The Transactional Presidency
This was my thought reading the latest breaking news regarding the Donald Trump espionage case:
Federal prosecutors have obtained an audio recording of a summer 2021 meeting in which former President Donald Trump acknowledges he held onto a classified Pentagon document about a potential attack on Iran, multiple sources told CNN, undercutting his argument that he declassified everything.
The recording indicates Trump understood he retained classified material after leaving the White House, according to multiple sources familiar with the investigation. On the recording, Trump’s comments suggest he would like to share the information but he’s aware of limitations on his ability post-presidency to declassify records, two of the sources said.
What was it about Iran that drove Trump up the wall?
I've always believed in Occam's Razor. The fact that the simplest explanation is often the most correct might not appeal to most of us. It certainly doesn't appeal to our news media who would love nothing more than a complex, conspiracy-riddled yarn. It often feels like a cop-out, the fact that something so obvious would be correct. Surely we're missing something? But alas, the real world doesn't work like a Law and Order episode. There rarely, if ever, is a smoking gun that breaks the case wide open. Instead, what we have is remarkable consistency where criminals' motivations are blatantly straightforward. They aren't complex Bond villains but rather simpletons hoping to commit a crime while trying to avoid being caught. They honestly believe they are smarter than law enforcement and therefore are sloppy in their work. It's never a matter of if they are caught but instead when.
Donald John Trump is such a man. He has been committing crimes for more than a half-century. But he was always able to get out of trouble, either through bribery or intimidation tactics. He had no reason to believe any of that would change once he made that fateful descent down his Trump Tower escalator. He saw running for president as simply the latest scheme to market himself. He would run, get his brand back in the national spotlight, eventually lose, and then would spend the next 4-8 years being a constant guest on Fox News decrying the injustice of it all while simultaneously speaking out against President Hillary Clinton. Hell, knowing Mark Burnett he might have even been able to jumpstart The Apprentice to keep Trump relevant. Never in his wildest dreams did he believe he would actually become President of the United States.
But he did.
And when it happened Trump was thrust into a position where he was the most powerful man in the world. He had no reason to believe that his new job would be any different from his old job. So he continued to lie, cheat, and steal throughout the duration of his term. Hell, it started even before he took the oath of office as his inauguration committee illegally funneled $750,000 to the Trump Organization. But that was just the beginning. Over the course of 4 years, Trump made more than $1.6 billion in outside revenue despite a public promise to resign from all positions overseeing his businesses. From the housing of Secret Service members at his clubs to having Mike Pence stay at a Trump property on the other side of Ireland, Trump intentionally disregarded any semblance that his business interests weren't influencing his decision-making. Combined with Ivanka and Jared earning $640 million due to the administration's foreign influence and there can be no doubt that the Trump Administration will go down as the most corrupt in American history and a critical talking point for how and why a businessman or woman should never sit behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office ever again.
So what was behind Trump's infatuation with Iran?
While we cannot be certain as of today, the fact remains that with Donald Trump, the simplest answer is often the correct one. Trump was somehow convinced that attacking Iran would be good for business. Whose business, you ask? While Donald Trump's of course! After all, Trump ponied up to Saudi Arabia on day one. His son-in-law Jared Kushner received $2 billion from them throughout the course of his presidency. Trump has recently expressed admiration for LIV Golf, a breakaway Saudi-backed professional golf league that will hold an event at Bedminster of all places in August. The relationship was so one-sided that Trump went so far as to demonize Jamal Khashoggi despite there being obvious evidence of the Saudi government's role in his murder. Time and time again, Trump went above and beyond to support Saudi Arabia despite the country's continual human rights violations throughout his term. No matter what Saudi Arabia did, Trump always had their back.
Trump likely saw Saudi Arabia as an investment. And with any good investment, Trump wanted to protect it. But he also saw Saudi Arabia as an opportunity to expand his business influence and for that to happen, Saudi Arabia had to expand its own influence in the region. Hence Trump's four-year campaign to create chaos and instability in Iran. Starting with the dangerous withdrawal of the historic Iran Nuclear Deal, Trump made it clear from day one that regional peace and stability were not his priority. Without a shred of evidence, Trump claimed that Iran was behind a September 2019 attack against Saudi oil refineries. Less than 4 months later, Trump chose the dramatic act of taking out the top Iranian commander in Baghdad via drone strike, an act that led to Iran retaliating by sending a dozen ballistic air missiles at 2 Iraqi bases housing American soldiers. While fortunately no American soldiers were killed, Trump's megalomanic quest at propping up Saudi Arabia at the expense of Iran was now putting innocent soldiers' lives at risk.
But Trump was never about protecting soldiers. Instead, he was always about protecting his own business interests. And those interests include a healthy and prosperous Saudi Arabia and a weakened Iran. Therefore, we really shouldn't be that surprised that Trump took with him information about a potential attack against Iran as that would have been a huge boost to his Saudi Arabian pals. The question at the heart of Jack Smith's case has become what Trump intended to do with that information. Because as we've seen Trump had a vested invested in Saudi Arabia's success and Iran's demise. Who else would benefit from this information? What would they be willing to provide in exchange? How could having this information personally benefit Donald John Trump?
That was the Trump presidency in a nutshell. Always about his business interests. Always about his personal gain. While the Iran "oh Lordy there are" tapes are just the latest example, they clearly is a pattern for Donald Trump's behavior while in office. Fortunately for us, Jack Smith is now investigating this pattern. And with last week's news that it's not just Saudi Arabia but also six additional countries that Smith is looking into as to how they conducted business with the Trump Organization during Trumps presidency, well, let's just say that we all fear for any and all ketchup bottles currently stashed away at Mar-a-Lago during this time. Donald Trump was willing to sell out his country in order to make a quick buck for himself and his family and likely did so by placing the lives of countless Americans, including the men and women of the military, at risk. In our nation's history, we've never had a president so willingly to put his own business interests over the greater good of the citizenry.
And we must never have one again.