The Manchurian president’s worst act yet

Last Monday, the Justice Department got tired of Donald Trump refusing to honour a subpoena to return top-secret documents taken from the White House and sent FBI agents to the country club where the ex-president lives to collect them.

The agents retrieved 11 sets of classified documents, including top-secret/sensitive compartmented information (TS/SCI) material, which, if disclosed, has the highest risk of doing harm to the United States. 

Since then, all hell has broken loose — but not in the manner you’d expect. Instead of Americans going bananas about the same man who conspired to destroy their democracy also putting their most sensitive secrets at risk, Republicans and “the base” made excuses for him. The documents had been planted by the FBI, or Trump had waived some magic wand on his way out the door that declassified the material, or he intended to do so, which is the same thing. 

I have no intention of debunking such idiocy here. (If you need such debunking… well, as the expression goes, google it, mate). Indeed, my point is that when the media focus on every morally bankrupt and truth-indifferent inanity coming from the Trump camp, we miss the bigger picture, which, for this latest scandal, is this: Trump was a Manchurian president and until he’s disqualified from running again and in jail, neither the people of the United States nor their democracy will be safe. 

Let’s start with the Justice Department’s legal plea to maintain the seal on the affidavit that would give context to the warrant and receipt for the material reclaimed from Trump’s property (emphasis added). 

…revealing the specific contents of a search warrant affidavit could alter the investigation’s trajectory, reveal ongoing and future investigative efforts, and undermine agents’ ability to collect evidence or obtain truthful testimony.

So much for the guess that once the government had its secrets back under lock and key, it would desist from pursuing Trump for their unauthorised removal and storage, his refusal to give them back even when subpoenaed and his false claim — made through his lawyer — that he’d given back all the classified material held at Mar-a-Lago. 

Clearly, and at a minimum, the government intends to pursue the ex-president for the violations of national security committed thus far. But on one reading of the Justice Department filing, they may intend to go further. 

As I write, the FBI is doing an assessment of the damage Trump’s unauthorised retention of these materials in an unsecured location for the last 20 months has done so far. According to former top-counterintelligence officials, the prognosis is bad. 

Why? Because Mar-a-Lago isn’t a sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF), the place where sensitive documents like those pilfered by Trump must be viewed. It’s a sieve, which means that intelligence officials presume it was compromised by Russian and Chinese technical and signal intelligence systems back when Trump was president, and that all that surveillance capacity remains to this day. 

I mean, why would they remove it, given Trump’s intention to run again, his superpowers at destroying democracy, and open knowledge that he had boxes of unsecured classified material on the site? 

That means Americans must assume that whatever is in those documents is now known to their enemies. This doesn’t just include US secrets, but ones America may have intercepted from its enemies or allies — including Australia. Plus, that the technical and signal collection capabilities that would have cost billions of dollars to put into place has been compromised, and that the risky and laborious process of re-establishing it must be invested in all over again. 

These are the dangers and costs we can safely assume Donald Trump has exposed the American people to now. But if the Justice Department keeps looking, the damage may stretch further. To whatever transactions Trump intended, conducted or was planning to conduct with foreign adversaries for a price. 

Rather than debunking Trump’s latest excuse or lie, this is what journalists should be dedicating their energy to: who the ex-president was likely to have offered the documents to, and what they gave him in exchange. 

Is Trump treasonous, or is he being railroaded? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.