‘The Country Is Going To Go Through Tumult’ Because ‘Trump Didn’t Turn Over Military Documents’
Federal prosecution consuming debate over the Republican presidential frontrunner
The federal indictment of Donald Trump — and his appearance earlier this week in a courtroom in Miami, Fla., to answer those charges — have quickly begun to dominate the debate over the man who is both a former president and current frontrunner for the Republican nomination for president in 2024.
A federal grand jury indicted Trump on 37 felony counts that could well land the former president in prison for the rest of his life.
The allegations are damning and backed up by his own words.
Trump removed boxes of federal classified and sensitive documents from the White House at the end of his term and carried them to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
FBI agents last year carried out a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago and recovered many boxes of the documents, which included many of the nation's most sensitive military and nuclear secrets.
“I’m angry. The country is going to go through tumult as a result of one thing: President Trump didn’t turn over military documents when he was asked to do so. All he had to do was hand them in. I’m sure his counsel told him, hand the documents in, particularly when the subpoena came,” said Republican Sen Mitt Romney, of Utah, a frequent Trump critic. “But for some reason, he decided not to. He held onto them. Why? That’s the question. Why is the country going to have to go through all this angst and tumult? Why didn’t he just turn the documents in?”
Trump is currently leading a dozen rivals for the nomination for a rematch next year against President Biden.
The federal case against Trump — the first such charges against a former US president — is moving fast, according to Norm Eisen, a former diplomat and special counsel and special assistant to the president for ethics and government reform during the Obama administration.
“To me, the biggest message is: things are moving very quickly. That’s the reputation of the southern district of Florida,” It’s known in legal circles as a rocket docket. The [Justice Department] is clear DOJ is ready to turn over information and get moving with the case.”
And increasingly, talk is turning to the motives Trump may have had in holding onto the documents for so long.
“The second thing, though, is I was starting to think, like Mika, that perhaps this whole shtick that we’re thinking, he is a strange dude, why is he keeping this, just so he can hug boxes?” mused Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman and co-host of MSNBC's Morning Joe program, referring to his wife and co-host Mika Brzezinski. “We’ve said from the beginning, and today is the eighth anniversary, people tell us, of Donald Trump coming down the escalator, we’ve said from the beginning, this is all about money.
“If you’re trying to figure out Donald Trump’s motive, whatever it is we’ve been saying for eight years, it’s all about money. So I’m not I’m like, we have absolutely no evidence that he was selling this information to anybody. But I would never, I would never say, ‘Oh, he was just doing this to hug the boxes.’ There’s every reason to believe, given his past, his past, that there would be a possibility that he might trade this information, if not directly for money, maybe for access, maybe just so he can make contacts and build a hotel of this place or that place.
“Not saying he did it, but we would be foolish to be thinking he’s just keeping all of this information because he’s just a weird, quirky dude,” Scarborough said.
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