is that he stole thousands of government documents, including Top Secret, Classified, Secret, and Confidential documents.  Some of these documents were marked “HCS”, meaning Human Intelligence Control System, which identifies that this particular intelligence was gathered from clandestine agents in foreign countries.  Worse, over 40 EMPTY classified intelligence folders were found in Trump’s personal office.

It gives me cold chills to think about where those documents ended up, especially in light of last October’s CIA cable and the thousands of documents that had been completely unsecured for over a year and a half.  It’s very likely these documents ended up in enemy hands; it’s not a long leap to imagine that these documents were then used to find and kill or capture clandestine agents working for the US, and that’s the scary part of this whole sordid chapter.  TFG, through his corruption, malignant narcissism, and his negligent disregard for the rule of law is the greatest threat to the US since the Civil War.