I will resist the temptation to boogie down on the grave of the elite political media’s coverage of the 2016 presidential election. First of all, for the next six weeks, my left leg is confined to what appears to be a golf bag. And besides, the dance floor is too damned crowded. Instead, I will confine myself to an examination of the latest Beltway brawl.
Cry havoc! And let slip the dogs of libraries!
From the Washington Post:
The referral from the National Archives came amid recent revelations that officials recovered 15 boxes of materials from the former president’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida that were not handed back in to the government as they should have been, and that Trump had turned over other White House records that had been torn up. Archives officials suspected Trump had possibly violated laws concerning the handling of government documents — including those that might be considered classified — and reached out to the Justice Department, the people familiar with the matter said.The Post goes on to catalogue a litany of lame non-excuses from anonymous Trump aides who essentially plead incompetence. You get the impression that the last administration* left the White House the same way we all bolted our first apartments in college. Also, they propose as an alternative explanation that El Caudillo del Mar-A-Lago was even nuttier than we thought he was, ripping up any piece of paper upon which his beady eyes falls. I’m glad the Archives is on the case. We’re lucky the Declaration of Independence is still on the wall.
Come on, people. This is characteristic of every New York real-estate swindler who’s operated there since the Dutch blew town. You get so enmeshed in schemes and dubiously legal shenanigans that you live in a constant state of low-level panic. Every surviving document is a potential bullet. There is only one thing to do.
Shred it! Tear it! Eat it! Flush it! Kill it with fire!
“Flush it”?
From NBC News:
Former President Donald Trump denied Thursday that he had flushed documents down a toilet when he served in the White House. "Another fake story, that I flushed papers and documents down a White House toilet, is categorically untrue and simply made up by a reporter in order to get publicity for a mostly fictitious book," Trump said in a statement.In that statement, he also played the hits.
I have been told I was under no obligation to give this material based on various legal rulings that have been made over the years. Crooked Hillary Clinton, as an example, deleted and acid washed 32,000 emails and never gave that to the government. Then, they took large amounts of furniture out of the White House. And Bill Clinton kept numerous audio recordings that the archives wanted, but were unsuccessful at getting after going to court. We won't even mention what is going on with the White House in the current, or various past administrations.Old songs on a busted piano.
It really is time for the Department of Justice to get off the damn dime. It should have moved on the National Archives request yesterday. It shouldn’t leave the New York Attorney General and local prosecutors in Georgia as the former president*’s primary investigators. They have been bold and brave, and it is devoutly to be told that they give the former president* the boot in the jewels he’s deserved since the early 1950s. But they don’t speak for us. They don’t speak for the angry archivists. Only the DOJ does that, and we need our innings here.
