General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Washington Post has a story up that raises many questions about if 45 indictment is forthcoming [View all]Ocelot II
(131,180 posts)but on the fact that TFG took, kept, mishandled and refused to return classified and other government documents. It doesn't matter what he intended to do with them. If he had sold or given documents containing national security information to a foreign government, that would be the additional and separate crime of espionage, but as to crime of taking and possessing them motive doesn't matter.
But it might be entirely true that when he took them he didn't specifically intend to sell them but only to keep them as souvenirs of his presidency. We know that he loves having tokens of his importance around to feed his ego - but the thing is, those tokens are useless to an egomaniac like him if he can't show them to anyone. So sooner or later he would take some favored Mierda-Loco guest aside and show off a few of those documents, admonishing them not to tell anyone about them while flattering the person that they were special enough to be allowed to see them. Maybe the favored guest isn't a representative of a foreign government, just a political or social hanger-on - but that guest tells someone else, who tells someone else, and word gets around that TFG has the plans for the latest secret weapon and it's really cool and someone would pay big bucks for those plans. And somehow word gets back to TFG that someone might be willing to make a very attractive deal. TFG loves his souvenirs but he loves money even more...
Or, having shown them to his favored guest, he forgets to put them back in his sock drawer, and they are discovered and photographed by a maid who was planted at Mierda-Loco by the KGB, or North Korea, or Saudi Arabia, or Iran, or whoever.
The results are the same as if he'd taken the documents with the original intent to sell them, and it's why taking, keeping and mishandling them is a serious crime regardless of whether the motive was ego-fluffing or greed.