The perils of a stupid former president

| 10:00 pm EDT August 10, 2022
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When I first heard that a search warrant had been executed on Donald Trump’s property at Mar a Lago on August 8th (the 48th anniversary of the resignation of Richard Nixon), my first thought was to wonder for which crime. It was then that I realised that America has a former president who has committed so many crimes we can’t even keep track of them. What’s particularly hilarious about this one is it’s the one crime he could have easily avoided potentially being charged with.

In any case, I hope that if Trump is indicted for anything related to this FBI raid, he receives what NBC News/MSNBC legal analyst Glenn Kirschner refers to as a “speaking indictment.” A speaking indictment is one that doesn’t simply state what the defendant is being charged with but lists explicitly why in its title. In other words, together with the headline catalog of charges it spells out the evidence for each charge.

In the case of Donald Trump removing classified documents from the White House to the nonresidence property in which he dwells unlawfully, a speaking indictment would need to be heavily redacted because of the classified nature of the documents Trump stole. That would be the ultimate joke on Donald Trump the fool, and I hope no one in the media misses this point: one of the powers of the president of the United States is the power to declassify classified materials. Donald Trump was president for four years and he either didn’t know this or was too arrogant to bother to learn it. Probably both.

In other words, that raid by the FBI was completely unnecessary. Had Trump bothered to even halfway understand his job he could have taken what he took legally without any trouble at all. He was raided because he didn’t take the simple and obvious step of declassifying those documents before he absconded with them. He didn’t declassify them because he’s stupid. And now if he’s indicted he’ll get an indictment that looks like a Swiss cheese to remind us of just how stupid Donald Trump is.

Now the “lock her up” crowd, in a fit of counterfeit indignation, is screeching at the tops of their voices that “if it could happen to Trump then it can happen to you!” Yes, apart from the obvious fact that Donald Trump is not above the law, that is certainly one point. But another more immediate point is this: it wouldn’t happen to me because I’m not stupid. You see, had I been in Trump’s place and I wanted to take 15 boxes of stuff from the White House I’d instruct my lawyers to go through those boxes and prepare a declassification mandate for each classified item. Because unlike their hero I’m not an idiot. So Trump has no one to blame but himself.

Anyway, next time a drooling, Trump-supporting cretin repeats the latest glassy-eyed mantra that “it could happen to you,” calmly tell them that it in fact could not happen to you. The reason it couldn’t happen to you is because, unlike their toad-god with the fake orange tan, you are not a blithering moron. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.