One thing Trump is good at, is he can smell money...

[ashredux]

It took him a year or so to figure out the way to make money, besides fundraising and keeping all the cash. There were foreign countries and people who would pay extremely large sums of cash for some of the information he was now seeing.

During his last year in office he began to trade American security data for dollars. When he lost the election, he gathered up, with some help, files of classified information, top-secret data, and took it all Mar-a-Lago.

This was his new, private, grift. The documents seized were his “retirement fund”. He has already sold some top-secret information to foreign countries. The reason for executing the search warrant is the FBI realized what was going on, had evidence on it, and wanted to grab the documents before he could sell any more data.

Trump did not work alone in this grift. He had no idea which documents were really valuable, or how to get them, even though he was President. He had help. This is not a simple felony crime, this is high treason.

[LakeVermilion]

1. This...

[Tickle]

2. He does seem to be

at the center of conversation and I know he loves it. He should still be nervous about spending the rest of his life in jail

[dalton99a]

3. Someone had to tell a government employee "The President needs to have this information"

"Bring it to the White House"

[ashredux]

4. Exactly. The people that helped him or not low grade staff either.

[Walleye]

5. Wouldn't it be great if Lindsey Graham's fingerprints are all over it

Of course he does actually have security clearance, still if he was part of actually stealing the material, could he be barred from office?

[Irish_Dem]

6. I think he hit the ground running grift wise.

Jared Kushner knew right away while Trump was running for president that it all could be monetized.

That was Jared's main job, how to make money for the Trump family while in the WH.

Then yes when Trump lost the election, he grabbed as much as he could that was of any value.
Probably took a lot of stuff from the WH too. Maybe priceless historical objects, would not surprise me.

He would take documents that could be sold, or used as blackmail, leverage or revenge.

He was so angry when he lost the election, he wanted to rip off as much as possible and also burn the country down for revenge.

Oh yes he most certainly did not work alone. Kushner may have helped, but Trump needed someone with connections to Putin and other enemies. Knowledge of covert operations, military activities, classified information.

Say for example, Gen Mike Flynn.

[ashredux]

7. Yes...Flynn.... Bingo

[Irish_Dem]

8. If I were the FBI I would be keeping a close eye on the Flynn brothers.

And I would be working on the brother sitting in Hawaii who is the commanding general of the Pacific Army Command.

Charles Flynn is active duty and treason might not go down well for him. Maybe he will talk.
Maybe he will flip.

[FM123]

10. Yes!

And I always wondered why the Flynn brother was made the Commanding General of the Pacific Army Command AFTER January 6th when it was already public that he delayed sending the National Guard to the Capitol that day. SMH.

[Irish_Dem]

13. This is the way things are done in Wash DC and the military.

Cover up all dirty deeds and wrong doing.
Nothing embarrassing comes to light.

The Army first lied about Charles' involvement in 1/6 and his collaboration with his brother.

That didn't work, the Army got caught in its cover up and lies.

So they sent Charles Flynn out of DC to Hawaii. Away from his brother the ring leader.
Away from the movers and shakers. Not a great thing for an ambitious general.

In the Air Force you get sent to Thules Greenland or a Kansas missile silo.

[keithbvadu2]

9. Jared considered a security clearance to be a sales license for selling our country's secrets.

Donald got Jared high level security clearance.

Jared considered a security clearance to be a sales license for selling our country's secrets.

[Baitball Blogger]

11. Yep. The man can even smell money on a corpse.

As Ivana. Oh, wait.

[Wounded Bear]

12. Highly probable, but he's also been good at avoiding the blame...

he always has a fall guy, and has managed, so far, to keep his hands "clean."

The trick is proving it, much like Al Capone.