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It is well-documented that Trump took 15 boxes of presidential papers to Mar-A-Lago when he left the White House in January 2021. His lawyers even showed the boxes to National Archivist personnel when they went to Mar-A-Lago to inquire about the documents. While we don't know and probably never will know the contents of these boxes, in my opinion we know that a) Trump allegedly broke the law that governs the preservation of presidential material and b) many of these documents are highly classified. The latter is particularly disturbing in that we now must wonder what Trump's intent was for the use of these documents. I can think of many possibilities but the most troubling are that Trump was allegedly trying to hide these documents from the American people and more sinister, was it Trump's intention to pass some of these documents to his good friends, the Russians? We should never forget, and must put into perspective, the infamous photo of Trump sharing a laugh in a closed-door Oval Office meeting with Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak in May 2017.
That leads us to the FBI's raid on Mar-A-Lago. Since Trump failed to comply with the US laws governing presidential papers, he had to know this was coming, right? I'm sure that Trump and all in and around Mar-A-Lago feel violated by what Eric Trump calls a "politically motivated" action by the Justice Department and FBI. But for all of us law-abiding citizens, the simple answer is don't break the law and the FBI won't come raid your home.
But the real sad issue here is the irony of this all. Trump and his MAGA followers are bemoaning and even protesting the FBI's and Justice Department's actions to uphold the law with Trump stating, "These are dark times for our Nation, as my beautiful home, Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, is currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents." It is truly ironic that this same Trump, while president, incited a viscous and deadly raid on the US Capital on January 6, 2021. Trump didn't say anything about the Capitol being under siege, raided, and occupied by a very large group of "his people", did he?
We should all be sickened once again by Trump's actions.
RICHARD CARLSON
Williamsport
Submitted by Virtual Newsroom