The really interesting thing about those classified documents
Lost in all the discussions of the classified documents at Mar-a-Lago is maybe the most interesting part: once again, as he did with his Attorney General, his Director of National Intelligence, his White House physician’s office, his Secret Service, his Centers for Disease Control, and his coronavirus response coordinator (Dr. Birx), the 45th president has taken a person or organization with a hard-earned reputation for professionalism and completely corrupted it.
Remember the bizarre situation when Dr. Birx claimed the notoriously lazy and ignorant Trump has “been so attentive to the scientific literature and the details and the data. I think his ability to analyze and integrate data that comes out of his long history in business has really been a real benefit during these discussions about medical issues.”
Or White House physician Ronny Jackson’s claim that he only weighs 239 pounds and “might live to 200” if he ate better.
Or the Cabinet meetings where people with solid reputations debased themselves by taking turns describing what an honor it was to work for the Dear Leader.
Well, let’s think about these classified documents. First of all, Kash Patel’s claim that Trump had a process of just automatically declassifying any documents he took to the residence. Two problems about this: first, Trump was famously uninterested in this stuff, to the point his briefers had to dumb his daily brief (which he frequently skipped) down to comic book level. Why is this man taking things away to read at night? Second, it doesn't work that way: the President doesn't just wave a magic wand over a pile of papers and presto! They’re clean. Some classified documents can be cleaned up and declassified, and some should be kept under lock and key at all times. No serious person with a foot in the national security world – military aide, NSC staffer, etc. – would allow a procedure like Patel claimed without sending up a distress rocket. Remember the news that Trump had extorted the President of Ukraine for dirt on Biden? First, the rumor that there was extreme concern about some issue, then over the course of little more than an hour, the story dribbled, then gushed out. The news that Trump was just randomly declassifying documents regardless so he could take them home would have been even hotter.
Which brings us to the broader question. We all read the rationalizations of his loyalists. Total chaos as January 20 approached, things are just getting swept off tables or out of filing cabinets into moving boxes. Well, then, how did all that classified come to be on tables or in filing cabinets?
We have security officers. Their job is to keep track of classified documents. Sure, the president might have his own safe, but it gets checked now and then. There’s an inventory. If a document is missing, that’s a big deal. Some documents are so secret, they never leave the possession of the military aide. So, yeah, could a secret level document wander over into the residence for a few days without anyone knowing? Easily. Can a codeword document about another nation’s nuclear capability just wander away? Or sit on a table for a few days? Let alone, leave the state? Not a chance.
It is impossible that all these classified documents would be just sitting around in desk drawers waiting to be swept into a box. That is, not if the system is functioning. Some would never leave the possession of the aide, some would be inventoried daily. Some would be noticed after a few weeks.
And is there any chance a functioning security office would fail to notice after the fact the absence of hundreds of classified documents? Not a chance.
For this massive failure to have happened, Trump must have bullied the security system (and dozens of individual security specialists) into abandoning its procedures and values. And that’s scary to think about. Once again, as former Republican operative Rick Wilson titled his book, “Everything Trump Touches Dies.”
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This series is written to promote political discussion and organizing. Permission is given to use this in fact sheets, talking points, letters to the editor, etc. We’d appreciate if you notified Gettysburg DFA (leonsreed@gmail.com) of any uses. Written by Leon Reed.
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