I can’t say I had “it’s how they write their memoirs” as a reason former President Trump would keep top secret information in his private home, but hey, what do I know? Representative Michael R. Turner (R-Ohio) is on the House Intelligence Committee, and I’m just a reporter wondering why a House Intelligence Committee member would be okay with top secret information being used in a tell-tale. .
“What could a former president have for classified or top secret information once he leaves office?” CBS’ Ed O’Keefe asked Turner Sunday in response to the FBI’s search for Mar-a-Lago, “Why take it home to Florida?”
“Well, I don’t know,” Turner replied. “I mean, you have to ask him. But of course we all know that every former president has access to their documents. That’s how they write their memoirs. They don’t have, you know, a great reminder of everything that goes on in their records. has happened.”
There’s nothing like a little top secret information to get the old creative juices flowing, I guess.
Turner’s light-hearted “memoir” statement is Congressional Republicans’ latest attempt to downplay any possible wrongdoing by the former president — even if they look stupid doing it.
You would think that finding top secret documents in the home of someone with a soft spot for authoritarian regimes would be a concern for the House Intelligence Committee. Still, the Ohio congressman wants voters to think about the files as they would late library books. Never mind that the last time classified information was used to enhance a memoir, General David H. Petraeus was forced to resign as CIA director and seek a plea deal.
To be fair, Turner was slow to board the Trump train. In fact, in 2016 he backed late acceding candidate John Kasich for president. But after the election, Turner got in line. A few years later, he suggests on TV that the man who tried to undo the election was keeping top secret information in his house to overcome writer’s block.
As the saying goes, life comes at you quickly.
Even some of Trump’s toughest critics have a hard time punishing him without feeling the need to throw Democrats away for cover as well. The search for a mythological sweet spot where Republicans can protect the brand from Trump while taking advantage of Trumpism has been ongoing since 2015. Unfortunately, I fear, we are closer to mockumentary territory than to the perfect political message.
Take Turner’s fellow Ohioan, Representative Anthony Gonzalez. Now, last fall, when discussing why he and nine other House Republicans voted to impeach the former president, Gonzalez told CNN’s Jake Tapper that he could no longer trust Trump “even for a few days, to become the Commander in Chief.” of our army”. .”
“It was deeply sad to come to the conclusion that I did,” Gonzalez said. “I felt I had no choice. I had to do what I thought was right to protect the country.”
And yet, after saying, “If he’s the nominee again in ’24, I’ll personally do everything I can to make sure he doesn’t win,” Gonzalez continued, “I don’t vote Democrats.” Which conflicts with “I will personally do everything I can to make sure he doesn’t win.”
Republicans on the House Jan. 6 committee, Representatives Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, have echoed similar comments and undermined the seriousness of their grievances against Trump by indirectly portraying Democrats as worse. This without evidence of widespread voter fraud, coup d’etat or other examples of coordinated attempts to overthrow our democracy.
That’s not to say progressives are flawless. The contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop may not have been used to fuel an insurrection, but the investigation deserves more than liberals’ “whataboutism” quips about Trump’s children.
But to suggest that top-secret information could be used to write presidential memoirs highlights the depth to which some Republicans remain willing to go to protect Trump from the consequences of his actions. Politicians like Turner would much rather make nonsensical statements or mitigate Trump’s transgressions by saturating debates with false equivalencies. All to avoid the consequences that come when powerful people are held accountable.
I agreed when Gonzalez told Tapper, “The country can survive a round of bad policy. The country cannot survive the burning of the Constitution.”
But the message from Gonzalez and other seemingly reasonable Republicans is hard to take seriously. They tell us that Trump is a threat to democracy, but they also say that voting for a Democrat would be worse. Sometimes when you try to play both sides in politics, you end up playing yourself.
This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
