Maggie Haberman, apologist

At The New York Times, Maggie Haberman scratches her head and wonders: “Why Did He Resist Returning the Government’s Documents?” Guess what: “there’s no easy answer.” It’s “another mystery.” It surely is. Haberman runs through several possibilities:

~ The defeated former president is a collector of sorts:

Mr. Trump, a pack rat who for decades showed off knickknacks in his overstuffed Trump Tower office — including a giant shoe that once belonged to the basketball player Shaquille O’Neal — treated the nation’s secrets as similar trinkets to brandish.

~ The defeated former president thought of himself as a king:

“From my own experiences with him, which is bolstered by those around him who are speaking in his defense, his actions seem to fit the pattern that as ‘king,’ he and the state are one and the same,” said Mark S. Zaid, a lawyer who frequently handles cases related to national security and security clearances, including during the Trump presidency. “He seems to honestly believe that everything he touches belongs to him, and that includes government documents that might be classified.”

~ The defeated former president didn’t care about protocol:

Although Trump White House officials were warned about the proper handling of sensitive material, aides said Mr. Trump had little interest in the security of government documents or protocols to keep them protected.

Early on, Mr. Trump became known among his staff as a hoarder who threw all manner of paper — sensitive material, news clips and various other items — into cardboard boxes that a valet or other personal aide would cart around with him wherever he went.

Mr. Trump repeatedly had material sent up to the White House residence, and it was not always clear what happened to it. He sometimes asked to keep material after his intelligence briefings, but aides said he was so uninterested in the paperwork during the briefings themselves that they never understood what he wanted it for.

~ The defeated former president liked having mementos of leaders he’d met:

Mr. Trump, Mr. [John] Bolton said, never told him he planned to take a document and use it for something beyond its value as a memento.

It was “sort of whatever he wants to grab for whatever reason,” Mr. Bolton said. “He may not even fully appreciate” precisely why he did certain things.

But officials worried, particularly about the documents falling into the wrong hands.

Other advisers wondered if Mr. Trump kept some documents because they contained details about people he knew.

It’s only in that last sentence that Haberman comes close to considering an obvious explanation: that the defeated former president kept documents — and kept them and kept them — because he was seeking to monetize or otherwise exploit them. “Other advisers wondered”: well, why? What did they think the defeated former president might do with the materials he kept? Haberman doesn’t go there.

And thus her litany of explanations marks her as something of an apologist: he likes shiny objects; he doesn’t understand what is and isn’t his; he does things his own way; he wants to keep stuff. That’s just the way he is. Comparisons to human beings in the very early and very late stages of life come quickly to mind.

Stop giving him an out, Maggie Haberman.