Palace intrigue has been the week's topic of discussion following the FBI's raid on Mar-a-Lago. Federal agents arrived on the premises on August 8 to search for reported classified materials under the Presidential Records Act. The National Archives was hyperventilating over these missing documents, with a cocktail napkin possibly being one of the sources of heartburn for the agency but one of the reasons why FBI agents ransacked the former president's home. In January, Mar-a-Lago did send back some 15 boxes which included these napkins, dinner menus, and other items that one could only describe as souvenirs of the first Trump presidency.
Yet, it seems that classified nuclear secrets were one of the top items on the FBI's list. Whether these documents were recovered remains to be seen, and the affidavit for the raid remains under seal. I will bet the mortgage that none of these items were there. Still, federal agents did seize documents that probably shouldn't have been taken, like Trump's passports and records protected by executive and attorney-client privilege.
As the debate about records and their classification status rages, who snitched on the president? Spencer wrote about an informant within Trump's circle who was privy to the activities of the former president. Who could it be? Was it Ivanka? Yes, some people have posited that Trump's daughter backstabbed him (via The Guardian):
Details of the Mar-a-Lago raid are still emerging and, as it stands, there are still a lot more questions than answers. One of the biggest questions being: who snitched? Trump’s former personal lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen reckons it was definitely a member of the former president’s circle. Speaking to Insider on Thursday, Cohen said that he “would not be surprised to find out [the informant] is Jared or one of his children … Who else would know about the existence of a safe and the specific contents kept inside?”
Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump certainly make the most sense when it comes to possible informants. The couple controversially had top-secret security clearance when they were advising Trump in the White House and were very close to the former president’s affairs. The PR-savvy pair have also been distancing themselves from Trump ever since he left the White House. Ivanka Trump has very publicly rejected his big lie that the election was stolen, telling the congressional panel investigating the insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 that she doesn’t believe her father’s false claims. Most recently the tabloids have been full of anonymous reports about how Ivanka Trump is trying to stop Trump from running for a second term. Javanka are very clearly out to protect themselves, even if it means handing dear old dad into the feds
Michael Cohen? I don't need to say more on the unreliability of that subject.
Lordy, people—give it a rest. There is a near-zero chance that this is accurate. It's almost as bad as the Justice Department leak regarding its suspicion that Trump had nuclear secrets, violated the Espionage Act and obstructed justice. There is more to lose than gain when betraying Mr. Trump. The evidence for this theory revolves around Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, distancing themselves from the Trump orbit, having security clearances during Trump's presidency, and her disagreements with her father about the 2020 election being stolen. Children disagreeing with their parents is not unusual. Security clearances aren't a smoking gun for a betrayal of this magnitude. I'm not buying it.
