Trump Squirreled Away Highest State Secrets, Obstructed Investigators, Endangered US Personnel/Off-shore Sources
COLUMN by Gloria Christie THE NEWSLETTER FOR INTELLIGENT WOMEN & MEN
Hi Friends,
The amount of ultra-sensitive documents and information in the documents Donald Trump squirreled away next to the broken umbrellas at his golf club/home Mar-a-Lago is nearly overwhelming. So I thought it might be a good idea to boil down the barrage of information and translate it into English.
Will the biggest con of all be indicted? Probably.
Be safe, be well, you & yours!
Gloria
For just under 24 hours, the news industry has been waiting on tenterhooks waiting for the sealed Warrant Affidavit to be unsealed. This affidavit is what the Department of Justice (DOJ) gave to a judge in order to convince that judge a search of Mar-a-Lago was justified.
This occurs roughly in the “early-middle” point in an investigation. And as expected the pages were heavily redacted. However, there was adequate information to give us insight into the investigation.
The FBI noted that Donald Trump took 67 “Confidential” files 92 files marked “Secret,” and 25 files marked “Top Secret” were retrieved in January 2021. These were in the first 15 boxes the National Archives received and do not include the ones seized in the FBI search.
Government levels of security start with the least and continue to the highest security:
Confidential (least secure)
Secret
Top Secret
TS/TCS — Top Secret/Top Critical Sensitive Intelligence or Compartmentalized (most secure)
The DOJ will find compromised data by doing a damage assessment. This was a very serious national security risk. The department will discover which is the compromised documentation intelligence to ascertain the damage done and to protect sources and assets. Then it will have to identify and exfiltrate individuals exposed by Trump’s actions. Because people die.
About half of the document was redacted. But it could not expose more, because to do otherwise would give Trump’s attorney’s a roadmap of the case and opportunities for obstruction. It would also endanger sources, witnesses, grand jury members, and even miscellaneous people.
And there is evidence of obstruction.
The DOJ is worried about protecting spies, detectives (FBI), and multiple whistleblowers. Trump will consider there was a “mole“ and is probably hot on what he considers a “mole hunt.” When in actuality people had to be truthful with the investigators.
So what are the big questions?
Will the FBI share information with the NSA and CIA so they can exfiltrate sources before they are killed? It is already working on an intelligence assessment.
Are there nuclear threats? At this point, we do not know.
Who is responsible for packing up the president? The outgoing Transition Team makes certain no documents end up with the president. Clearly, they either did not exist or did not do their jobs. Someone on this team signs off on the packing.
Why is the DOJ not working faster? Attorney General Merrick Garland wants to make certain Trump cannot escape. Security pundits urge patience.
Were the original 15 boxes organized? No. It appeared that Trump just swept everything off of his desk and into a box. Along with the classified material, he had newspapers, magazines, articles, photos, notes, and personal correspondence.
Was the DOJ overly deferent to Trump? Some say yes.
AG Garland’s statutes did not even require classified documents, so it does not matter if he declassified them or not. There was no mention of Trump declassifying documents in his letter, which was attached.
Trump deliberately withheld information, which is obstruction.
Will he be prosecuted? Educated guesses say yes. Due to the volume and repeated obstruction.
Are there more documents? Oh, yes.
In the cases of other people who have mishandled classified documentation., their punishment has ranged from two years probation and a $100,000 fine to nine years in prison.
And still, the question remains, why?
In Gloria Christie Reports & Three White Lions Substack newsletters, Gloria Christie includes her week’s most important news/ commentary stories in the liberal online newspaper The Bipartisan Report. Gloria Christie Report her newsletters are for people on the go. Written in her own unique style with a twist of humor in a briefer version of Bipartisan Report. Christie’s Mueller Report Adventures In Bite-Sizes a real-life compelling spy mystery (in progress). Find her here on Facebook. Or at Three White Lions her book on Amazon Kindle Vella.