TRUMP SCREWS THE POOCH - AGAIN

Trump, the kid standing there in the ktichen holding the cookie jar, with his hand in it, and his face covered with chocolate and crumbs looks you in the face and cries:

“I DO NOT have the cookie Jar! And MOST CERTAINLY I do not have my hand in the cookie jar that I don’t have. Ad ABSOLUTELY I have not eaten any of the cookies from the cookie jar I don’t have my hand in that I don’t have! Who are you going to believe? Me? Or your lying eyes?”

I believe the lying eyes have it. In a landslide.

Way back in October - I know, there’s so much that happens it seems like the early Jurassic, right? - the New York Times reported that Justice Department officials had told the former president’s lawyers they believed there were more more classified materials at Trump properties that had not been returned in response to the subpoena issued in May that resulted in the F.B.I. search of Mar-a-Lago in August for additional classified documents and other presidential records, a search that turned up over 100 classified documents on the property, including in the drawers of the desk in his private office.

After the Justice Department’s warning, Trump’s lawyers debated about whether or not to bring in an independent firm to conduct a search.

Eventually, Trump hired people to search four properties, in accordance with the instruction of a federal judge to look harder for any classified material still in his possession.

And guess what???

They found at least two documents with classified markings inside a sealed box in one of the locations! A storage locker!

Trump’s toadies had said earlier today that no classified material had been found during the searches.

Surprise surprise, that’s “a claim that was later proved incorrect.”

Finally, after the Washington Post first reported that the two additional documents had been discovered, not on Trump’s properties, but at a federally-run storage site in West Palm Beach, the toady admitted this report in he Washington Post had prompted Trump’s lawyers to notify the Justice Department about them.

The discovery of the documents at a storage unit maintained by the General Services Administration, came during a series of wider searches that were done that were done around Thanksgiving at Trump’s Bedminster golf club, at Trump Tower in New York; and in a storage closet at Mar-a-Lago.

Steven Cheung said that Trump and his collection of random people who found their law licenses in Cheerios boxes “continue to be cooperative and transparent, despite the unprecedented, illegal and unwarranted attack against President Trump and his family by the weaponized Department of Justice.”

When the DOJ warned of its belief that Trump still had documents in his possession, a lawyer whom he had hired a short time earlier, Christopher M. Kise, suggested along with other lawyers working for Trump that they engage an outside firm. The True Trump Toadies were resistant to the idea; among them was Boris Epshteyn,a gadfly who has positioned himself as an in-house counsel to Trump. The dispute led to Kise’s standing with Trump diminishing for weeks.

Chief Judge Beryl A. Howell of Federal District Court in Washington, who oversees grand jury investigations, directed Trump’s lawyers to search more carefully for any remaining documents. Other lawyers in Mr. Trump’s circle took on the issue and hired a firm, according to one of the people familiar with the matter. This was because they believed that if they did not, another search warrant might be issued and executed.

The search appears to represent his legal team scrambling to ensure full compliance with a subpoena, under pressure from a federal judge. The discovery of the items in the storage unit, which “had a mix of boxes, gifts, suits and clothes, among other things,” is a good indication of the chaotic and careless manner in which Trump handles, well, everything. His taking of the documents and his shoddy handling of them is a gross abuse of the trust placed in him as president. Which is all of a piece with the gross abuse of the trust placed in him as president for every event of the four years of his maladministration.

On top of this continuing evidence of Trump’s criminality, there was the jury decision yesterday in New York City, holding The Trump Organization guilty of 17 felony counts of tax fraud. If Trump hadn’t been president, the fraud at his company wouldn’t be national news, and it might not have been noticed; it was his prominence that drew new scrutiny to his business. Essentially, it proves that all he was prior to running for president was a small time, petty criminal. He got away with his crimes as he did because individually they weren’t worth chasing down. For someone who wants to be Mr. Big, that’s really pretty pathetic, that I can write such a statement.

Together, these two news items show the sweep of Trump’s lawlessness, from the mundane to the unique. The business crimes are a classic small-time offense. The only remarkable thing about that case is that it happens to involve the former president’s company.

For now, the Manhattan verdict is largely symbolic. But symbolism matters in politics, as Trump has long understood. While the company was fined $1.6 million, the real consequences will flow from banks and other entities with whom The Trump Organization does business calling in or modifying the terms of loans, losing government contracts and changing other business dealings in light of the company now being a convicted felon.

The real symbology is that on December 7, 2022, Donald Trump’s business finally was held accountable for a crime.

Together with the new discovery of additional classified documents, it demonstrates that no trespass is too large - or too small - to tempt him.

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