For all the detailed evidence in the 38-count indictment accusing former President Donald J. Trump of holding onto hundreds of classified documents and then obstructing the government’s efforts to retrieve them, one mystery remains: why did he take them and fight so hard to keep them?
Mr. Trump’s motive for having thousands of presidential documents — including more than 300 classified documents — at Mar-a-Lago, his combined residence and club for members in Palm Beach, Florida, was not directly addressed in the 49-page charges filed Thursday in Miami. The indictment document failed to show that Mr. Trump had a broader goal than simply possessing the material.
While finding a motive could certainly be helpful to prosecutors if Mr Trump ended up on trial, it may not be necessary to prove the legal elements of the case against him. Nevertheless, an unanswered question remains as to why Trump held onto an extensive collection of highly confidential documents and then, according to prosecutors, plotted to avoid returning them — even after nearly 15 months of investigations by the Justice Department.
The indictment did offer some hints.
It described how Mr Trump, who often focuses on retaliation against perceived enemies, waved a secret “plan of attack” against Iran at a July 2021 rally at Bedminster, his New Jersey golf club, as a way of refuting what he saw . to be critical of General Mark A. Milley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In a recording of the meeting, Mr. Trump can be heard rustling paper and telling those around him that the document in question proved him right in his dispute with General Milley.
“This totally wins my case, you know,” he said.
In other instances in the indictment, an aide to Mr. Trump describes the materials he carried around in the boxes with him as “his papers,” something he did when he was president, suggesting he wasn’t ready to let go of the benefits. to leave. to hold the highest office in the country.
Similarly, the indictment depicts Mr. Trump trying to prevent a lawyer he hired to help him search Mar-a-Lago for classified material still in his possession from actually going through the records which he kept at the property.
“I don’t want anyone looking in my boxes,” Trump says, expressing a kind of personal ownership over the material. “I really don’t.”
His sense of personal ownership was so pervasive that his aides, in text messages attached to the indictment, were clearly afraid of taking them too far from him.
Several of Mr. Trump’s former aides and advisers have long argued that he kept the sensitive data simply because he considered it “mine,” and because he likes to get his hands on trophies that he can show off, in whatever form those trophies may take. are.
When he was a businessman flaunting as a playboy in Manhattan, Mr. Trump tried to be seen with attractive women. He bought the Plaza Hotel and called it a “toy” for his then-wife, Ivana.
He collected high-value trinkets to wave for visitors to his 26th-floor office, such as basketball star Shaquille O’Neal’s giant sneaker, which lay among a pile of other items.
During his tenure, he treated the country’s secrets the same way. Mr. Trump shared highly classified information with the Russian Ambassador and Secretary of State at a 2017 Oval Office meeting. He posted a classified photo on Twitter in 2019 of a failed Iranian missile launch, telling senior aides who wanted the classification markers removed that that was the “sexy part.”
During their investigation into the case, special counsel Jack Smith prosecutors took steps that indicated they were looking for a motive.
For example, they subpoenaed information about business transactions Mr Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, had with seven other countries since his presidency began in 2017, and appeared to be trying to determine whether any of the documents could have been used. for doing business abroad. But there was no reference in the indictment to Mr Trump using the documents for business deals.
Late last year, when public reports revealed that prosecutors believed Trump still had classified material in his possession, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, one of Trump’s friends-turned-adversaries, offered a simple explanation.
“I think it’s much more likely it’s a trophy for him to walk around and say, look, I’ve got this,” Mr. Christie, who is now campaigning for the presidency against Mr. Trump in the Republican primary, told ABC News. . “I have some secret document because remember something: he can’t believe he’s not president.”
Mr. Christie continued, “He can’t believe he still doesn’t have these documents, and he needs to show everyone in Mar-a-Lago or Bedminster over the summer that he still has some of those trappings. ”
He suggested that this is why Mr. Trump had a reproduction of the Oval Office Resolute Desk placed in his Mar-a-Lago office.
“All the rest of those things are things that soothe his disappointment and his disbelief that he’s not president anymore,” he said.