Donald Trump made history last week as the first ex-president to be indicted not once but twice since leaving office. This time, it was by the federal government as the result of special counsel Jack Smith’s monthslong investigation into the former guy’s handling of classified documents which—spoiler alert—did not simply involve accidentally taking home a few letters from his favorite North Korean dictator. Rather, as the indictment alleges, Trump kept top secret information at Mar-a-Lago concerning everything from the US’s nuclear programs to plans for how the US might retaliate if attacked—some of which he shared with people he absolutely was not supposed to share said information with. Then, according to the government, he obstructed the DOJ’s investigation into what he was doing with the classified documents, and committed a number of additional crimes along the way.
Now, obviously there’s nothing funny about a megalomaniac hoarding top secret information at his for-profit club, the exposure of which could literally cause grave damage to the United States and its allies—especially given that this particular megalomaniac is known for seeking petty revenge and also happens to be the front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination. Still, there is a lot of undeniably funny stuff in all of this. And that stuff includes but is not limited to:
The thing about Trump storing classified documents in a bathroom, right next to the toilet
Trump has a long and weird history with toilets, from his oft repeated claim that environmental regulations have resulted in “people…flushing toilets 10 times, 15 times as opposed to once” to reportedly stuffing ripped government documents in White House commodes, a habit that forced staffers to follow him to the bathroom and fish them out after he was done. At the same time, Trump is also known for being a huge idiot. What does one have to do with the other? Well, according to the federal indictment, after storing a number of boxes of classified documents in Mar-a-Lago’s “White and Gold Ballroom, in which events and gatherings took place,” and then in the business center at the club, Trump had a number of them moved in April 2021 “to a bathroom…in The Mar-a-Lago Club’s Lake Room.” We’ll repeat that for emphasis: He had them moved to “a bathroom.” And as the photo helpfully included in the indictment shows, they were right next to the toilet.
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As The Washington Post notes, among other things, this means there’s a very real possibility that the documents stored in this room were (are?) covered in shit particles. “If someone’s using the bathroom, your items are going to get contaminated,” a real epidemiologist told the outlet.
Trump deciding a room just off the club’s pool was also a good place for nuclear secrets
According to the indictment, one month after stashing his “papers” in an actual bathroom, Trump got to thinking. And his (paraphrased) thoughts probably went something like this: “The toilet room was good, but you know where else would be a great place to keep top secret information, the leaking of which would be extremely bad for the country? A room in close proximity to an area that gets tons of foot traffic on the reg, including by people who need to grab extra bottles of booze for liquored-up guests.”
As the government writes, “In May 2021, Trump directed that a storage room on the ground floor of The Mar-a-Lago Club (the “Storage Room”) be cleaned out so that it could be used to store his boxes. The hallway leading to the Storage Room could be reached from multiple outside entrances, including one accessible from The Mar-a-Lago Club pool patio through a doorway that was often kept open. The Storage Room was near the liquor supply closet, linen room, lock shop, and various other rooms.”
Trump suggesting that maybe if they just turned off all the lights at Mar-a-Lago and had everyone stay really still, the feds would just give up and go home
Okay, Trump did not actually throw this idea out there—as far as we know—but he might as well have, given that, according to the indictment, during a meeting with two attorneys to discuss complying with the government’s subpoena for documents, Trump literally said, “Wouldn’t it be better if we just told them we don’t have anything here?” and “Well, look, isn’t it better if there are no documents?”