Tuesday 16 August 2022

Trump in deep trouble

I’ve been following the Trump saga in the USA, which gets more and more incredible by the day even measured by the sensational standards of America. It promises to exceed everything that has ever gone before in US history. There are serious questions now being raised about a former president selling nuclear secrets to a foreign power!   The FBI raid on his Mar-a-Lago house in Florida was itself quite a shock. It’s not often the feds serve a warrant on an ex-president after all is it? 

We then learned that they found twelve boxes of files, some marked TS/SCI which stands for top secret/sensitive compartmented information. This means the files are the most secret and sensitive of all and should only be read or discussed in a secure compartment. They were in a store room in his house.

His lawyers had already confirmed that fifteen boxes handed over by Trump previously were all he had taken from The White House. It turns out that wasn’t true and the FBI had to use a judge approved warrant to recover twelve more boxes.

Some of the files apparently relate to nuclear weapons although it’s not clear if that means America’s or someone else’s. Everybody is assuming it’s the former. Trump himself claims that it’s all a ‘hoax.’

It’s well known Trump hardly ever read any of the briefings he was given by the National Security Agency and had to have things simplified and explained to him in graphic form so what he wanted these files for is not immediately clear.  Selling them to Russia or Saudi Arabia is what he's accused of and - I'm amazed I can type this - that does not seem impossible or even implausible.

But that’s not even the most amazing thing. No, what is stunning and probably spells the end of Trump as the Republican's candidate in 2024, is that it is Fox News, the Murdoch owned TV Channel and his favourite and most voluble cheerleader, who is openly speculating that he might have sold the secrets. This is really the most reasonable explanation. If it wasn’t for money, he must have taken them to give him leverage.

Speaking during a live broadcast on Fox News Sunday, Eric Shawn raised one possibility about what Trump could have done with the classified documents the FBI found during its search of Trump's Florida residence. 

"And more questions are being raised this morning. Did former President Trump try to sell or share the highly classified material to the Russians or to the Saudis or others?" Shawn asked.

I think we can be sure he didn't suddenly acquire a deep technical interest in thermo-nuclear weapon design and we know his businesses are struggling under a mountain of debt. 

The US Department of Justice has refused to release details about the warrant used to raid Mar-a-Lago on the grounds that it could cause "irreparable damage" to its investigation. It wants to keep the affidavit, a court document showing the evidence required to obtain the warrant, under wraps.

It’s been reported that the FBI are going to check the classified papers for fingerprints to see if they have been handled by people who don’t have security clearance. During the raid, there were claims that agents wanted to view footage from security cameras to see who had access to the room(s) where the files were kept.

The more you read about the whole episode, the more convinced I am that Trump is going to wind up in jail.

In New York, Trump is under investigation for tax fraud and could face a crippling tax bill. When Trump ran for president in 2016, he questioned why aides to his opponent Hillary Clinton were taking the Fifth amendment in connection with an investigation into a raid on a US consulate building in Benghazi, Libya.

"So, there are five people taking the Fifth Amendment. Like you see on the mob, right? You see the mob takes the Fifth. If you're innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?" is what he asked at the time. 

Last Wednesday while giving a deposition at the office of New York Attorney General Letitia James about his business dealings he is said to have pleaded the Fifth 440 times! The fifth amendment allows defendants to withhold giving evidence which might later incriminate them. 

The only question Trump responded to was to confirm his own name. To the first of all the others he formally declared his Fifth Amendment rights not to incriminate himself, and from then on replied with two words: “Same answer.”

What does this say about his business affairs?

Next, Trump's former inauguration finance chairman, Tom Barrack is due for trial in September accused of being a spy for the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Barrack was arrested last year. He is said to be the closest thing Trump had to a friend and his trial will apparently involve espionage for UAE (Dubai & Abu Dhabi), nuclear tech transfer to Saudi Arabia and inauguration financial fraud. 

As if that wasn't enough to be going on with, Trump is facing any number of investigations into other related matters as well. 

He is also still under scrutiny for his part in inciting the insurrection on 6 January 2021 and promising and granting an illegal pardon to his long time associate Roger Stone who has already been convicted of seven felony crimes including witness tampering and obstruction of justice, but has now been released.

It also transpires that a team of computer experts controlled by lawyers connected with Trump "copied sensitive data from election systems in Georgia as part of a secretive, multistate effort to access voting equipment that was broader, more organized and more successful than previously reported, according to emails and other records obtained by The Washington Post."

Trump’s former lawyer Rudy Giuliani has been advised he is a target of a criminal investigation in Georgia that has been examining efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in that state by the former president and his allies.

If Trump avoids prison it will be a minor miracle. Running again in 2024 is surely now out of the question. You can perhaps see why in this Tweet:

And let's not forget how senior Republicans have defended Trump over the years no matter what. The GOP isn't finished but it has suffered massive political damage.

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