Trump is a man that is so notoriously paranoid that, as a matter of routine, he had every single employee sign NDAs and even attempted to do so as president. Put simply; Trump couldn’t be “Trump” without absolute secrecy. This is the one man who wouldn’t release his taxes, wouldn’t release a real physical, fought every Congressional subpoena, prohibited every White House staffer from testifying, and always said that he valued “loyalty” over competence and experience (which is bizarre). But now, for the first time in his life, there is no one for Trump to pay off, the secrets are pouring out, and the pressure is such that someone in Trump’s inner circle has turned on him. That “flip” almost surely gave DOJ “the goods” it would need to prosecute Trump for stealing state secrets.
The entire matter was summed up by Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg, who set out how exquisitely that matter had been handled by DOJ. The Justice Department did literally everything it could to keep this from appearing to be politically motivated:
Mika, we now know why the Department of Justice didn’t just issue a subpoena, it’s because they already did issue a subpoena. They did months ago. Kudos to the DOJ for keeping all this stuff a secret, you don’t see that very much and they did, which shows you this is not a political witch hunt. They didn’t reveal any of this stuff in advance.”
Absolutely. It is shocking that the “nuclear secrets” information didn’t leak back when we learned that Trump kept “Top-Secret” materials at Mar-a-Lago.
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“We know a subpoena was issued and, yet, afterward, someone really close to Trump, someone within his inner sanctum, spilled the beans. Said that not only are there some highly sensitive pieces of information, perhaps nuclear secrets, but where it is, inside the safe. It had to be a credible source because there is no way that Garland, an institutionalist, [FBI Director] Christopher Wray, an appointee of Donald Trump, and there is no way a federal magistrate would be walked into this political hornet’s nest unless they believed the secret concerns and the source was credible.”
All of the above is readily apparent to any well-read person. One need not have a legal degree to appreciate that everyone involved had to be near 100% positive as to what was there and what they’d find.
This has got to drive Trump crazy. He demands complete loyalty from people around him, though it is a one-way street.
When asked about his confidence in whether the FBI got what they anticipated and whether Trump would release the inventory, Aronberg said:
“Sure, but the fact that Donald Trump has not released the inventory has not wanted to release the search warrant, tells me there is something there. The fact that Merrick Garland seemed quite confident in his press conference, saying, ‘Let’s release it. Let’s go to the court and do something really unusual’ tells me they think they’ve got the goods.“
Garland would not have moved to unseal the warrant if it made the DOJ look political. The way that DOJ avoids looking political is by publishing their mission, opening the warrant that describes what they sought and why they believed the materials were in the safe, along with a record of reasonable attempts to get the materials without a warrant. That Garland wants that information out and is putting the ball in Trump’s court says it all.
Well, it leaves one thing unsaid. The warrant and affidavit will not include the name of the witness or witnesses that worked with the FBI. Only that one exists. And that will drive Trump crazy because Trump cannot be “Trump” without absolute secrecy, and it’s slowly slipping from his grip.
@JasonMiciak believes a day without learning is a day not lived. He is a political writer, features writer, author, and attorney. He is a Canadian-born dual citizen who spent his teen and college years in the Pacific Northwest and has since lived in seven states. He now enjoys life as a single dad of a young girl, writing from the beaches of the Gulf Coast. He loves crafting his flower pots, cooking, and currently studies philosophy of science, religion, and non-math principles behind quantum mechanics and cosmology. Please feel free to contact with any concerns.
