Leave a light on for Donald Trump…

| 3:00 pm EST February 14, 2023
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Donald Trump’s classified documents scandal just reached a new low — or, you can say, a new high in the bizarreness category. Trump attorney Timothy Parlatore appeared on CNN on Sunday to offer a new justification for his client’s handling of classified materials. Although his aim was to present Trump as Mr. Reasonable, Parlatore quickly accomplished the opposite.

Parlatore and Trump want us to believe that being reckless (at best) with U.S. classified materials is connected to some legitimate goals, such as the former guy’s health. Chuckling through the interview, Parlatore explained that one item, a folder marked “Classified” that is now the subject of a Department of Justice subpoena, was essential for enabling Trump to fall asleep at Mar-a-Lago.

“He has one of those landline telephones next to his bed, and it has a blue light on it, and it keeps him up at night,” Parlatore explained. “So, he took the manila folder and he put it over it so that it would keep the light down so he could sleep at night.” Although the folder was apparently empty, it did not belong there, and who knows when it was emptied and where those contents wound up.

Parlatore began his response by calling the folder story “one of the more humorous aspects of this whole thing.” There’s nothing humorous about a former President of the United States casually using a folder marked “Classified”—empty or not—to clumsily solve a bedtime problem, especially when so many alternatives exist. Also, by saying “one of the more humorous aspects,” Parlatore is desperately trying to frame the scandal as overblown and deserving of laughter.

The ability of the U.S. government to maintain control of classified material is always a serious legal and security matter with potentially grave repercussions. When sensitive documents are discovered in unauthorized places, whether intentionally, recklessly, or negligently, it is anything but funny. Yet, with more chuckling, Parlatore added that “[n]ow the President has to find a different way to keep the blue light out of his eyes.” Cue the tiny violins.