The following is presented as part of The Columbian’s Opinion content, which offers a point of view in order to provoke thought and debate of civic issues. Opinions represent the viewpoint of the author. Unsigned editorials represent the consensus opinion of The Columbian’s editorial board, which operates independently of the news department.
Month after month, throughout Donald Trump’s mondo-bizarro post-presidency, our Great News Funnels have spewed out puzzle pieces in the form of breaking news.
They have landed in our laps and on our screens in no clear logical or chronological order. They were snippets reporting that our 45th president insisted upon keeping top-secret documents as his personal souvenirs. He repeatedly denied having them — right up until the documents were found and turned over to their proper owner: the U.S. government.
We know that being an investigative news journalist is hard work. But it is almost as hard these days to be an investigative news consumer. Finally you can see enough of the big picture to enable you to decide for yourself who deserves the blame for the controversy about Trump and his stash of top-secret documents.
In 2021, the National Archives repeatedly dealt with Trump’s aides to seek the return of classified records that were the government’s property and not his, according to federal law.
In January 2022, Trump personally packed boxes that were returned to the National Archives, The Washington Post reported, citing “people familiar with the matter.” Then Trump dictated a statement that he had returned “everything” the National Archives had requested.
In May and June, the National Archives listed other documents they believed Trump still had. In June, archives officials went to Mar-a-Lago and got many more boxes of classified material. But archive officials had information that Trump still had more top-secret documents. That led to the court-approved FBI search in August that yielded about 100 documents, some highly classified, and designated with wide, bold yellow and rust-red borders on the cover pages.
We all saw those cover pages in that FBI’s evidence photo taken at the time. We also remember how Republican political leaders raced to issue press releases condemning the FBI search as a Gestapo-like raid without waiting to learn that it was nothing of the sort. Indeed, the Justice Department requested, and the court granted, permission to search a former president’s home only after receiving information that Trump had those classified documents that he had denied having — but indeed had, after all.
And now we all know one thing more: Trump, who likes to portray himself as the ultimate victim, now knows that we all know exactly who to blame. America’s 45th president was victimized by that guy he sees in his Mar-a-Lago mirror — and no one else.
So, given what you now know, what do you think the FBI and Justice Department should do now? Pursue the investigation or just drop it?
Well, we know from a knowledgeable source what Trump thinks they should do about it. In 2016, just 11 days before Election Day, FBI Director James Comey bizarrely announced he was reopening a new FBI investigation into Trump’s presidential opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, for her inexplicable use of emails for government business, a potential security risk. It gave the FBI a new No. 1 fan (and gave that fan a new job).
“Hillary is the one who lied to the FBI,” an ebullient Trump woo-hooed at a rally. “We can be sure that what is in those emails is absolutely devastating. Hillary is not the victim — the American people are the victims of this corrupt system in every way. And this is your one chance to change it.”
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