Trump, Documents, and the Government
Believe me when I tell you, it is much easier to understand almost any debacle involving Trump, or any other politician, when you think of them all as children fighting with one another. Therefore, here’s what I see when it comes to Trump and these documents he kept.
First we have to realize that every administration has kept some documents. The PRA was developed because of documents and Nixon, etc. It’s kind of a whole thing I encourage you to look up. That being said, the NARA openly stated in a House select hearing that every administration, since Reagan, has mishandled classified documents. This is hardly surprising.
That being said, though, let’s think about it in a child-like manner. Documents have been handled by every administration, for a long while, in a specific way. People take some home. That put them in some crazy place like a garage, a basement, whatever else. Generally fairly lacking in security, despite what any of them say. And that’s that. No one comes asking for them again.
Now here comes Trump and there’s an understanding of how he’s supposed to be doing things based on what he sees around him. It’s like if a child goes into a classroom and is told he has to, kind of, combine his crayons with everyone else’s crayons. Then later you have people separating out your crayons and his crayons…and you know, you just KNOW that there’s going to be at least 2 children screaming and claiming each other is taking crayons belonging to the other. Based on what is observationally understood by the child that is leaving the classroom and trying to take his crayons, he’s entitled to take these other crayons. And there-in lies the rub.
Now “Everyone else is doing it!” isn’t exactly a big selling point, generally speaking. We don’t jump off of bridges and there’s some laws in place that I won’t get into a whole lot in this particular post (I may delve into the arguments about the PRA, the NARA, confidential documents, vs personal documents, last say on whose documents, blah, blah, blah, in another post). Except in one big field – law. And much of politics IS law. It’s mostly run by a bunch of lawyers.
And there’s standard practices. Precedent. And then there’s the law on the books. Now Trump can talk about how they really haven’t asked for documents back from anyone else and how that’s persecutory. The other side can try to scream about the laws on the books and how he violated them by refusing to return them…and the whole argument about how there really should’ve been an iron clad judicial review as we set out as required when there are this kinds of arguments, as opposed to the half-baked things we got…
In the end though, we, the people, need to see how pathetic all of them are being. The side indicting Trump can scream all day about how “dangerous” things Trump did were. In the end it’s all theater because everyone has been doing the same thing. The only difference anyone can really argue, is that Trump refused, when asked, to return them. Is that somehow more dangerous than anyone else? The NARA admitted flat out that THEY weren’t looking for any confidential information. They were looking for historical things of mention. So, that’s where this all started – with historical things of mention. Then it became confidential documents of national defense security measures and….well.
So why did it start just with NARA asking for documents? Documents, mind you, that the sock drawer argument stated the NARA didn’t really have much of a right to argue about. After all, it said specifically about how the NARA didn’t have the right to walk around chasing down alleged historically relevant documents. But also in the same argument, stated how the president doesn’t have full sweeping power to say what is personal. But the remedy listed there was a judicial review. Espionage? That seems like an incredible reach, really. And I think by pursuing this, they will end up shooting themselves in the foot.
Frankly, if you ask me, the way everyone is acting, is like a bunch of histrionic and hyperbolic, bad theater actors, or at a minimum, 12 year old, hormone-ridden, youth. Is that so different from any other day, though? Politicians are just emotionally immature adults (children), that argue like entitled teenagers, and sling hyperbolic insults like no one else’s business (children). Politicians make me sick.
What WE need to do, is to treat these people just as they are: like children. Be skeptical of what they say. Realize they are all trying to exaggerate every story and situation to harm one another. We can’t go down to their level. It does us no favors to act as they do. it does us no favors to believe anything we’re told as if it’s absolute truth. Wait for more facts and judge them accordingly. And ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS treat politicians like drama queens.