Reasons Trump insisted on keeping presidential and secret documents. Can you think of any more?

[skip fox]

Let me count the possible reasons.

1. To monetize them in some fashion. Perhaps he was thinking of a certain way like selling them, but his thinking might be more ill-defined. (Given his mentality, knowing they were valuable may have been enough to snatch them. That might be the reason he looked them over a few times, perhaps wondering: "How can I make money publishing these or sell them to collectors or . . ." )

2. To tamper with them, maybe even destroying some that exposed his ignorance or perfidy, or pruning/altering some to fit his ideology or statements he'd made.

3. To search for vindication for the crimes and malfeasance charged against in impeachment trials or elsewhere. (In this thinking, he's so crazy to think he wasn't colluding with Russia or blackmailing Ukraine, etc. And he's certainly that crazy.)

4. To hide or destroy embarrassing items, maybe some of them pertaining to his involvement in the Jan. 6th insurrection.

5. To brag to people (wealthy people at his club and elsewhere), showing them the unbelievable things he had access to.

These, of course, are not mutually exclusive.

Any more?????

[Karadeniz]

1. As the president who had 3 investigations into his criminal behavior, it's also been opined that he

may have wanted such items as blackmail to the govt should more investigations arise after leaving office.

[underpants]

4. Aha! See post #3

[Eliot Rosewater]

2. He couldnt read them unless they had cartoons, something people who worked for him

ACTUALLY said.

Dear god.

[underpants]

3. Have we considered that it's UFO stuff?

I’ve been thinking about this. “Nuclear” is a nice cover label for UFO or black ops. Maybe he was going to use it to blackmail the feds if he got in trouble. You heard it here first.

[skip fox]

6. Yes. This is a grat idea: "If they come after me, I'll threaten to expose X, Y, and Z."

Sort of a hole-card, a get-outta-jail pass.

This may imply there are more things that he did that we don't know about and he is worried about their exposure.

But the main thing I'm realizing going over these, there are likely several reasons.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

5. For this thread

Link to tweet

[EndlessWire]

7. The thing about the blackmail is

that, IMO, he couldn't make that work because, how do you say, "I've got classified docs that I'll do something with if I don't get what I want?" They'd tear down the walls of MAL to get them back. So, it would play out much the way it is happening now.

[skip fox]

8. Good point, but

he's not all that great in the thinking department.

I mean, you could make a case where he didn't think all this through. It was more of a half-baked thought/impulse.

But it's a fine point.

[EndlessWire]

12. I think he is smart.

He's not slack-jawed by any means. His problems are that he has a huge ego and thinks that he is the smartest man on the planet. Also, he has personality defects. Because he thinks he knows everything, he doesn't listen to those that know better. He doesn't take advice.

Also, he has a mean streak, and he thrives on chaos. His vindictive nature also interferes with his thinking. We see this whole scenario in front of us and we go WTF?? but he has a plan. I think he was nonplussed when he got a search warrant executed at MAL, and now he can't quite get in front of it all, no matter how many GOP weasels speak out in support of him. That would be because he has already committed and admitted the criminality, and Garland is just finetuning everything, the difference between home arrest and Super Max.

[tableturner]

10. He could have a failsafe mechanism, docs on a server to be released when/if needed.

If he did that, and had the documents properly stored on an un-hackable server (I know...un-hackable may be almost impossible) to be released by his cohorts upon certain negative-to-Trump tripwires occurring, little could be done to stop it.

However, I think our government's cyber capabilities could beat anything Trump could set up, so if I were him, I'd have arrangements already made to flee to Saudi Arabia, Russia, or another country without an extradition treaty with the U.S.

And to those who think Russia would not take him due to already getting everything useful from him, I disagree. First, he knows lots of secrets they would love to have. Second, his arrival in Moscow would be an intelligence and PR coup...don't kid yourself.

[greatauntoftriplets]

9. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.

I rest my case.

[EndlessWire]

11. The documents are too messed up

to indicate anything more than a general chaotic gathering of things that were present and tossed into boxes.

I was reading something yesterday which said the boxes were taken by someone they called Trump's "body man." I have never heard this term before, but he had to have had help. (body guard? SS detail?)

At the point where he was told repeatedly by all kinds of authority figures that he had to give them back, that's when his culpability can really be assessed. What was he doing with classified docs such that they would be mixed haphazardly into boxes transported to MAL?

A point was made by DU that he had to have been squirreling away docs to sell all during his term. This is a valid point. Before or during the Inauguration, or thereabouts, wasn't Flynn starting to negotiate, in Trump's name, with Saudi Arabia over nuclear information? And that was cooled off.

But, Trump is buddy-buddy with SA, and he started making trips to visit them. At one point they announced a $1 B donation for our "infrastructure" and also $1 M to go to Ivanka's "charity" but no further comments were made about that. It was as if they didn't know how to conceal such a transfer of funds and needed an excuse. It was, after all, early in his regime and he didn't have the hang of it yet.

I think he took the docs to sell to the highest bidder, or to pay off debts that he had. And now he needs those docs back because I'll bet that the $2 B is heavily involved in those docs.

Another DUer mentioned that the docs were photographed being moved in and out of the storage room. That would be the footage the FBI was monitoring which lead to the search warrant. This is a very good point. Were they being moved to a different location, or were they being worked on, as in selection and xerox?

I also think that he probably used the docs to impress his friends.

He is in big trouble, and he'll find it hard to walk back his admissions.

[skip fox]

15. Good post, and yes, there are probably a number of reasons.

[kentuck]

13. To stay out of jail.

He was going to extort the US Government. He was going to release the Kraken if they tried to put the cuffs on him.

[allegorical oracle]

14. a) you're a chronic narcissist; b) you lost your last election; c) you feel powerless; d) you want

some remnants of the power you once had; e) you're willing to risk going to prison to keep clutching to that lost power and influence.

[skip fox]

16. Nice. A baby with his blanket.

[Demsrule86]

17. Or he is a spy and works for Russia...he and his red sparrow wife.

[11 Bravo]

18. It makes him feel manly, and Viagra doesn't work on mushroom dicks.