Lookit the dots! Let's connect them!
Dot: How classified and Top Secret documents are handled in the Executive Branch
Which is very carefully and methodically. All White House documents as soon as they are created (by a computer, saving or printing them) or collected (handwritten notes, drafts, etc.) are LOGGED with a taxonomy that describes the source and the subject matter. The "Classified" and "Top Secret" documents are supposed to be handled according to strict protocols about where and by whom they can be viewed, how and where they can be stored, and how they can be disseminated and handled during the dissemination. [Redacted] ignored these as he ignores any and all rules that inconvenience him, of course, but there were plenty of staffers doing their jobs, and those documents were logged and their existence known.
Dot: Documents "going home" with [Redacted]
The majority of White House documents are not classified and/or Top Secret - they are logged and tracked, rules apply to their storage and retention, but they are not strictly controlled like classified/Top Secret material. And there are vast amounts of them - everything from phone messages to visitor logs to meeting notes to briefing papers to clippings-with-comments to doodles with ideas jotted in the margins to letters from citizens to correspondence from bureau employees and congresscritters... That is a huge volume of documents that are identified and logged but not necessarily controlled. And while they are not supposed to be disseminated without following procedures, there isn't as much to stop that happening as there is with classified/Top Secret material. They can get photographed by phone cameras, sent as email attachments and printed out, carried outside the White House document ecosphere and copied there, etc. LOTS of documents. So yes, easy for [Redacted] and co-conspirators to accumulate many, many boxes of documents that they later appropriated.
Dot: The National Archives document review
The sheer quantity of documents makes it a big task. The amount of hugger-muggering about with documents, ignoring document handling protocols, etc., by the [Redacted] Administration must have made it a MONUMENTAL task to sort out what existed, what went missing, what showed evidence of illicit dissemination, etc. And given the consequential nature of the investigations, they wanted to be very certain indeed. Those ducks didn't just need to be in a row, they had to be drilled like the Rockettes. And that went double and triple for every document in the classified/Top Secret categories. Those had to be logged, tracked, and you can bet that even if the tracking logs are incomplete, there is a trail attached to each one, a little story of who viewed it, when and how, how it was handled, any information about how opportunities for dissemination, etc. But that shit takes a lot of time.
Dot: Retrieval of 15 boxes
See above. Once those boxes are inventoried, the inventories need to be compared, item by item, with the investigation's lists of what was missing and/or might have been illicitly disseminated, and information compiled about potential harm, etc.
Dot: The implications of classified/Top Secret material misappropriation
There are degrees of classification with "Top Secret" being, well, at the top of the list as far as how much potential damage the illicit dissemination and/or transmission of a document could do. Everyone, even [Redacted] very certainly got briefed about the consequentiality of such material, the handling protocols required, the tracking procedures in place and the penalties for messing them about. It's almost certain that such material, if it existed amongst the larger body of appropriated documents, was "hidden" by various means - illicitly copied, removed from tracking logs, reported as destroyed (but not destroyed), etc. The amount of time required to identify a) a reasonable suspicion that such material existed among the documents appropriated; and b) tangible and/or circumstantial evidence of hiding sufficient to verify those suspicions; would be substantial. (See: ducks, Rockettes, above)
Dot: Request for search warrant
If, upon completion of the review of materials returned subsequent to the initial subpoena, credible suspicions still existed that classified/Top Secret material remained missing, a more stringent review and risk analysis was probably undertaken. The risk analysis would be the biggie. A list of 'potentially illicitly disseminated' classified/Top Secret material would be combed by experts - what might that particular document reveal? Who would it be of value to, and how? What damage could it do if it fell into these hands? Or these other hands? How likely would that be to happen? (It's not always easy to pass such hot material along without leaving tracks.) What might the mechanisms be for such transmission? Every detail of actual or circumstantial evidence relating to the illicit dissemination would be checked and re-checked.
Dot: "A tip"
Someone at MAL saw something. Whether they were looking, not at the impressive-looking (but probably NOT classified/Top Secret) document [Redacted] was waving around, but at the pile it was taken from, and recognized some indicator of what else was there, or whether [Redacted] was stupid enough to actually wave around something that would be recognized, by someone who had good reason for NOT wanting that particular item transmitted somewhere (maybe to a business competitor, etc.) as classified/Top Secret, the tipster provided confirmatory evidence that such material remained at MAL. That may have been the tipping point for preparing the affidavit and putting the warrant request in play. Or, it may not... it may have been:
Dot: Opportunities for Transmission
You can bet that everyone [Redacted] and his flunkies has been in contact with, in any way, has been noted. In [Redacted]'s place the "protection" of a former President was undoubtedly subsumed in a larger "surveillance" mission, because they knew perfectly well what a grifting shitheel loose cannon he is. And the instant any suspicion of classified/Top Secret material being off the reservation surfaced, that surveillance would take on a very specific focus: WHO would such material be transmitted to, HOW, and WHEN. Keep in mind that such espionage deals are not organized overnight. Especially when a grifting seller wants to maximize their revenue from the process. They would have to negotiate a price, and set up the transmission in a manner that hopefully could not be traced back to them. It takes time. But as soon as those running the surveillance, and those tracking the potentially-available illicit material, get whiff of a possible payoff-and-subsequent-transmission going down, they would HAVE to act, and act fast.
Dot: Potential Negotiation Opportunities
Since his retirement, [Redacted] has largely remained in his regular orbit of Marm-a-lardo, Bedford, New York, and the Jugend Rally circuit. Those are not places where a high-level potential purchaser would go unnoticed. He hasn't traveled abroad or attended many events where such folks might have legitimate reasons for being there. Until recently. And what happened recently? Wasn't there some golf tournament with a heavy international attendance and sponsorship?
The lines between all those dots make a very interesting final picture.
Just speculatin' here.
pixellatedly,
Bright
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