I wonder what kind of a crime Trump would have to commit before some of his Republican acolytes would finally abandon him. He once stated that he could shoot someone in the middle of 5th Avenue in New York and get away with it! It certainly appears to be true sometimes, although the noose does appear to be tightening somewhat.
Some of the Republicans who are coming to his defense are just making moronic statements. I heard one Republican state that they weren’t even sure the information was properly classified, as if that is a justification for stashing away boxes of classified documents. Once again, there is a process for downgrading or declassifying documents and if you have a document labelled “Top Secret/SCI” you damned well better handle it in the appropriate manner until it is properly, and legally, downgraded or declassified.
No individual has the authority to just pick up a document like that and say to themselves, “I think this is classified incorrectly so I’m not going to treat it with the proper caveats.” That makes about as much sense as deciding that, even though the speed limit in a given neighborhood is posted as 35 mph, you individually have the right to decide the speed limit on the street is improper and so you drive 60 mph down the street. Try making that argument to the judge! These people who are offering these kinds of arguments in defense of Trump are complete idiots.
There is so much misinformation being thrown around out there that it is just ridiculous and, at time, irresponsible. I saw an article that talked about the number of people who have been granted Top Secret clearances. I think the number was something like 1.2 million. If that were the end of the story, that would be pretty shocking. However, the part of this that seems to get left out is that fact that just because someone has a Top-Secret clearance does NOT mean they have immediate access to anything, and everything labelled Top Secret. There is also the ‘Need To Know’ part of the equation.
I worked with tons of people who had Top Secret clearances and very often, they did not have access to documents and information that I had access to because they did not have a ‘Need To Know.’ The information I had was not germane to their jobs. Likewise, they had access to information that I did not because I did not have a ‘Need To Know’ what they were working on. There seems to be this misunderstanding out there that a ‘Top Secret’ clearance gives you access to everything labelled ‘Top Secret.’ That is simply not true.
Many are screaming for the public release of the affidavit that was used to justify the search warrant. The DOJ is resisting this stating,
“Disclosure of the government’s affidavit at this stage would also likely chill future cooperation by witnesses whose assistance may be sought as this investigation progresses, as well as in other high-profile investigations. “The fact that this investigation implicates highly classified materials further underscores the need to protect the integrity of the investigation and exacerbates the potential harm if information is disclosed to the public prematurely or improperly.”1
The part of this statement that I particularly like is the line about the ‘future cooperation of witnesses.’ It was reported that the FBI got the search warrant for the search at Mar a Lago based, in part, upon a tip. That means that someone very close to Trump is talking to the FBI. Trump and his acolytes probably want the affidavit released so they know who the rat is. Given the very sensitive nature of the classified information and the need to protect witnesses, I hope that the court sides with the DOJ and keeps the affidavit under seal for the time being.
I would suspect a lot of people who have been staunch Trump defenders are starting to get a bit nervous. Rudy Giuliani has been told he the target of a criminal investigation into Trump’s effort to overturn the election in Georgia. Lindsay Graham has been ordered to testify in the same case. No doubt there will be a lot of bluster and talk about taking the fifth or never flipping on Trump. As you recall, that’s exactly what Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal attorney, said until he found himself staring at the underside of the Trump bus and then he sang like a canary.
We know from the reporting surrounding the FBI search warrant that someone tipped them off. It seems perhaps the USS Trump is starting to take on water. I think it will be extremely amusing to see which rats bail first and decide they’d prefer the view from under the Trump bus rather than at the bottom of the sea (or in a Federal prison cell) when the ship finally sinks. Some people think Trump is untouchable. Some people claimed the Titanic was unsinkable! This document investigation might very well be Trump’s iceberg!