Idle Speculation

Does the FBI search of Mar-A-Lago mean Trump will be indicted?

The thing about the future is it’s not here yet so we can never be 100% certain of an outcome. Following the execution of a search warrant by the FBI yesterday at Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump’s Florida home, we are left with a great deal of speculation and not much else. We do have questions.

Will Trump Be Indicted?

My retired journalist friend Michael hates the term “unprecedented”- he regards it as hyperbole that gets overused in the news media. Yet there is no denying that Donald Trump’s term as President was unique in many ways: After being the only President to be impeached twice, his closing act was a failed effort to overthrow the results of an election. Even for this borderline personality of an ex-President to be held accountable, the Justice Department would have to muster a near-ironclad case to bring charges, and that is an uncertain eventuality.

Until yesterday, that is, when the FBI acted on the Federal warrant to search Mar-a-Lago. Both the FBI and DoJ made no comment on the search but Trump himself made it public late yesterday. Unconfirmed news reports indicate it may be related to documents that Trump took from the White House when he left office, a violation of the Presidential Records Act. The National Archives and Records Administration recovered 15 cartons of records earlier this year and subsequently referred the matter to the Department of Justice. It is important that, in order to convince a Federal magistrate to sign off on the warrant, the FBI needed to provide sufficient justification that evidence of criminal activity was to be found at the location.

In an op-ed in today’s Los Angeles Times, former US Attorney Harry Litman offers a hypothesis for conducting this search now:

It might seem puzzling, even disappointing, that the Justice Department and the FBI would have chosen to throw down the gauntlet for a crime — “concealment, removal, or mutilation generally” of official documents — that is far from the most serious of those we think the former president may have committed, such as obstruction of justice, fraud against the United States and, most dramatically, seditious conspiracy…

But a charge of mishandling or destroying official documents is no petty offense, not under the federal code (which provides for a prison sentence of up to three years)…

Further, a documents charge, as presidential accusations go, would be relatively easy to prove and would sidestep issues of 1st Amendment protected political activity that Trump no doubt would claim if he were indicted in relation to, say, his incendiary speech at the Ellipse on Jan. 6.

Litman’s reasoning is that Justice likely believes it is close to a slam-dunk case on the documents, and making it now would avoid the drawn-out legal battles that more severe charges would prompt. He points out that anyone who “willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies or destroys” official documents “shall be” disqualified — barred for life — from holding future federal office”. While such an outcome may not satisfy those who feel Trump should pay a higher price for taking the country to the brink, it would remove him as an active force in our politics. That should make such as Ron DeSantis and Ted Cruz, Republicans with Presidential ambitions, very happy.

If the documents were incriminating evidence of a crime, why did Trump keep them?

Trump was well-known in the White House for tearing up documents or flushing them down the toilet. Whatever we might think of his intellectual abilities, he possesses a feral sense of self-preservation and understands the perils of leaving incriminating evidence where it might be found. Suppose you consider, however, the driving force in Trump’s life, money. From that viewpoint, it may well be that he was motivated by the pecuniary value of the information contained in the classified papers, especially its value in a global marketplace. It is not inconceivable he would provide such information to foreign interests for financial gain.

What foreign interests? The Saudis immediately come to mind. After all, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign fund “invested” $2 billion with Jared Kushner’s investment venture earlier this year, despite the fund’s supervising panel’s reservations. Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, served as a Presidential aide in the White House where he was known as a conscientious reader of the Presidential Daily Brief, a digest of US intelligence and security reports. He also developed a friendship with Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman. Coincidentally, the Saudi-backed LIV golf tour, which has enticed many PGA and other players to join, held an event two weekends ago at Trump’s Bedminster, NJ golf club. Perhaps if it’s walking and talking like a duck, it is a duck. Perhaps...

After NARA retrieved the 15 cartons of documents from Mar-a-Lago in January and began reviewing them, the agency’s request in February that the Justice Department look into possible violations of Federal law in the Trump Administration’s handling of documents began the chain of events that culminated with yesterday’s search. Speculation is that NARA believed classified documents had not been returned.

As we wait for this all to play out in the coming weeks and months, it is very likely that speculation is all we will have.

---

168 is a newsletter emailed weekly on an unscheduled basis in which I share my thoughts on various topics for the purpose of discussion. Your comments are welcome so please feel free to post them..

You can visit www.1hundredsixty8.substack.com to view archived newsletters.

If you would like to support my efforts here, please consider becoming a paying subscriber for $5.00 per month.

If you don’t wish to become a regular subscriber, please consider making a contribution from time to time by leaving a tip. Click below:

If you would like to submit a piece of your own for 168, please email me at nicrosato2@gmail.com.

And please remember to click the Like button.