Thanks to some excellent reporting from the New York Times, we know that a federal grand jury convened by the Justice Department is now looking into the 15 boxes of classified White House documents that failed, one-term, twice-impeached former President Donald Trump took with him to Mar-a-Lago after he left office, a direct violation of security protocols and potentially a crime.
Former FBI official Frank Figliuzzi notes in an op-ed he wrote for MSBNC that impaneling a grand jury means the DOJ suspects a crime was committed.
But there are larger concerns that could prove to be damaging to U.S. national security and result in Trump being charged with a felony, Figliuzzi explains:
A sentence in The New York Times story may shed some light on what the Justice Department may have: “The documents in question are believed to have been kept in the residence of the White House before they were boxed up and sent to Mar-a-Lago.” Fifteen boxes of classified documents sitting in the residential wing of the White House doesn’t sound like a mistake to me. That sounds deliberate and less like an error that could be attributed to staff.
As Justice Department investigators examine the documents, they’ll be able to see whether the contents held some value to Trump or those around him and possibly determine whether Trump could benefit from whatever’s in those documents. We mustn’t forget that during Trump’s term, his family members parlayed their relationship with him into personal profit and that while he was president, Trump’s own businesses reportedly raked in $2.4 billion.
In other words, Trump may have sold some of those documents to foreign entities and/or governments in return for financial considerations. After all, the sort of intelligence a president has access to is unmatched by any other official in an administration.
A grand jury will decide whether or not there’s enough evidence to indict Trump. Until then, as Figliuzzi rightly concludes, we’ll have to “wait for the mystery to be solved.”
