This morning, Washington Post columnist James Hohmann tweeted that “Trump really is the perfect profile of a security risk: A disgruntled ex-employee who was fired from his job for poor performance, still has access to the most sensitive secrets and internal documents and remains dead set on tearing down the people who he blames for his failures.”
Also over the weekend, Trump took to pretend-Twitter to rant and rave and air his grievances about being held accountable for his criminal behavior. These are just a few of the unhinged “tweets” he sent out to his followers:
Early today, Alia Shoaib dug into his public breakdown for Business Insider. “The Department of Justice,” she wrote, “is investigating whether Trump broke three laws, including the Espionage Act, according to the warrant unsealed on Friday. The warrant included a complete inventory of seized items. Trump's defense over the records found at Mar-a-Lago has repeatedly changed, from suggesting evidence was planted, to falsely accusing former President Barack Obama of doing the same to claiming that everyone ‘brings home their work from time to time.’… Some of the accounts he reposted had names with references to QAnon or the alt-right and pointed to debunked conspiracy theories about the FBI. One of the accounts was called ‘WWG1WGA,’ an abbreviation of the phrase ‘where we go one, we go all,’ which is a popular QAnon tagline and slogan.
Trump also reposted an image that listed various alleged wrongdoings by the FBI, including baseless conspiracy theories about the Gretchen Whitmer kidnap plot being fake and allegations that FBI informants participated in the Capitol riot. It is not the first time Trump has referenced these conspiracy theories.
Many of the posts were shared by Trump within an hour, which hints at the former president's current state of mind.
Sources told the Washington Post that Trump appeared to be "upbeat" immediately after the FBI search, as he believed the raid would cause Republicans to rally around him.
However, when it was revealed that the FBI had seized 11 sets of classified documents, among other things, those defending him became more muted.
Following this, Trump's buoyant mood at times turned dark, according to people who had been around him, The Post reported.
Meanwhile, investigative journalist Sidney Blumenthal posed 10 unanswered questions about the cache of documents Trump stole from the White House, hid at Mar-a-Lago and then refused to give up in the face of a subpoena. The half dozen most crucial of those questions:
Why did Trump choose to hide certain specific files and not others at Mar-a-Lago? What were the criteria that Trump used to keep some files concealed and not others? Who selected those files?
Did members of Trump's Secret Service detail have knowledge of his secret storage of the files at Mar-a-Lago? What was the relationship of the Secret Service detail to the FBI? Did the Secret Service, or any agent, disclose information about the files to the FBI?
If Pat Cipollone, the White House legal counsel, did not “generate the paperwork,” was he or anyone on his staff aware at all of the declassifications?
Why did Trump keep his pardon of Roger Stone among his secret files? Was it somehow to maintain leverage over Stone? What would that leverage be? Would it involve Stone's role as a conduit with the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers during the coup? Or is there another pardon in Trump’s files for Stone, a secret pardon for his activities in the January 6th insurrection?
Was the FBI warrant obtained to block the imminent circulation or sale of information in the files to foreign powers?
Did Trump destroy any of the files? If so, when? Did those files contain incriminating information? Did he destroy any files after he received the June subpoena?