Trump kept the docs willfully
Trump can’t claim Honest Mistake.
A onetime White House lawyer under President Donald J. Trump warned him late last year that Mr. Trump could face legal liability if he did not return government materials he had taken with him when he left office, three people familiar with the matter said.
That means Trump can’t claim “Oh I didn’t realize, sorry, my mistake.”
The lawyer, Eric Herschmann, sought to impress upon Mr. Trump the seriousness of the issue and the potential for investigations and legal exposure if he did not return the documents, particularly any classified material, the people said.
The account of the conversation is the latest evidence that Mr. Trump had been informed of the legal perils of holding onto material that is now at the heart of a Justice Department criminal investigation into his handling of the documents and the possibility that he or his aides engaged in obstruction.
I suppose Trump’s lawyers could say yes but he’s so deeply stupid and solipsistic that being informed of something doesn’t mean he pays any attention or understands or remembers or cares…but then out comes all the evidence of lying and concealment.
Trump handed over some of the boxes soon after the chat with Hershmann, but he hung on to others. He returned some more under subpoena, but hung on to others. He lost more when the FBI raided Maralago. He’s Jerry Lundegaard being dragged out of the motel room in his underwear screaming.
The meeting between Mr. Herschmann and Mr. Trump has not been previously reported, and it adds to the picture of Mr. Trump’s interactions with several people about returning the documents in the months before the National Archives retrieved 15 boxes of material in January of this year.
In other words it adds to the picture of Trump knowing perfectly well the documents were not his to keep.
I am not hopeful that he gets charged because I hate him, it’s because I want to know that the United States doen’t have a de facto royalty, above the law.
Okay, thinking of this twice and being aware of the countless examples of the powerful acting above the law and not being held to account for it, I should clarify that I mean that we don’t hold ex-presidents above the law. If Obama stole from a charity, I would expect to see him prosecuted. i would expect to see him pay his own speeding ticket.
Trump has already said he could get away with murder in so many words. Regrettably he can’t be prosecuted for being stupid, he’s guilty of that in spades, but the flip side is that being stupid can’t be used as a defense for his other crimes either. I predict they’ll find him guilty of something or other, probably not espionage, but something. The real injustice will be that his sentencing won’t change his lifestyle much, if at all. Two impeachments and one insurrection later and he still thinks he’s running for president again. The only thing Trump thinks the law is for is to protect him, which is mostly true, but what’s going to protect the rest of the us from him? It remains to be seen how much power the US still has to enforce an egalitarian legal system. The success of that would truly make America great again.