Innocent until proven guilty – we are the greatest nation in the world and that is our rule of the land. Having said that…Holy Mackerel, that was a ton of documents they found in our ex-president’s possession. It seems the one document that Mr. Trump was showing off the most to his comrades was Martha Washington’s secret recipe for Apple Pie. As the story goes, George used Martha’s pie as a laxative. God forbid it falls into the wrong hands and becomes weaponized. Thanksgiving dinner will never be the same.
Folks from one of our upstanding political parties are trying to deflect what’s occurred here. They’re pointing to the U.S. Justice department as the real problem. It seems Justice needs to be fixed first before we’re all put in prison. I’m not an expert on that notion, but what I can say is this: I’d like to know how was he able to keep the documents for such a long period of time? What, was the national archives sergeant at arms on extended leave? Maybe they should hire an intern with a professional wrestling background to help him. His “To Do” list has to be way too long. If any department needs a reorg, it’s the archives. I can tell you if the ex-president tried that nonsense with the Bedminster Public Library there would be hell to pay within a week - lots of hell! This isn’t rocket science – you check a document out and if you’re late returning it, you pay a dime a day. After a week, the phone calls get rather curt. After that, Bookman (another Seinfeld shout out) comes to visit you. Miraculously, documents are found and returned. It’s very straight forward.
What I really can’t fathom is, what did our ex president want with a Bazillion documents? What was the purpose? Was he thinking of writing a spy novel? Or did he have a folding table set up at flea markets across the globe? Maybe he’s not as solvent as he makes himself out to be? And once he was caught – okay you made a mistake keeping the bazillion documents - why refuse to return them? I mean you lose an election; you’ve got over 60 days (we’ll forget about January 6th, he was busy that day) to figure out what documents you’ve brought home and need to be returned. With 60 days my cat could figure that out. I’ve heard that these more than 50 boxes, all chock full of interesting documents, travelled with Mr. Trump between Florida and New Jersey and a favorite place to store them was in bathrooms. Granted by the looks of the pictures I’ve seen on the news, they’re very nice bathrooms. A couple of the ex-president’s political supporters, with straight faces have said, “Well that’s not so bad, the bathroom doors lock.” As absurd as that comment might sound, I can tell you with over 60 years of experience working bathroom doors, all of the ones I’ve had the pleasure to use - lock from the inside.
But on a more serious note, many of the documents contained scary important information that potentially puts our service men and women, as well as our allies at risk. And considering the aggressive turmoil in the world today – Great Risk. Something that will remind us and we should keep in our minds regarding what can happen when political figures become selfishly reckless: On December 6, 2022 there was a Congressional Gold Medal Ceremony honoring the police departments that worked to save the U.S. Capital during the January 6th Riot. The family of fallen Capital Police Officer Brian Sicknick refused to shake hands with senate minority leader Mitch McConnell and house republican leader Kevin McCarthy. The Sicknick family lost a son and brother; he’s never coming back to them. All because of political recklessness. (Criminality to be determined-innocent until proven guilty.) When you make it personal and think how YOU would feel if it was your son or daughter that lost their life because of these types of reckless actions, well you might have a come to Jesus moment…as you pray to some higher power trying to understand what has happened to your family.
“We live in most interesting times” ~ Chamberlain had no idea back in 1898 just how interesting. (P.S. – the Bedminster Library and all of its employees and volunteers are wonderful.)
