Dem
51
GOP
49
We will probably never know exactly how many documents Donald Trump took with him that he should not have. That means we'll probably never know if he allowed one or more documents to fall into the wrong hands. And this is just originals; when we start thinking about Xerox copies or scans or photos of originals, the possibility that something bad has happened increases considerably.
On Wednesday, it was revealed that Trump's lawyers had "discovered" two more classified documents in one of the storage facilities he uses. This discovery actually took place a couple of days before Thanksgiving, even if it was only reported this week. And yesterday, it was reported that the Department of Justice has asked D.C. District Chief Judge Beryl Howell to find Trump in contempt or court, due to his repeated failures to turn over all documents when ordered to do so.
The DoJ's filings are actually under seal, so there is much that is not known. The feds may suspect that Trump's failure to turn over all the documents was willful as opposed to accidental, although it doesn't actually matter much, legally. It is definitely the case that the Department does not feel that Trump's properties have been adequately searched, and that they want permission to take another run at Mar-a-Lago and other locations.
Meanwhile, on a very related point, Team Trump has decided not to appeal the Eleventh Circuit's decision to overturn Aileen Cannon and to cancel the special master. So, the decision will take effect today, which is the end of the 7-day stay that was set up to allow time to appeal. And that means special counsel Jack Smith will have access to everything taken from Mar-a-Lago by the weekend.
It is not characteristic for Trump to give up when there are still appeals to be made, and he and his team are not explaining why they dropped this particular matter. The ruling from the Eleventh Circuit was so sharply worded, and so thorough, it may be that the former president and his team decided it was a waste of time and money to keep going, since they would surely have been rejected in short order by the Supreme Court, and since Trump is paying for the special master. It could also be the case that they figured that they've wasted about as much time as is plausible, and that even in the unlikely event of an appeal and a win, the special master would be done within a week or two, anyhow.
All of this said, we wonder if someone has persuaded Trump that taking every question to the Supreme Court is ultimately unproductive. As an analogy, consider the fact that after any exam, there are going to be some students who stop by office hours to argue about their grade. And among those students, some are there to argue about one or two questions. Others are there to argue about every question. The former group invariably get taken more seriously than the latter group, as the former students likely have a legitimate concern, whereas the latter are just hoping that one of their lottery tickets pays off. Our guess is that if the Supreme Court ends up ruling on a Trump-related matter every week, it's harder for them to take him seriously, and much easier for them to just assume he's on a fishing expedition. Whereas if he picks his battles, he might actually get a more serious audience for his complaints. We don't know if this is what's going on; we just put it forward as a possibility.
In any case, Trump certainly can't feel good about the direction in which these federal investigations seem to be headed. And don't forget, the defeat of Herschel Walker (R) was also the end of the 2022 election cycle. So, all bets are off when it comes to the DoJ policy of "no enforcement actions within 90 days of an election." He is now at risk of being indicted literally every day from now until mid-to-late 2023. (Z)