A court motion submitted by Donald Trump’s legal team Monday concerning the FBI raid on his Florida resort to recover unlawfully retained official government documents may have inadvertently implied an admission of guilt. This raises the question of what, exactly, the former president may have been planning to do with those documents.
Trump’s lawyers argue some of the documents recovered by the FBI could be protected by executive privilege. However, such a case would confirm that he did indeed collect classified information that he was not authorized to keep following the end of his presidential term. This has invited speculation as to Trump’s overall intentions.
“I can’t help but think about and ask the question, why did he want these documents? What’s the purpose?” Eddie Glaude Jr., Princeton University professor, said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Wednesday morning. “Aren’t we worried that he would monetize this? He’s an expert-level grifter. The danger here is out of bounds, it seems to me.”
The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell then added to Glaude’s comments by noting that Trump was “very secretive about his packing” when leaving the White House. The former president reportedly sifted through documents personally to decide what to take with him to Mar-a-Lago. He also reportedly screened which documents should go back to the National Archives and which he wanted to keep after the FBI became involved.
Some of the “Morning Joe” guests speculated as to what Trump might do with these classified documents.
“Given his nature, given his history, given his lack of character, you can’t help but think that he would look at a document and wonder, ‘I wonder how much they’d pay to know this in Riyadh,” columnist Mike Barnicle said.
