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Trump To AG Garland: “Thank You, Sir! May I Have Another?”*
In that cringeworthy scene in National Lampoon’s Animal House, a bent over Kevin Bacon, pledging Omega Theta Pi at Faber College and clad only in underwear, looks straight ahead while taking multiple strikes to his backside with a heavy wooden paddle. After each sadistic assault, he promptly yells, “Thank you, Sir. May I have another.”
When he left office, Trump took with him property that belongs to the United States government including highly classified documents and presidential records.
Trump did not return all the property after the United States National Archives and Records Administration (“NARA”) and Department of Justice (“DOJ”) asked nicely and later issued a grand jury subpoena, well short of a search warrant. Instead, his lawyer certified under oath that all records belonging to the United States, including classified documents, were returned.
After the search at Mar-a-Lago, Trump set out to portray himself as a victim of federal overreach and the so-called “deep state.”
That strategy will, in my opinion, prove to be a series of miscalculations and self-inflicted injuries. (See discussion below of judge’s ruling from earlier today on Trump’s motion for appointment of a special master that will, in my view, only delay the inevitable.)