Trump really is a moron.
He has since said that the basement room (with loads of boxes of stolen government property) was secure. He then said that it was used to store Melania's clothes. I very much doubt that the people sent down to the room to retrieve her clothes had clearance to read classified documents.
And before anyone chimes in with "yeah but he had a standing order to declassify any document that he took out of the Whitehouse"- I call BS on that.
If he had declassified the documents, there would have been no need for him to steal them. A declassified document enters the public domain. If he wanted a copy, he could have obtained one via a freedom of information request. But there is the rub, he would have had to tell someone that he had declassified it in the first place- without doing so he could not have requested a copy under the freedom of information act.
He took over 300 classified documents. If he is telling the truth, everyone of those documents can now be read by any Tom, Dick and Harry. Why would a dethroned president put national security at risk by doing that?
And why on earth would he have such a standing order in the first place? Presidents often take classified documents from the Whitehouse to read at their properties at the weekend. No other presidents have ever needed to declassify a document just to take it off site. The others have just followed protocols and ensured that secret service agents secure the documents in approved briefcases.
Trump is a compulsive liar, but in spite of his decades of lying, he lacks the ability to craft plausible lies. He just spurts the first lie that springs to mind and assumes that his worshippers would follow it hook, line and sinker. Regrettably, he is correct about that. Fortunately, a court will not blindly accept his lies and will ask for proof.
Espionage Act aside, he has broken the 1978 Presidential Records Act (the moment that he stole government property). That alone could result in a fine, 2 years in jail or disqualification from ever holding government office. The guy stole government property, refused to return it, eventually returned some and said that he didn't have anymore. Then when the DoJ turned up, he admitted that he had more in the basement room and promised that he had no further documents. Again he lied.
If there is any justice, at an absolute minimum, he will be barred from working for the government again. He stole, he lied, he lied again. Any one else would have handcuffed long before now.
