Rod Dreher hit the nail on the head. Below is what Rod shared in last Friday’s daily diary:
We now know more about why the feds indicted Donald Trump. The recklessness of this man with the nation’s secrets beggars belief:
“The 49-page, 38-count indictment said the documents held onto by Mr. Trump included some involving sensitive nuclear programs and others that detailed the country’s potential vulnerabilities to military attack.
In some cases, prosecutors said, he displayed them to people without security clearances and stored them in a haphazard manner at Mar-a-Lago, even stacking a pile of boxes in a bathroom at his private club and residence in Florida.
The indictment included evidence vividly illustrating what prosecutors said was Mr. Trump’s willingness to hide the material from investigators.
In one of the most problematic pieces of evidence for the former president, the indictment recounted how at one point during the effort by the government to retrieve the documents, Mr. Trump, according to an account by one of his lawyers, made a “plucking motion” that implied, “Why don’t you take them with you to your hotel room, and if there’s anything really bad in there, like, you know, pluck it out.”
Jack Smith, the special counsel who is bringing the case for the Justice Department, cast the investigation during a brief statement in Washington as a defense of national security. He urged Americans read the indictment to understand the “scope and gravity” of the charges, which he said were necessary to preserve “bedrock” democratic principles.
“We have one set of laws in this country, and they apply to everyone,” he said. The investigation had been conducted with utmost integrity, he added, and, in an implicit nod to the election calendar — Mr. Trump remains the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination — promised to seek a speedy trial.”
More:
“It said he had illegally kept hold of documents concerning “United States nuclear programs; potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack; and plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack.”
Prosecutors did not supply a motive for Mr. Trump’s actions, but described incidents in which he appeared to be showing off the material.
Prosecutors presented evidence that Mr. Trump shared a highly sensitive “plan of attack” against Iran to visitors at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., in July 2021 — and was recorded on tape describing the material as “highly confidential” and “secret,” while admitting it had not been declassified.
In another incident in September 2021, the indictment said, he shared a top-secret military map with a staff member at his political action committee who did not have a security clearance.”
This, this … man-child! Can you imagine a former president showing off to his friends by letting them see a plan of attack against Iran while at his golf club?! Can you imagine him taking nuclear secrets, and secrets about how America will respond in the case of an attack, to his private residence, where they would be vulnerable to spies? All it took was a fake ID to get into the joint.
There was no need for this. None. If Trump had mistakenly taken out things that didn’t belong to him, he could have returned them to the government, no problem. But he’s on record advising his legal team to deceive the government. For what? The only thing I can figure is it was sheer ego. He wasn’t going to let anyone else tell him what to do.
Look, we know that the Deep State hates Trump. We know that the Deep State and the media colluded to destroy his presidency with the fake Russiagate business. All of that is true … but it is also true that there is strong evidence in this documents case that he behaved with gross irresponsibility in safeguarding some of the nation’s most critically important secrets. And for what? In part so he could play the braggart with his pals. This is the thing I don’t get about Trump. The grand jury indictment under these fraught political conditions threatens to tear the country apart. There will be millions of people who never will believe that Trump is anything other than an innocent victim of elites — in part because elites have, in the past, shown themselves willing to break the rules to go after him. If we are going to have to face a deep crisis in this country over its governance, and the unfitness of its ruling class, then let it be about something significant. Don’t let it be about Trump’s drawing a red line around his supposed right to take some of the nation’s most important secrets out the door with him, and leave them laying around his beach house, and show off with them to golf club buddies. That is not worth driving the country to the brink of fracture over, but that sure is what Trump is doing.
It’s been made clear to me that the Justice Department has been compromised politically by the Left. That doesn’t mean it is always wrong, though; it only means that we should not take its words and actions at face value. I reserve the right to change my mind if more information comes out, but given the sensitivity of these documents, and given the apparent efforts of Trump to lie to the government about them in an effort to keep his hands on them, what choice did the Justice Department have? The documents at issue here are not minor secrets. Had Trump taken them and kept them under lock and key in an underground, blast-protected safe, it still would have been wrong. But he kept them in boxes laying around his beach house and golf club!
Remember, two things can be true: that the Deep State hates Trump and will go to extraordinary lengths to wreck him, and that Trump’s recklessness and immaturity is the best friend the Deep State has. See, this is the thing I don’t get about folks who are so heavily invested at this late date in Trump. With so many forces lined up against the things conservatives like us care about, we need a champion who knows how to fight. We need a gladiator in top form, but all these conservatives put on Trump goggles, and see Al Bundy as ready for the Colosseum.
You think Donald Trump has the focus and the internal wherewithal to stand up effectively to the predatory ideologues coming after our children? He does not. Not even close. (In Florida, by the way, Ron DeSantis has demonstrated that he does; this is a big reason that I support his presidential campaign.) America doesn’t deserve a second Biden term. But it also doesn’t deserve to be led by an elderly jackwad who shows off to his friends by disclosing America’s military secrets to randos, to make himself look like a big man. Some things are true even if David French believes them.
