"The Written Word Remains"

      Proving the sense of arrogant insularity with which right wingers like Donald Trump are and always will be swaddled, the Washington Post published an article today in which an unnamed aide to Trump admitted just that- That they actually thought they'd dodged a bullet after last January.

     Specifically, that would be the same January 2022 in which the National Archives had been forced to go to Mar a Lago to retrieve what would be the first of three such visits (and counting). This was the culmination of a year of begging, pleading, cajoling and negotiating with a crime boss who should never be trusted to act in good faith with anyone.

     Giving this sad, sordid saga a truly Theater of the Absurd feel to it was Trump toadie John Solomon releasing the four-page letter written to Camp Trump by Debra Steidel Wall, the acting archivist that Trump himself appointed. It was released by Solomon on Steve Bannon's podcast and, reading the previously unpublished letter, it's impossible to imagine how Solomon thought this would cast Trump in a good light on any planet or in any dimension.

     I mentioned a Trump aide speaking on the record but anonymously. The quote that sticks out to me is, “I really thought that was the end of the story. We assumed he’d given the boxes back.”

     Which, coming from a Trump flunky, maybe shouldn't be taken at face value. But perhaps we can afford to in this instance considering Trump's unilateral way of doing this and keeping even those closest to him in the dark. Still, considering the criminal offenses that were surely committed by this one man crime wave, it's nearly impossible to believe that anyone would think they dodged a bullet at the start of what will absolutely prove to be the biggest political scandal in US history. Yes, even bigger than the Insurrection.

     It's a surreal battle that's brewing because NARA has historically been one of the most apolitical and nonpartisan agencies in the US government. For Trump to accuse them (and the FBI) of being overrun by Democrats with an agenda to take down "Trump" more than borders on the farcical. But while it may be easy to make merry over Trump's legal misery and parody of a defense, consider this other line from the WaPo article that might as well have been printed in 60 point bold:

     "Boxes of documents even came with Trump on foreign travel, following him to hotel rooms around the world — including countries considered foreign adversaries of the United States."

     To which any properly cynical person would ask, "Why?" That would be a rhetorical "Why" because, knowing Trump's obsessive bent with monetizing everything, we can easily form plausible theories into why he would physically take classified documents with him and into a foreign country with which we have an adversarial relationship.

 

     The NARA's motto is "Littera Scripta Manet", which is Latin for "the written word remains." I seriously doubt if the people or person who'd chosen that motto meant the written word that remains in the bottom of the toilet at the White House or Air Force One.