This summer there are two American narratives. One plot arc features people who get things done, people who actually govern. Yesterday, for instance, the Biden administration announced a multi-billion dollar program to extend broad-band internet to the roughly nine million households and small businesses in ill-connected regions. A lot of those regions are red, they’d never vote for Biden, but the president doesn’t care about that. He has a job to do.
The other plot arc features a narcissistic sociopath who, with every utterance from his pie hole, talks himself closer to jail.
We recently learned, courtesy of the first federal criminal indictment, that ex-prexy Trump shared classified military materials in a 2021 meeting at his Jersey golf club with some folks who had no security clearance. He’d stolen those materials when he was ousted from the White House. Then, at the meeting, he virtually confessed to crimes: “As president, I could have declassified (these materials). But now I can’t.”
Now we have the actual voice recording, as posted by CNN and our top two newspapers, and I suppose one can argue that it’s no big deal, that we knew this stuff already. Nevertheless, the optics of audio are powerful. When we actually hear Trump talk the talk – instead of learning what he said via the written page – it makes his criminality a lot more resonant.
The fecklessness, the braggadocio, the arrogance, the cluelessness, the toadying laughs from his Bedminster posse…just give it a listen. You’re likely to be enraged – Christian right wing activist Heath Mayo has tweeted fellow conservatives that “if you’re a red-blooded American, this should viscerally piss you off” – but you can rest assured that Jack Smith’s legal eagles are circling the sinkhole.
How sweet it is to hear Trump tee up his own treason in so many ways:
First, he outlines the chain of custody; the stolen document, a war-making scenario, originated at the Pentagon. (“They presented me this – this is off the record but – they presented me this…This was the Defense Department…This was done by the military and given to me…All sorts of stuff, pages long.”)
Second, he acknowledges that the military document is still classified. (“This is highly confidential.”)
Third, he knows he couldn’t magically declassify it. (“See, as president I could have declassified it. Now I can’t.”)
Fourth, he still wants to show it off. (“Look!…This is still secret. Isn’t that interesting?”)
I bet the federal jurors will hear that recording and find it interesting. Indeed, Trump’s last Defense secretary, Mark Esper, said last night that the audio is “stunning…The nonchalant nature of sharing those documents is illegal and dangerous.”
You can choose to believe what Trump mouthed last week on Fox News – “I didn’t have a document, per se” – but the Bedminster episode smells like a smoking gun. Garrett Graff, whose recent book (a Pulitzer Prize finalist) charts the history of the Watergate scandal, tweets: “There’s nowhere on thousands of hours of Nixon tapes where Nixon makes any comment as clear, as clearly illegal, and as clearly self-aware as this Trump tape.”
Last night, Fox News felt compelled to air the audio. Then it sought commentary from ex-Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer, who’s usually a reliable MAGA apologist. But not this time. Ari didn’t even try to explain away what he’d just heard: “I don’t know what (Trump’s) defense will be over this document, but as somebody who used to routinely handle classified information, I do have to say that is not how you are supposed to handle it.”
On the audio, Trump lauds the document that he stole: “This is so cool.” The prosecutors surely agree. It’s cool to catch a criminal in the act.
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Earlier, I referenced President Biden’s federal funds for internet connectivity in rural areas. Alabama is one such beneficiary; the red state will get $1.4 billion. One its senators, Republican Tommy Tuberville crowed today on Twitter: “Great to see Alabama receive crucial funds to boost ongoing broadband access.” Naturally, the ex-pigskin coach never mentioned the source of those “crucial funds.”
He’s hailing the federal broadband program that he voted against. Or, as we call it, Tuesday.