TRUMP: In Big Bold Letters

OPINION: Trump's last name appears in big, bold letters at least 181 times in the federal indictment accusing him of big, bold crimes. It's a story of ego, deceit, bragging rights & vendettas.

Donald Trump likes to see his name printed in BIG, BOLD LETTERS. His angriest and most unhinged rants on his social media site, Truth Social, are always in BIG BOLD LETTERS. And his last name, TRUMP, appears in the federal criminal indictment, case # 23-80101-CR-CANNON/REINHART, in BIG BOLD LETTERS, at least 181 time, if I counted correctly.

Corrupt, seditious, dishonest, criminal Donald Trump is a show-off who has convinced his cult followers that he is a shoe-in to return for a second term in the presidency. Winning back the White House might be the only way he stays out of prison.

The factual evidence compiled by Special Counsel Jack Smith, and presented to the charging Grand Jury in Florida, is detailed and damning. Reading the indictment, I don’t see how Trump can dispute the charges, carefully referenced and documented by the prosecution team.

So, what Trump has been doing, has gotten his acolytes to do, and will probably continue doing, is simply attacking the whole investigation as a fraudulent “witch hunt,” - just another hoax from the swampy Deep State, the “weaponized” Biden Justice Department, America-hating Leftist Socialists and Trump-hating corrupt Democrat prosecutors and judges

Those might be good talking points in the public media space for co-opted Republicans. They may be believable by the willfully ignorant MAGA mob. But, they won’t be a winning defense before a judge and jury in a court of law.

So, let’s get a few things straight:

• Yes, he did know he was taking classified documents.

• No, they did not and do not belong to him.

• No, he didn’t have the power to declassify documents by just ‘thinking’ it.

• Yes, he did try to keep the government from getting them back.

• Yes, he did try to hide them from probers.

• Yes, he did use lawyers and staff to tell lies to the government.

• No, other presidents and vice presidents did not do the same things.

• Yes, he did disclose classified information to some without security clearances.

• Yes, he did put the security of the nation at risk.

• Yes, he did obstruct a legitimate investigation.

So, yes, TRUMP did commit crimes. BIG, BOLD TRUMP CRIMES.

So how will The Teflon Don try to slip the handcuffs of justice?

First, tell more big, bold lies. Just as Trump has used the falsehoods listed above to influence & convince his supporters, he will use his sycophants on the public airways to try to snow the general public. There will be a barrage of what-about-ism. There will be outrageous lies about Biden persecuting his political opponent. And there will be distortions and distractions about the espionage act and the laws on obstruction of justice.

Second, delay, delay, delay. Trump’s yet-to-be-hired new defense team will try every legal tactic to delay a trail in Miami. They know that the intentional falsehoods from Trump that worked to pull the wool over the eyes of the MAGA mob and Trump’s cynical power-mad allies in Congress will not work with a jury of his peers. Trump has no defense against the facts.

(Politico illustration)

These are the laws Trump is accused of willfully breaking:

- Willful Retention of National Defense Information
- Conspiracy to Obstruct Justice
- Withholding a Document or Record
- Corruptly Concealing a Document or Record
- Concealing a Document in a Federal Investigation
- Scheme to Conceal
- False Statement and Representations

And these are the agencies that generated the classified documents Trump kept at his residence/club at Mar-a-Lago:

- Central Intelligence Agency
- Department of Defense
- National Security Agency
- National Geospatial Intelligence Agency
- National Reconnaissance Office
- Department of Energy
- Department of State
- Bureau of Intelligence and Research

I don’t see how Trump can defend himself in court against these charges. He committed all these crimes. There is evidence he did them all. He can’t win on the merits. His defense lawyers will not be able to deceive & convince the jurors. There is really no reasonable doubt.

So, what will Trump do? Bad things:

--- Continue to deny any and all wrongdoing
   - Continue to denigrate & delegitimize the investigation
    - Falsely accuse Joe Biden of political persecution
   - Vanquish his Republican primary opponents
   - Delay the trial past the 2024 presidential election

--- Win back the presidency
   - Decimate the Justice Department and FBI
   - Sign Executive Order giving him power to hire and fire
   - Quash the indictment and end the investigation
   - Pardon the January 6th insurgents

--- Build the MAGA mob into an army of armed militants
    - Rule as an autocrat
    - Declare a national emergency
    - Declare himself president for life

I think the best scenario for Trump is to win the 2024 election. I see no circumstance where he will decide to drop out of the race, or cede the campaign to anyone else. As I stated & believe, he can not and will not win an acquittal in court. His only other way to avoid prison, if he loses the 2024 race, is a presidential pardon. So, he might start thinking of making deals with the other viable Republican presidential candidates.

A question being posed by the media is why Trump kept these documents in the first place. That answer is plainly obvious. Ego.

Trump likes to keep trophies of his ‘popularity.’ He keeps favorable magazine covers and newspaper clippings. He just published a book of ‘love letters’ from people he sees as his many admirers. He is self-obsessed and likes to keep proof of his ‘greatness.’

But, there is another reason, and that is, a penchant for vengeance & vendetta. It is already reported that Trump allegedly divulged classified information about war plans against Iran, that Trump says were drawn up by Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milly. Trump claims Milly wanted to go to war with Iran. Milly says it was Trump chomping at the bit. The point of Trump having these documents then, and sharing them with others, is to show that he was right and others were wrong. It is about bragging rights. It is about showing others to be stupid and inferior.

Donald Trump took these classified documents because his ego told him they were his to have, to hold, to keep, to use. He wrongly believes that whatever he did as president was right and legal. He wrongly says that he had blanket declassification powers. In the indictment he is quoted as saying he didn’t want anyone to go through or read the documents in “my boxes.”

(Then there’s the thought, as posited by my friend, Dave Gibson, who has written commentary in this space, that Trump was broke or going broke when and left the White House, and had every intention of holding on to these documents for later sale.)

When Trump was campaigning to be president, on August 18, 2016, he said this: “In my administration I’m going to enforce all laws concerning the protection of classified information.  No one will be above the law.”

Except that TRUMP, the big, bold small man, really does believe he is above the law. He isn’t. He is a con man, a huckster, a hoaxer, a grifter, a fraud, a sexual predator, a liar, and now, an alleged federal criminal. And he is going to go down for it.

Already, the deliberate disinformation, distortions, deflections and deceits have begun.

Meanwhile, Trump tonight is already calling for his mob to come to Miami next Tuesday for his arraignment, just as he called out for his mob to come to Washington, D.C. on January 6th, 2021. And so it continues. “Be there. Will be wild.” Expect more violence.