I believe that one can plot the crimes that former President Donald Trump has been accused of committing in his various indictments along a spectrum of, well, let’s call it national consequence. At one end, there are the positively existential cases filed in Georgia and federal courts that allege varying degrees of election interference. These yearslong investigations center on the very real, albeit at times bumbling, threat to democracy Trump and his allies posed after the 2020 election.
On the other end, though, there’s the Mar-a-Lago documents case. At every stage of the process, from hoarding materials after leaving the White House to his easily disproved defenses, Trump has made the worst, most inane possible choices. The details that have emerged feel like a local improv troupe trying to Mad Lib its way through a not particularly good Cohen brothers’ script. It would be absolutely hilarious, were it not for the fact that there’s still very much a chance that the man who did all of these things could become president again.
At every stage of the process, from hoarding materials after leaving the White House to his easily disproved defenses, Trump has made the worst, most inane possible choices.
The latest such morsel to reach us features Molly Michael, Trump’s longtime assistant. According to ABC News, Michael “told investigators that — more than once — she received requests or tasks from Trump that he had written on the back of notecards, and she later recognized those notecards as sensitive White House materials — with visible classification markings — used to brief Trump while he was still in office about phone calls with foreign leaders or other international-related matters.” (Neither NBC News nor MSNBC has independently verified ABC News’ reporting, which is based on “sources familiar with” Michael’s statements to investigators.)
That’s all par for the course in what is likely the most slam dunk of the four criminal cases that Trump now faces. It’s hard to forget the photos, included in the federal indictment, of boxes of documents stacked high in the Mar-a-Lago bathroom. His feeble arguments about executive privilege and claims that he issued a “standing order” that automatically declassified everything in his possession have been toppled both in court and in the news media. His claims that everything that was in his possession was his and not the property of the National Archives and Records Administration flies in the face of the Presidential Records Act, a law whose contents he has routinely butchered whether as an intentional lie or out of willful ignorance. He also signed the law that made his alleged mishandling of documents felony rather than a misdemeanor.
And what makes the idea of Trump scribbling notes on classified documents all the more believable is that it fits the pattern of his behavior in the presidency. He tore up White House documents that his aides had to tape back together. He drew on a hurricane projection map with a Sharpie and forced the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration to pretend like that was an actual possible trajectory. He casually showed off classified material to the Russian foreign minister and tweeted out a classified image of an Iranian rocket launch site because it looked cool.
That’s all par for the course in what is likely the most slam dunk of the four criminal cases that Trump now faces.
Trump clearly isn’t the first president to potentially violate the law while in office. Former President Ronald Reagan may or may not have known the full extent of the Iran-Contra affair as it was ongoing. But his vice president-turned-presidential successor, George H.W. Bush, pardoned the people who did know, which certainly helped condone both the actions and the cover-up. Meanwhile, former President Bill Clinton was forced to admit to lying under oath to avoid prosecution after leaving the presidency. We don’t have time to get into how many presidents have violated the spirit and/or letter of the War Powers Act since it passed in 1973.
The Mar-a-Lago case is different, though, foremost because it involves actions taken after Trump had left the White House. But as the reported incident(s) involving Michael make clear, it’s a truly absurd set of events that has led us here. An abundance of evidence suggests that Trump had been made aware by his lawyers that retaining the documents was illegal, and that the FBI could pull up to Mar-a-Lago if he refused to comply with a subpoena. There’s likewise ample evidence that he returned to his base instinct when under investigation: obstruct, obstruct, obstruct.
And while the existential stakes are lower in this case than some of the others, it’s still hard to find the particulars here as funny as they objectively are. It is baffling that someone who spent an entire four-year term as president would be as egregiously casual with sensitive information and documents as Trump has allegedly been. More baffling still is that he is still the front-runner for the Republican nomination. And the fact that none of this outlandish, farcical behavior is disqualifying for the chance to once be given access — again! — to the kind of documents that he allegedly scribbled all over is the most incomprehensible thing of all.
Hayes Brown is a writer and editor for MS NOW. He focuses on politics and policymaking at the federal level, including Congress and the White House.