As an aside....

[PCIntern]

I knew a gentleman via acquired family for 32 years who was at the top level of the federal energy department. The only thing I knew about his work was that he had a weekly report which was placed on the president’s desk without fail. In all the years I knew him he never once said a single word about His work, any context about anything involving anything, where he would go, who he talk to, and the nature of his daily responsibilities.

When I met him, he said to me that one of the conditions of our acquaintance was that I could not ask him anything about his work life at all whatsoever because he would have to decline to answer. I can only imagine the level of secrecy which he was sworn to, and he never violated that. The reason I knew about the report was that his parents mentioned it one time at a family dinner and boy did he give them a look.

Interestingly, he was an extraordinarily dispassionate, Somewhat removed, and extremely analytical individual. I used to joke out of his presence that he was probably in the CIA and did wet work as they call it because he certainly appeared to me to be capable of just about anything and was also a physical specimen of great fitness.

There is a lot going on in the government About which we have absolutely no concept as civilians. My feeling is that we cannot begin to conjecture what would be in papers and other documents which would be of immense value from both Security and of course as far as the idiot goes, monetary value to our enemies. I was thinking this morning that can you imagine what a document which detailed a discovered weakness of our nuclear submarines capabilities would be worth to the Russian government. I can only hope and pray that there were no thumb drives full of data which he had access to and spirited out of the White House on that day. Or even a 6 TB backup drive would hold libraries of information. Gone are the days of the Minox camera and some blue print photos that could be passed to an agent of foreign loyalty. It’s a new world wherein the former president of the United States may be inferred to be selling secrets to the Russians. I never thought I would live long enough to utter a statement like that.

[Raven]

1. Not an "aside", PC, this should be front and center! We have no idea of what we don't know. n/t

[Cracklin Charlie]

2. I once had an occasion to work with a VERY high level government official.

He couldn’t even sign his name on some documents we required. Not allowed.

When I told my boss about it, the legal teams got involved, and used some procedure to make sure everything was done right. I was not allowed to know anything about that process.

[dameatball]

3. Even further aside: Is it plausible that transactions may have already been completed between the

Trump cartel and foreign recipients of classified materials? If that were the case it might explain the somewhat lethargic (IMO) response by DOJ in actually seizing the materials. If the cow was already out of the barn, would not the emphasis have been on case building and not seizing the classified documents, devices, or whatever may have been there? Secrets may have been on the market for much longer than most of us realize. I seem to remember reports of security briefings taking place and attendees appearing shocked, angry upon emerging from those briefings. Maybe the damage has been done and DOJ is sweeping up the mess.

Or maybe the flip side is that the materials are an attempt to simply bargain against prosecution for other crimes. Even Trump is smart enough to understand the penalties for selling state secrets, so I'm just spitballing along with a lot of other people. Thanks for your usual interesting insight.

[PCIntern]

5. Good points all!

Excellent insight.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

14. Could also be that the materials were stabilized and tRump was being watch re contacting agents

At some point early in the year the boxes were put under DoJ lock and key, with the agreement of tRump lawyers.

[dameatball]

18. I guess we will all know eventually. Well....maybe.

[robbob]

22. Maybe (this is fingers and toes crossed hoping)...

The DOJ had their informant at Mara GoGo and were just waiting for TFG to actually try to move some of his merchandise. Catching him red handed selling state secrets to China would be so sweet! And something he would be just dumb enough to try…

[dameatball]

38. So many takes on this stuff that it's really hard to say. The thing that keeps puzzling me is

the time frames, the gaps between visits....meanwhile foreign visitors galore at MAL. Plain weird. If it wasn't so serious it would be like watching some goofy 60's spy movie.

[OneGrassRoot]

4. I read something earlier...

reminding us that Trump famously doesn't like to read and wouldn't read the daily briefings. In fact, remember it was reported that they had to basically do coloring books to convey the important issues at hand and even build dioramas. When we read that there are boxes full of documents, we probably shouldn't assume it's strictly paper documents which I have been. You're right: It could be anything and we just don't know.

We do know Trump doesn't read and only cares about making $$, so we know that's the only reason he saved whatever he saved.

[James48]

17. How to build a nuclear weapon

In coloring book form, just for him.

Yep, I bet the Saudis would pay, oh, say, $2 billion dollars for a ready-to-do-it-yourself set of plans for a nuclear weapon, simplified so that even DONALD Trump could understand it.

[OneGrassRoot]

26. Yep. n/t

[Sogo]

33. Bingo.

[genxlib]

6. I have similar feelings from a different angle.

I believe that there are things about the government that we are not allowed to know and that the the GOP are perfectly willing to use that against us.

For instance in this case, if there really is sensitive information involved, there will be severe limitations about how well it can be described. The GOP knows this and will lie about it. They will say that it is something inconsequential and it is all just a witch hunt knowing full well that the FBI will not be able to prove otherwise.

Personally, I think this happens more than you would think. I am not much into conspiracy theories but I have one of my very own about Benghazi. I happen to think that the CIA was up to something there and it got tangled into a mess. By itself, that is not particularly surprising or controversial. But knowing it is classified gives the GOP an opportunity to spin it anyway they want knowing that the administration was powerless to tell the real story. Just my theory but I really believe these assholes are willing to use that kind of leverage where it suits them.

[wnylib]

15. I think that you are on the mark

about how the R's use required secrecy to spin info to their advantage.

[lambchopp59]

7. Despite what we're naive of

Especially post DOJ, FBI intervention only confirms all the victimization blather from TFG is still more attempt to smear lipstick on the pig. That's one mind bogglingly ugly, evil, traitorous aged pig.
When the RW media has straddled the fence, dragged out the old "deep state" trope, it's a lipstick of sheer desperation.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

8. Thank you, my dear PCIntern, for your lucid and intelligent thoughts. So glad I read your post! n/t

[Jade Fox]

9. Your last paragraph.....

is spot on.

It's pretty pointless for us to speculate about what's going on with Trump and the DOJ. I'm just glad something is happening!

[MineralMan]

10. You are correct.

Most people have no idea whatever of the amount of highly classified information that is generated in just a week or two. They also have no idea what that information might be. Why? Because those people who generate that information aren't talking about it. Ever.

Even as a lowly E-4 enlisted man in the USAF, the work I did constantly generated information that was classified at a compartmented TOP SECRET level. Daily. That was over 50 years ago, and I still can't tell anyone what exactly I was doing. I wouldn't, either.

Was that information important? Who knows? Is it important now? Almost certainly not. But exactly how it was generated and where is still classified. It's not the actual information that matters. It's other things that pose some sort of national security risk.

So, as I agreed while in the USAF, I don't talk about any of it in any real detail. I don't know what parts of what I learned are important and which parts are not important. So, silence protects it all. That's the nature of highly classified material.

[yardwork]

11. It's sickening. Trump never ever should have been elected.

It's beyond disappointing that so many people - who ought to have known better - chose to believe lies and give in to their own basest instincts and vote for him.

[flying_wahini]

12. I think that the FBI and CIA know what went down

We may never be told hat he sold/gave away.

Putin probably has his men on Trump here in the States like white on rice.

[pandr32]

13. My stomach churns with thoughts of all of TFG's unqualified aides

...who were given access to high level national security classified material and couldn't pass background checks.
When 45 took the Oval Office it was the equivalent of opening all our hen houses to foxes, all our granaries to plunder, all our lands to pillaging, all our treasure to theft, all our families to abandon, all our wonders to give away--a total sell off of everything for the benefit of our biggest enemies and an American crime family.
How do we put it all back together again?

[CaptainTruth]

29. His attorneys too.

It's been reported that Slobfather's attorneys showed classified material to investigators, but did they have the necessary security clearance to handle the material? No way.

Incidentally, the fact that TFG gave people access to the material when they didn't have the necessary security clearance could be a 2nd separate violation of the espionage act. The 1st & main violation would be TFG possessing the material, & there could be a 2nd violation (different section of the act) for allowing others to have access to it.

[pandr32]

37. Absolutely

Lawyers, though, will try to argue that they were doing their job.

Where was the outrage from Republicans when TFG invited Russians inside the White House with no superintendence? You think that would have been a bridge too far. For f*cks sake we went to war over the threat of communism not even on this continent (Vietnam) and again in Iraq over feared weapons of mass destruction. All those people we sent and put in harms way for what now?

Hillary Clinton was right about all of it. That monster stalked her onstage, bluffed and blathered about nonsense during the debates and all through his PR events, and then avoided another debate by getting TV networks to allow him to run a prime-time scam. Republicans and too many Independents voted to hand that monster our country on a platinum platter.

[cbabe]

16. My two cents: consider fake documents were planted. And

officials watched the sale to foreign entities. Apparently well-known officials kept some secrets back from disclosure to tfg. And he didn’t read anything anyway.

Absolute proof tfg was/is selling secrets to the enemy.

Then they pounced.

[Martin68]

20. I'm very doubtful that is the case, but I'd love it if it turned out to be true.

[2naSalit]

21. I think...

That explains the timing part. I thought about that the first day and I also heard a pundit mention it that same day but no further mention. That could mean it is exactly what they did. I am sure there was a concerted effort on the inside to thwart his efforts to really fuck us over in untold ways. Not that he didn't, he certainly put in the effort.

So it may well be as you describe, which I think is credible, and now the timing is just right for such a move on the part of DoJ.

[Martin68]

19. My guess is that Trump wanted to keep a few sensitive documents to sell to the highest bidder (or to

several of the highest bidders).

[malthaussen]

23. "Former President?" I inferred he was handing out secrets while he *was* President. n/t

[Purrfessor]

24. If Trump told a single, random person he had such documents..,

the knowledge such information was stored at Mar-a-Lago would be so valuable foreign governments would pay big money for it. They would then know it was within their reach and would go after it without hesitation.

[Joinfortmill]

25. Yeah, and then there's Jared & Saudi billions.

[KS Toronado]

27. When I was in grade school ('58-'65)

I remember my dad's older brother, who was a full bird Colonel in the Air Force who had an office in the
Pentagon tell my dad "There's so many things going on in this world that it's best the people don't
know about". My dad's question was about UFOs. Dad kept rephrasing his question and my uncle kept
giving him the same answer until my dad gave up.

[PCIntern]

30. Funny you should mention that

A number of years ago I had a patient who was in the intelligence service. He was very engaging nice guy, and we talked a lot because I did a very big case for him and we spent many hours together. I once threw something out about UFOs and his eyes narrowed and said that he really couldn’t talk about that. I said to him I’m going to infer from that that there’s substantive issues involving these because if there weren’t you would have nothing not to talk about. He nodded and said one word: exactly.

[KS Toronado]

35. LOL

My dad was left with the impression that yes there are UFOs, but we're not talking about them.
Wonder if any of the boxes the FBI retrieved from mar-a-largeo had to deal with UFOs?
FailedCoupGuy once said he was going to find out about UFOs. Was he planning on writing a
book to make some $$$$$$$$?

[Ponietz]

28. We're amidst the fog of a "battle for the soul of the nation"

as President Biden put it at the first debate. It is a nonviolent battle—the only worthy one—one based on rule of law. You’re point is well-taken.

But it’s also spitball bingo week on DU and I’ve enjoyed many entries thus far.

[Marcuse]

31. Did he refuse to return docs to the DOJ which replied, "At least put a lock on the door"?

(We’ll be baack)!

[Hekate]

32. When TFG ran for POTUS, Bannon was all about "deconstructing" the federal govt. When TFG got in

…Trump pretty much did it all before our eyes. We had the good fortune to have Rachel Maddow’s analysis every night, and I just kept saying to my husband: “Who knew it could be so fast? Is the rot that deep?”

There are good and honorable public servants — like your relative, and friends I’ve had. The damage to the institutions they served is incalculable, and by extension to them.

We won’t be able to recover as a country until and unless a slew of very high level people go to prison — not just for punishment for what they did, but as a deterrent to others in the future.

[Sogo]

34. Yep. There's all kinds of confidential info at all levels:

Here's a story for you:

Someone in my family used to build tomahawk cruise missiles - actually did the hands-on wiring and programing work with the hardware. He, and those he worked with, knew the first Gulf War (under GHWB) was going to happen before it actually did, because of what missiles they were building....He could only tell us years later after he had been long retired.

[PCIntern]

40. Interesting....

I’ve heard stories like this one before….

As the British like to call them: “Clews” to the puzzle….

[joanbarnes]

36. ...and we thought Regan was a huge traitor for making a deal with Iran...

[crickets]

39. K&R for the post and the discussion.