Donald Trump Indicted: Uncovering the Mystery Behind His Motive

The ex-president is accused of having taken confidential documents when he left the White House, and refused to return them despite multiple requests from the authorities. He could have spared himself each of the 37 charges against him if he had only allowed the National Archives to retrieve the documents last year.

In the United States, a law obliges presidents to transmit to this federal agency all their e-mails, letters and other working documents. Another, on espionage, prohibits keeping state secrets in unauthorized and unsecured places.

In January 2022, after several reminders, Donald Trump agreed to hand over 15 boxes of documents to the National Archives. In June, other documents are returned, and the team of the Republican billionaire ensures that these are the last.

Except that 34 other boxes of documents are still hidden in Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump’s luxurious residence in Florida. The FBI then amazed America by conducting a spectacular search there on August 8, getting their hands on thousands of documents, including 102 classified. The charges do not concern the first 15 boxes, a way for the Ministry of Justice to indicate that it could have avoided this whole affair.

Money change?

Why did he persist? The mystery remains. “This all happened because of the president’s reckless conduct,” his former attorney general Bill Barr told Fox News on Sunday. “Anyone else in this country” would have returned the documents, he said.

For Michael Cohen, a former lawyer for Donald Trump who became a critic, the ex-real estate magnate saw the documents as political and commercial bargaining chips. “I have no doubt that he is convinced that it could bring him any benefit,” he explained to MSNBC.

The indictment appears to show that Donald Trump considered the documents to belong to him personally, as a former president. “I don’t want anyone going through my boxes, I really don’t want to,” he told one of his lawyers in May 2022, after being told by the FBI to turn over the contents of said boxes.

His taste for memories could also provide an element of explanation. The classified documents were indeed found in boxes which also contained photos, press clippings, clothing and even golf balls – supporting the idea that it was all wrapped up in the hustle and bustle of his last days at the White House, in January 2021.

There were also files stamped “classified” but empty, described as “nice memories” by Donald Trump.

Power and prestige?

Impossible to know how well the former president knew the details of the contents of the boxes. But he seemed to relish having access to state secrets, sources of power and prestige. When he was still in the Oval Office, he liked to brag about it, as when he discussed with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov Israeli intelligence on the Islamic State. Against the advice of his aides, he also posted on Twitter a top-secret reconnaissance photo of an Iranian rocket that had exploded.

According to the indictment, after leaving the White House, Donald Trump also twice showed top-secret military documents – possibly an attack plan on Iran – to several people without secret-defense clearance. “As president, I could have declassified them (…), now I can no longer do so, but they are still secrets,” he confided, on an audio recording quoted by the court document.

(AFP)Show comments