I hope you don’t mind if I ask you about your newfound interest in national security matters.
If you can a provide persuasive answers, that may help resolve your current legal difficulties with the U.S. Department of Justice with respect to the hundreds of classified documents you had shipped from the White House to your Florida beach resort.
As you surely know, every president since Franklin D. Roosevelt has been given regular national security briefs.
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More recently, they became daily morning sessions. Understandably, you strongly resisted listening to them since they cut into your regular TV watching, which, of course, appears on your daily schedule as executive time.
Admit it: These daily briefs bored you to death, and you did everything possible to get out of them.
This was completely understandable, since you often boasted of knowing more about national security than all the generals who served under you.
It was even suggested by some cynics that the primary source of your military expertise was Fox News.
Interestingly, few of their experts – or maybe not even one -- had ever served in the military. But then, of course, neither did you.
Shipping Classified Secrets
Mr. President, why would a man with no apparent interest in the nuts and bolts of national security pack up dozens of cartons containing classified secrets and ship them to Mar-a-Lago? I’m sure you had a very good reason for doing this.
Only you – and perhaps your hairdresser – know for sure. And perhaps you could also tell us why – long after you were found out – did you go to such great lengths to avoid sending them to the National Archives where they belong.
You have made the ridiculous claim that all these documents belong to you. But given your utter disinterest in our nation’s security, why would you possibly want them so badly that you might end up going to prison for appropriating them?
If it’s OK, please let me ask you a related question about all those cartons you shipped from the White House to Mar-a-Lago. We now know they contained over 300 classified documents.
Surely you knew that if they fell into the hands of spies working for Russia, China, Iran, or other hostile foreign powers, that would not only put the lives of American operatives in grave danger, but perhaps our entire nation as well.
And although sitting through daily national security briefings may not have been your favorite activity, you did understand the great lengths our security agencies went to, to protect our nation’s secrets and our agents stationed around the globe. Indeed, even you – despite one or two major slip-ups – were forced to toe that line.
Questions For Donald Trump
May I ask what you could have possibly been thinking during the hurried packing job that you oversaw during your last days in the White House?
Exactly what were you thinking as thousands of pages of classified documents were just thrown into cartons and shipped to your Florida resort?
During your four years as president, all the do’s and don’ts of protecting our nation’s security secrets had to have been pounded into your head. Or did all of that just go into one ear and out the other?
Why would you even want to ship all these documents that obviously bored the life of you to a home where you intended to spend the rest of your days – except, perhaps, for another run for president – just playing golf and watching television?
What was especially interesting during the FBI’s search of your Mar-a-Lago resort last month was where they found a whole trove of classified documents. They were in your office, including three in your desk.
So now, let me ask my question. You have put yourself to a whole lot of trouble not just shipping all those boring classified documents to Florida – mainly stuff you couldn’t possibly understand.
And then you have gone though all the trouble of putting off the FBI demands that you return these documents to the federal government.
So, here’s my question: Why did you go to all of this trouble, even risking going to prison? Maybe you can save your skin if you are able to think of an answer by the time you go to trial.
Steve Slavin
Brooklyn, NY
