Jack Smith has a slam dunk against Donald Trump
Raise your hand if you thought Donald Trump was telling the truth about the classified documents. No hands? That’s not a surprise. Now, we’re hearing that Special Counsel Jack Smith has received or will receive some damning evidence that potentially undercuts Trump’s claim that the documents he took were automatically declassified. No one believed that one anyway.
According to CNN, the National Archives (“NARA”) is behind the evidence that Trump knew his claims that he could simply declassify documents by saying so (or waiving his magic wand, as the case may be) were false. NARA purportedly has 16 documents outlining its communications with Trump’s staffers detailing declassification procedures. It is highly unlikely that those procedures included “shazam, the documents are declassified.” Well, no one really believed that did they? Now, there is proof.
While discussing the issue with Sean Hannity, Trump claimed: “There doesn’t have to be a process, as I understand it. You’re the president of the United States, you can declassify just by saying it’s declassified, even by thinking about it.” Trump never really believed that nonsense. Yes, he’s dumb, but he’s not that dumb. He even claimed during his recent town hall that when he removed the documents, they became declassified. The man is a horrible liar. Much of what he lies about can be so easily proven false, as is the case here.
Just this week, acting Archivist Debra Steidel Wall wrote to Trump: “The 16 records in question all reflect communications involving close presidential advisers, some of them directed to you personally, concerning whether, why, and how you should declassify certain classified records.” This means that Trump’s magic wand approach to declassifying documents is and always was false. CNN secured a copy of that letter, which points to Trump’s willful disregard for declassifying records and further proves that he took those documents simply because he wanted to do so. The man has the most unmitigated gall of anyone on the planet. Why he believed those records belonged to him is beyond comprehension. It is more likely that he had some planned used for them, and that’s why he took them. Because he’s Donald Trump, he thinks he can just do as he pleases, but when it comes to presidential records, he is as much a nobody as the rest of us.
The Special Counsel’s office has not commented, which is why we don’t yet know for sure that they have the evidence in hand; however, we do know that Trump tried his best to block Jack Smith from getting his hands on these 16 documents. Oh, well. Looks like he’ll be getting them, and it won’t be a good look for Donald Trump.
Jack Smith has shown that he is steadily building an airtight case against Donald Trump, and it appears that there are those who are only too happy to help. Those records belonged to NARA. They were determined to get them back, and now, Donald Trump will pay the price for trying to withhold what didn’t belon to him in the first place.
Shirley is a former entertainment writer and has worked in the legal field for over 25 years