The 'My Boxes' Theory Is All You Need To Explain Trump's Behavior

US News & Politics
1

The ‘My Boxes’ Theory Is All You Need To Explain Trump’s Behavior

There’s no deep mystery behind why Trump kept boxes of classified documents. He wanted them.

C.J. CIARAMELLA | 6.13.2023 12:42 PM

On Sunday, The New York Times floated a very important question on Twitter: Why was Donald Trump hoarding boxes of national security documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort? And what could possibly explain his intense resistance to giving them back?

Now, far be it for me to criticize the paper of record’s reporting, but last year I made a throwaway joke that solved the mystery. I would like to introduce you all to an advanced political theorem known as “my boxes.”

Former American Conservative columnist Rod Dreher had asked last year, around the time of the Mar-a-Lago raid, what reason Trump could possibly have for refusing to return the boxes. It was somewhat of a hobby among the professionally credulous to wonder what machinations could be behind Trump’s decision to hold on to these boxes, despite legal peril. Among some resistance liberals, there were unsupported accusations that Trump may have been selling classified documents or using them for nefarious purposes.

Then, in a joking back-and-forth with The Bulwark 's Sonny Bunch, I offered a fictional conversation between Trump and an aide that would tidily sum up the former president’s motivations and legal theories:

my boxes

For the past year since then, whenever a new bit of information dribbles out about the case, someone on Twitter alerts me that another point has been scored for “my boxes.”

All of the substantive reporting, as well as the recently filed indictment, has backed up the “my boxes” hypothesis. In August, The New York Times reported that Trump told several advisers, in response to the National Archives’ demands that he return the boxes: “It’s not theirs; it’s mine.” The Washington Post reported in November that “Trump repeatedly said the materials were his, not the government’s—often in profane terms.”

This April, Fox News’ Sean Hannity tried to tee up a softball for Trump, saying he couldn’t imagine the former president saying, “Bring me some of the boxes that we brought back from the White House, I’d like to look at them.” But Trump insisted that he would.

“I would have the right to do that,” Trump replied. “I would do that.”

According to the 37-count indictment filed in federal court against Trump this week, he told one of his long-suffering attorneys: “I don’t want anybody looking, I don’t want anybody looking through my boxes, I really don’t, I don’t want you looking through my boxes.”

“My boxes” has always been the simplest, most durable explanation for Trump’s behavior. He took the boxes because he likes boxes of stuff, and he refused to give them back for the same reason. He has a toddler’s conception of property and a similar developmental level of excitement for show-and-tell. (Kid Rock allegedly got a glimpse of national security documents when he met with Trump.) All of which is how you end up with descriptions of America’s nuclear capabilities sitting in a box in a South Florida bathroom.

2

It’s his boxes… who else would they be?

3

As always the intellect of the shallow end of the gene pool is astounding

I know you don’t get it as always

4

Umm ok you can’t even answer the question, lol

5

His boxes ASSumes he owned everything put into the boxes

Only dim witted morons would use such shallow thinking to make excuses for his Rump buddy

6

He was going through them. That’s not a crime

7

2 Years later and he’ll get around to it.

Donald Trump admits on tape he didn’t declassify ‘secret information’

Former President Donald Trump acknowledged on tape in a 2021 meeting that he had retained “secret” military information that he had not declassified, according to a transcript of the audio recording obtained by CNN.

“As president, I could have declassified, but now I can’t,” Trump says, according to the transcript.

CNN obtained the transcript of a portion of the meeting where Trump is discussing a classified Pentagon document about attacking Iran. In the audio recording, which CNN previously reported was obtained by prosecutors, Trump says that he did not declassify the document he’s referencing, according to the transcript.

And he needs documents about attacking Iran?

Rump could piss on your leg and you would make excuses for him.

8

Presidents have taken “their” papers for as long as there have been Presidential Libraries, so that the ghost writers could get the story straight. What’s the big mystery? In every administration there are he said, she said moments and after retirement the Pres always wants to correct the record. That is only possible with the documents of the moment. Who wants to leave your own history to be written by your enemies?

9

On Friday, special counsel Jack Smith’s team admitted to misleading U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon concerning the management of evidence in their criminal case involving former President Donald Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents.
Advertisement

"Prosecutors in a court filing said that in some of the boxes FBI agents seized from President Trump’s Florida resort, the order of papers has been changed from shortly after the seizure,” reports The Epoch Times. “Prosecutors compared scans of the boxes done in 2022 under orders from Judge Cannon to the present state of the boxes and noticed that the order is not the same.”

“There are some boxes where the order of items within that box is not the same as in the associated scans,” Mr. Smith’s team admitted in the filing.

In a footnote, prosecutors acknowledged that the update contrasts with what they told the judge less than one month ago, during a hearing in the case.

When Judge Cannon during the hearing asked whether the boxes were “in their original, intact form as seized,” a prosecutor on the team said,

“they are, with one exception; and that is that the classified documents have been removed and placeholders have been put in the documents.”

1 Like
10

I am never going to understand how lawyers; people who are specificity trained in the law continue to bend, break, ignore, misuse and misunderstand the law. AND GET AWAY WITH IT??

3 Likes
11

The dual justice system on full display.

2 Likes
12

The deeper they get into persecuting Trump, the more plain it is how egregiously they are violating the Rule of Law. It’s difficult to speak of it and keep hyperbole within legal limits. In an ordinary banana republic there would be the initiation of revolt. Dems have exceeded the limits of everything they touch to such an extent that they are now blind to self-image; they have no idea of how this looks to everyone outside their party. They have carried their crucifixion to the equivalent of bank robbers that don’t wear masks and look straight into security cameras in defiance of authorities. Not only can this not stand; the seriousness of the retribution needs to be on the order of calling it treason on a grand scale. I look forward to mass public hangings on the Washington Mall of the principles.

1 Like
13

LOL. The dual justice system. The Jan 6th people are put in prison. The rioters that caused over 2 billion in damages are not prosecuted and all is forgiven. Trump is gagged and fined by the judge, Demonstrators on college campuses are allowed to disrupt the education of the students on campus. Got it.

3 Likes
14

Every administration since President Ronald Reagan has mishandled classified materials, including commingling classified and unclassified documents, National Archives officials told the House Intelligence Committee during a closed-door interview in March.

The latest revelations come after the committee voted to release on Wednesday an unclassified transcript of testimony from William Bosanko, chief operating officer of the National Archives and Records Administration, and Mark Bradley, director of NARA’s information security oversight office.

House Intelligence Chairman Mike Turner and his committee continue to investigate the handling of classified documents – particularly during presidential transitions – after classified documents were found at the homes and private offices of President Joe Biden, former President Donald Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence.

2 Likes
15

Right on! The so-called Justice System as characterized by the DOJ & FBI, et al, is best described as helter-skelter. It’s supposed to be even-handed; justice is achieved by righting wrongs; that’s always the question that is asked and answered by the Judge/Court system: can the court address a complaint and enforce remedy? If you have great damage from a tornado and want to sue the guy who owns the car that the tornado dropped on your living room, the judge will say you don’t have standing, they can’t make you whole. It’s an act of God, and the court doesn’t have the authority to order restitution from God. It’s not a question whether or not you have injury; standing is always a matter of if or if not the court can give you a remedy.

That same principle underlies the whole justice system, so the BLM rioters destroyed property that no one is being made to make the property owners whole again. The local people are deprived of the stores looted & burned down; they can’t work or shop there and have to look at the remains of their neighborhood as a much less desirable era to live in. The shop owners go elsewhere, or nowhere; anywhere but there again. Nobody is imprisoned and nobody is given remedy, a double whammy against society as we like to think of as civilized.

Same thing with the Hamas protesters interfering in the education and peace on campuses around the country; how much do you have to pay for an education in order to get one? $90,000 per year is not enough at Columbia. They; the whole student body, should sue for 10 or 25% refund as a class action: If it cost a bundle it will be stopped. The police should also bill the university for every dime of excess costs of protecting the city as being an outrageous expense caused by poor management which essentially forces the citizenry to pay for the bad judgment of what passes for university management. There is a remedy for allowing bad behavior; make ‘em pay thru the nose!

In the same light, the same crappy legal system of NY State is asking for a remedy from Trump for no harm demonstrated. The trial can only happen as the result of a conspiracy of the court system, the state authorities that oversee the court system’s management, adherence to laws and ethical conduct, and any connection to White House politicians that surely have participated in an obvious violation of Trump’s civil rights. The number of irregularities in the trial employed in pursuing Trump is astounding, and the fact that what passes for a Judicial Board of Review hasn’t already spoken out implicates them, too.

It is so bad, capped by the final straw of making the defendant present their closing statement before the State, which has not yet stated in plain words the specific statute violated, forces the defendant to defend against a ghost. After which the State will change horses in mid-stream and get away with it. I think the 2 lawyers on the jury will see a future textbook reversal on the horizon and not want to be memorialized as incredibly stupid in law school studies of the next few hundred years and both vote for acquittal on all charges taking the other 10 jurors with them. It’s coincidentally also pivotal in the world image of New York City & State as a place that you can’t invest in for fear of finding yourself out of favor with local politicians. If they do not act properly in this particular case, it will inform the world of the official resignation of New York as the capitol of capital. Miami awaits the decision.

16

They all want records to flesh out the historic events as they see them. He who writes history gets to characterize it. For all time. They all believe the same thing, “Every issue has two sides; their side and mine; theirs’ is sloppy and emphasizes the wrong details, The guy I hire to ghost my biography needs to have the documents that support how great I actually did in spite of all the shitty people opposing me and trying to convince me to make the wrong decisions.”

The advent of all Presidents having a Presidential Library built in their home state after they leave office makes this a situation that will be a permanent event of every presidency, henceforth and evermore.

17

The reality is that presidents have on many occasions remained quite active, causing controversies, seeking power and, at the very least, trying to stay relevant well after their days in the Oval Office came to an end. Just as common is how many Americans follow them, giving them a pass on many of their past wrongdoings.

1 Like
18

Not to speak of Nixon & Carter… Eventually both redeemed themselves in the eyes of supporters. Biden may be a different story if he is followed by Trump.

1 Like
19

Carter was a very timid on dealing with inflation and job creation. He was a micromanager, handling things that the President shouldn’t handle, like assigning parking spots at the White House, and he waited far too long to act in the Iranian Hostage Crisis. Carter was highly ineffective because of his inability to address the economic and social crises of the time period.

2 Likes
20

Carter was frozen in place when his badly planned desert raid got stuck in a sandstorm. That was the culmination of his micromanaging and he didn’t know whether to shit of get off the pot. He had lost the element of surprise and couldn’t allow someone else to make a plan that would work, so nothing. The problem with micro-managers is they are unable to allow someone else to make decisions in their stead.

A military commander would have a team who knew the weather patterns in that area constantly monitoring the weather conditions seeking a favorable window that met their teams needs. (Assuming that was the best idea in the first place) The team would have had all the airborne command center aircraft in place and blanketing the sky with all the counter-measure and backup air & ground equipment on site as close as necessary to mitigate any unforeseeable problems. All the ducks would have been in a row before the commanders sat down in the command center to issue the Go order. The Commander-in-Chief wouldn’t say a word and the military commander of the particular event would run it entirely by himself because he would have been the guy who organized it and knows all the parts of the giant puzzle. Of course I have understated all the parts that would be in place beforehand, because that’s not my thing. The military trains for things like that and can do it because that is their thing. The Army War College has on-going classes training officers of every rank and there are groups in every theater that know every detail about the people, terrain, cities, weather, local military strengths, weaknesses, capabilities and often speak the language of the countries in that theater. To say that the military is prepared to do these kinds of things, blindfolded and with their hands tied behind their backs is an understatement.

The only fly in the ointment is always the same fly: they follow orders issued by civilians who almost always know nothing about nothing. When one of the civilians in the chain of command says do X, they are trained not to argue the point; just do X.

Expelling Sodom Insane & his Army from Kuwait went like a well oiled machine because George Bush 41 gave the order to get it ready and report back when ready; General H. Norman Schwarzkopf was the particular man who was assigned to that theater, and for years and years studied it so he would be ready if ever called upon. Every theater has people like him, trained in specific theaters for their entire military careers, for years and years as they rise thru the ranks so that when called upon there already is in-place a whole command staff that can be brought together to do their thing. If, and only if, they are allowed to do it.

George 41 left Schwarzkopf alone because he knew these people are there and know everything they need to know. Jimmy 39 as a former Navy Lt. knew that but had the wrong personality. Desert Storm brought together assembled forces from 42 counties and swept over the Iragi forces like the desert was empty. Look at the map which illustrates the complexity of the operation that worked like there was nothing to it

desert storm
desert storm775×576 106 KB

Now look at the map of Operation Eagle Claw which broke down before it began, and then got worse…
desert Eagle Claw

One operation was run by the military and one was run by civilians looking over the military’s shoulder.

1 Like