Trump cooked up a plan to trade the government documents that he stole for documents about the Russia investigation.
Mr. Trump floated the idea of offering the deal to return the boxes in exchange for documents he believed would expose the Russia investigation as a “hoax” cooked up by the F.B.I. Mr. Trump did not appear to know specifically what he thought the archives had — only that there were items he wanted.
Mr. Trump’s aides — recognizing that such a swap would be a non-starter since the government had a clear right to the material Mr. Trump had taken from the White House and the Russia-related documents held by the archives remained marked as classified — never acted on the idea.
Trump is convinced that there are secret documents somewhere that will show that the FBI made up the Russia investigation into his 2016 campaign. The connections between the Trump campaign and Russia have already been proven.
It has been nearly seven years, and Donald Trump is still trying to make the Russia scandal go away.
The idea that the government would never swap documents because Trump was breaking the law never entered into the former president’s head.
Trump is still operating on some 1980s principle of leverage, and he has convinced himself that the world is The Apprentice and everything is a deal.
As the government demonstrated through its search of Mar-a-Lago, Trump doesn’t have any leverage.
Donald Trump tried to get out of legal jeopardy by committing more crimes, which demonstrates that Trump’s instincts are always criminal.
Mr. Easley is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association