NOTE: First off, I want to thank everyone who read my previous diary on this topic and especially those who participated in the discussion in the comments. I learned a lot, and was impressed by the level of discourse.
By the end of 2021, the National Archives and Record Administration (NARA) had been asking tfg to send back all the stuff covered by the Presidential Records Act — papers, pictures, souvenirs, gifts, etc. — that he had shipped from the White House down to Mar A Lago.
When tfg finally decided to send some of the documents back to NARA, we are told he sorted through the boxes himself and decided what to keep and what to send back. From Maggie Haberman at NYT:
Mr. Trump went through the boxes himself in late 2021, according to multiple people briefed on his efforts, before turning them over.
So either Orange Julius went down to the storage room in the basement himself, or he had all the boxes and bins carried up to his ornate ‘45 office’ — doesn’t matter which — and he rooted through ‘his’ stuff and decided what to send back in order to get NARA off his back…. those archivists don’t sound very aggressive, but they seem to be pretty persistent, eh?
There is no indication that NARA had asked about classified documents. In fact, when NARA got the 15 boxes — which NARA agreed that he could ship by commercial carrier, but would have been a BIG no-no if classified docs were included — they opened the boxes, saw some of the 184 colorful coversheets and probably said ‘Oh, shit!’, then immediately called the FBI. The poor NARA folks probably even had to wash their eyes out with soap because they weren’t cleared for TS, LOL!
OK, that’s the path that leads us to the title question:
What in the hell was going through the few remaining addled neurons in the pea-brain hiding under the rat’s nest on top of Little Donnie when he decided to mix ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY FOUR classified documents in with the rest of the useless junk he sent back?
Nobody had asked for them.
There had been no sign of any interest in them — see my previous diary.
WTF?
As we’ve seen, Donnie Boy sorted through the boxes and decided what he wanted to keep. I get that he kept the classified docs that he wanted to keep, but why send the rest back?
When nobody was asking for them?
When sending them back was the trigger for the current mess he (thankfully) finds himself in.
The mess that is (hopefully, hard to type with my fingers crossed) going to send him to prison for the rest of his miserable life.
Don’t get me wrong — I’m glad he did… ecstatic!
But why didn’t he just stick those 184 classified documents in a box and put it in a corner?
Or stash them in Melania’s drawers?
It just doesn’t make any sense.
In a lifetime of making really stupid decisions, this one really stands out.
Can anyone help me out here?
Enquiring minds (well, one of them, at least) want to know.