Earlier this week the NYTimes published an investigative story that had several revelations including an account of TFG demanding that yet another lawyer lie for him early last year that he had returned all the documents and that lawyer refusing.  More important, it’s damned likely he still has government documents somewhere else like his NY apartment, in Bedminster, or even Mar a Lago.

But the story also recounted TFG’s desire to used the stolen documents as trade bait.  The key quote:

“Mr. [TFG], still determined to show he had been wronged by the F.B.I. investigation into his 2016 campaign’s ties to Russia, was angry with the National Archives and Records Administration for its unwillingness to hand over a batch of sensitive documents that he thought proved his claims.

In exchange for those documents, Mr. [TFG] told advisers, he would return to the National Archives the boxes of material he had taken to Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Fla.”

So there it is.  Not only did TFG recklessly steal top secret and other government documents, he then concocted a plan to use his unlawful possession of stolen documents as a hostage to get evidence to support his contention that the FBI was out to get him.  It’s classic mobster behavior; worse, it’s stupid, careless, and another example of the danger this man poses to not only the country but to himself.

I’ve had several theories about why TFG stole these documents and then toyed with the DOJ for over a year and a half; first, obviously TFG is a dumbass with shit for brains; second, I figured he saw value in them to sell to the highest bidder; third, he loves all the trappings of being president and continued playing Oval Office and pretending he’s still there; lastly I figured he just likes pissing off the “deep state”.  All of these theories are plausible and damned likely; what I hadn’t thought about that he believed he could use the stolen documents to steal more documents.  That act is just a glimpse into how evil TFG truly is.

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.

Late reporting by WaPo has indicated that the extraordinary step of raiding Mar-a-Lago was due to the presence of Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS/SCI) regarding nuclear state secrets still in possession of TFG despite the fact that he promised he gave it all back to the National  Archives. But this is not the 1/6 call logs, or secret Space Force intel, or even transcripts of Putin meetings. This is not something that gives Trump any personal leverage or advances any political agenda. Why would Trump do this?

Let’s review Trump’s motivations, starting with his narcissism. The fragile construct of his ego in stark contrast to his actual attributes means that zero zero zero tolerance can be had for anything that makes him look like the loser he is. This supposed superiority is rooted in his belief in himself as the ne plus ultra of eugenics.

Then there’s money. Trump uses every means possible, other than hard work, to grub as much money as his tiny claws can catch onto. He ties this to the ego via selling his name as the avatar of luxury and quality when it’s really it’s the epitome of crass and tawdriness. To him, counting up money is how you determine who the “winners” are.

Money and Ego – that’s half of “MICE,” an acronym denoting the usual reasons someone commits espionage: Money, Ideology, Coercion and Ego.

And that’s what we’re discussing here – the pilfered documents include nuclear secrets. These are not call logs, or work product or Space Force doodles. These are to a spy what the crown jewels are to a cat burglar.

Ideology is unlikely to be his motivation, unless one counts an affinity towards strongman dictators and his desire to be like them.

Coercion is certainly a possibility – the “Pee Tape” is still a theoretically out there, and if not that, other forms of kompromat abound with TFG.

Even with a reason-challenged brain in a reality-challenged bubble, there is no motive for Trump to have stolen TS/SCI nuclear documents in order to win an election or own some libs or outwit the deep state or write his Mein Drumpf memoir.

He’s clearly broken the Presidential Records Act. It’s looking more and more like he broke the Espionage Act as well.

Code name: Reality Loser

Since Monday, I’ve been cogitating on the FBI’s search of Mar a Lago and why TFG would’ve so stupidly taken potentially top secret documents from the WH to hide in his basement in Florida.  What was he doing?  What was he thinking?  As all of us have experienced, TFG does lots of things without thinking, and being a malignant narcissist, everything is always about him and his effort to gain some kind of advantage over his perceived enemies.  What was this about?

My first thought was that TFG was going to release documents throughout his next campaign trying to impugn his enemies and using them to back his false claims that there is an effort by the “deep state” to take him down.  But as more information comes out about this sorry episode, it now looks to me like he was intentionally trying to provoke the FBI into doing exactly what they did.  Since it was discovered that he stole secret documents when he finally vacated the WH, he and his lawyers have been playing games with the FBI which lead to a search back in June after he virtually ignored a subpoena to disgorge the documents they sought.  Since then, he and his lawyers have been slow-playing the agency, and they acted on Monday after apparently a TFG insider “ratted” him out by confirming the location of the documents.

“During the search on Monday, TFG took to Truth Social and public statements to rage about the “raid” and the FBI “breaking into” his safe.  The facts so far haven’t supported his claims, especially since the Secret Service let the agents in and one of Trump’s lawyers was present during the search.  Almost immediately, TFGland went to DEFCON 1 and started firing up the rage machine. One of the main accusations, lead by his allies in congress, was that the FBI was “planting evidence” to take him down.

Well, there it is.  It appears, and I believe that this is true, that TFG’s plan all along was to provoke the FBI to act against him personally so he could claim the “deep state” was out to get him.  I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised that the “rat” was someone TFG picked to be the informant.  We’ve all heard about Schedule F, TFG’s plan to unravel the federal government by firing thousands of career public servants and replacing them with his loyalists at all levels of the federal government.  Part of this plan is to empty out DC, moving agencies out into the heartland like he did the USDA, which he moved to Kansas City.  The agency has struggled to recover, having lost thousands of career employees who quit rather than move.

Call me cynical, call me a conspiracy theorist, but I believe that all of this is TFG and his enablers creating a new reality for his supporters as part of his relentless campaign to take over the US government for himself.  It’s already working; thousands of his supporters are raging on social media and in their be-flagged jacked-up TFG Train trucks, and one nut has already been killed after trying to break in to the FBI field office in Cincinnati.  I can only hope that Merrick Garland is one step ahead of him; my fear is that he’s not.

Under TFG, the DOJ appointed attorney John Durham as special counsel to dig dirt and trump up (pun intended) charges against everyone he could find to fabricate a case that the FBI and Obama were “spying” on the TFG campaign in 2016.  Ignoring the fact that TFG operatives are actively trying to collude with the Russians to swing the vote away from Hillary, Durham threw everything against the wall, hoping something would stick.  The victim of that smear campaign was cybersecurity lawyer Michael Sussman, who was feeding data to the FBI about his suspicions about Russian interference.  When one of those cases he reported proved wrong, Durham jumped on it like a duck on a June bug, and charged Sussman with lying to the FBI.

That case failed yesterday, when a federal jury acquitted him.  Speaking to the press, jury forewoman said,

The FBI arrested Thomas Barrack today, who is a 30-year ally of Trump and chairman of his inaugural committee.  They got him on lobbying for the UAE without reporting it, then lying to the FBI about it.  The cover up is always worse than the original crime.  Apparently the indictment is well documented and damning.  They’ve got Trump on tape repeating Barrack’s rewrite of his speech about stopping Middle East terrorism (which was just a cover for filling Barrack’s pockets).

This one is going to be good, and signals that the DOJ is getting closer and closer to His Orangeness.