Several weeks ago, the federal prosecutor investigating former President Donald Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents quietly subpoenaed some of the former president’s business records.
At least one of those subpoenas asked for information about Trump’s financial alliance with upstart LIV Golf, which just happens to be bankrolled by Saudi Arabia.
It’s not entirely clear yet why the specially appointed federal counsel, Jack Smith, wants to examine Trump’s ties to LIV Golf — or to the tour’s financial backer, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which is controlled by the Saudi royal family.
Smith has not commented on these latest subpoenas, which were first reported by The New York Times. Equally mum is U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, who assigned Smith to the task of investigating Trump’s decision to take a stash of top-secret documents to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida when he left the White House in January 2021.
But an important question looms large here: Are Trump’s business plans — in this case, his post-presidential financial deals with the Saudis and LIV Golf — tied to the former president’s strange decision not only to take top-secret documents but to insist that he had the right to hold on to them?
It appears that Smith is taking a hard look at that connection.
One of the great mysteries of the so-called “documents case” is what motivated Trump to take top secret files from the White House.
What were Trump’s motives?
Did Trump just want some interesting souvenirs? Was he a pack rat? Was he so disorganized that he merely scooped up all manner of files at the White House and tossed them into boxes to sort out later? Was Trump planning to write his memoirs — and were the 15 boxes of top-secret documents crucial to that story? Or did Trump plan to use these documents in some way, perhaps in his future business dealings that involved other nations and their rulers?
Trump has falsely claimed that the files were his to take. (Sorry, Mr. Trump, they belong to the U.S. government.) And to make things even weirder, Trump also said falsely that he could declassify any secrets anytime he wanted as president — and that he had a standing order to his staff to do exactly that. (Again, sorry, Mr. Trump. You can’t just wave a finger and declassify America’s secrets.)
So what’s the motive here?
Setting aside the possibility that Trump was just a proud pack rat or planned to write a memoir…
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