Proof of Life

 

I said my main goal of this trip was to meet with Kilmar. Tonight I had that chance. I have called his wife, Jennifer, to pass along his message of love. I look forward to providing a full update upon my return. pic.twitter.com/U9y2gZpxCb

— Senator Chris Van Hollen (@ChrisVanHollen) April 18, 2025

At least we know he's alive--there was a part of me that wondered if the White House dug in because they were trying to cover up that they had gotten a man killed. But no, it's just that they want to be able to do anything they want to do to anyone without regard for their rights under the US Constitution. And being the sort of person I am, while this proof of life is a welcome sign that both the US government and El Salvador feel the need to respond to pressure--this is not yet a good sign, it's a photo op--

See, he's alive, but he is still held, it's because the US is paying for El Salvador to keep him, and the Trump Administration feels no shame about any of that. 

Yet.

I think it is important that we look at the opinion authored by Judge Harvie Wilkinson rejecting a request from the DOJ to pause an order that they facilitate Garcia's release from custody in El Salvador:

"The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order," Wilkinson, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan, wrote. "Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that there is nothing that can be done. This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear."

It's Weird, Right?

 

Trump staggered up the stairs of the helicopter on his way to go play his customary weekend golf with the omnipresent little Musk kid leading the way. This is after a weird speech at DOJ HQ (weird especially for being there, and breaking the illusion of agency independence), complete with his rally music set. The man who was facing federal charges for storing classified information at his Mar-a-Lago resort/residence said he'd rather face jail than be seen as being old and mentally incompetent. 

And of course, Trump isn't facing prison because many people saw him as being fit to be President, instead, but you know, all of this weird, right? Like, I don't think this man is in his right mind, at all. But here he is.

The Lie Trump is Servicing

 

While people are wondering whether Ukrainian President Zelenskyy needs to do some backtracking to make proper amends and all that and get back to the table with the US, Russian foreign minister Lavrov is out here calling this man a traitor to the Jewish people and basically a "Nazi". This has been a big part of Russian propaganda. It is, for so many reasons, especially disgusting to project this made-up bullshit to this man, who comes from a heroic family that fought against the Nazis, for the very obvious reasons. 

If the reasons aren't obvious to you--get off the internet, read books, touch grass. What the fuck is wrong with you? Why would you believe stupid made-up shit just because it matches the thing you want to believe? Shouldn't what is actually true matter? 

Trump has proposed that Zelenskyy is somehow the reason, being elected to the presidency of Ukraine in 2019, for the invasion that started in 2014 and which his own good buddy Manafort knows a whole lot about. (I get why Trump faithful try to step around all that. It's messy for them, no?) 

Kash Patel Is Incredibly Disqualified

 

Antisemitic far-right broadcaster Stew Peters responds to Kash Patel claiming that he is not familiar with Peters, despite appearing on his show multiple times: "Clearly, Kash Patel is lying. He absolutely does know who I am." https://t.co/gc5MlT7NVs pic.twitter.com/UqX9mAFFlE

— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) January 30, 2025

He straight up lied. There's no beating around that point--he also lied about the 1/6 choir--he bragged about producing their single and now wants to pretend he doesn't know much about that "community".  He pretends he disagrees with Trump's clemency for the violent offenders sentenced for their 1/6 activities, but that doesn't square with his broad, conspiracy-theory based defense that the FBI (the agency he wants to lead) was behind it--

When what was behind it was Trump inviting these people to "Stop the Steal", a slogan based on a whole-ass lie, and Patel himself can't even admit Trump lost the 2020 election. 

Not Looking Back in Anger

 

The Biden Administration wasn't perfect, but it was professional. You want the most benign, bloodless take I can make on it--there you go. We'll be asking ourselves for a long time what else could have been done:

Did they do all they could to prevent Trump 2.0 and bring him to any kind of justice? Did they try hard enough to whip inflation--or at least, leave a bigger impression that's what they were doing? Did they do enough for Ukraine? Could they have done less for Israel and prevent the worst of the suffering in Gaza?

Here's what I do know; hindsight is 20/20. The Biden Administration, like Biden himself, weren't perfect and weren't able to do everything they wanted to do. Biden himself would say, "Don't compare me to the Almighty, compare me to the alternative." You can pick apart what might have been different, in terms of policy, in terms of politics, that might have given us a second Democratic term. You can ask if Biden should have, oh, right about after the midterms, said that he wanted to concentrate on seeing out his term and promoting a new candidate to lead his party. 

The Gaetz Report

 

We heard that the ethics investigation into Matt Gaetz would show illegal drug use (cocaine, molly), paying for (lots of) sex, including with a minor, and well, yeah. He did that stuff.  He left a pretty considerable trail of payments to women--$90K to various women. It's fairly unsavory:

The report noted that while all the women who testified said the sexual encounters with Gaetz were consensual, one woman told the committee the use of drugs at the parties and events they attended may have "impair[ed their] ability to really know what was going on or fully consent."

Another woman told the committee, "When I look back on certain moments, I feel violated."

For his part, Gaetz had tried (unsuccessfully) to sue to block the report from coming out.  This is because he knew it would look bad--full stop. He's not unaware of his conduct, he's just unclear on why it should have anything to do with how people judge him.

You really do hate to see a person go so wrong from the unfortunate effects of a very comfortable and privileged upbringing. 

Obeying in Advance, or: "What Rats Won't Do"

 

#FBI Director Christopher Wray announces that he will step down at the end of the current administration.

Learn more: https://t.co/W7xY34F37h pic.twitter.com/FIJ5QIjI29

— FBI (@FBI) December 11, 2024

I hear scientists are starting to use lawyers instead of lab rats in their experiments. They do this for two reasons. For one thing, they become less attached to the lawyers. For another, there are some things lab rats won't do.    

 I get the idea that one shouldn't obey in advance, I really do.  And I get the argument that FBI Director Wray should have said "C'mon and fire me." Take a damn stand. Show Mr. Trump and the world what you are made of. 

But he did that. Remember when he shit-canned all the tips about Brett Kavanaugh? Because I'm not forgetting that. Remember when he took the job in the first place after Trump, Jeff Sessions, and Rod Rosenstein concocted a reason for Trump to fire Jim Comey that wasn't what Trump expressly told Lester Holt (and Sergey Lavrov) the reason was (to end the Russia, Russia, Russia investigation).

Gaetz Pulls Out

 

Having viewed at least some portion of the iceberg of dirt set to crash his Titanic nomination for AG, Matt Gaetz has graciously stepped aside for someone else who might slip past senatorial review. 

I'm kind of joking. When I say "graciously stepped aside", I guess I'm still wondering at the hubris that let Matt Gaetz keep his name in knowing of his ethics investigation and probably being well aware of whether he paid for sex with a minor once or a few times or whatever--or whether he was always ass deep in hookers and blow. 

Before we get on to the quandary of Pam Bondi, the recipient of Trump money to forget about any prosecution against Trump University, which defrauded down on their luck folks of all sorts who thought lessons from real estate stable genius Trump would change their fortunes, not leave them even more immersed in debt, as the new Gaetz--let's think about the old one:

Could be Nothing, But...

 

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas reportedly hid free yacht trip to Putin's hometown https://t.co/8yf1w7OMJe

— Raw Story (@RawStory) July 10, 2024

I mean, it was 20 years ago. However, it was part of 20 years of corruption and undisclosed gifts on Thomas' part, so even if it doesn't mean something more sinister--how bad does it need to look?

I'm not sure how far AOC filing articles of impeachment against Thomas and Alito will go, or how far a request for the DOJ to appoint a Special Counsel to investigate Thomas's possible tax violations will go, but something has to give.

(This post is a nice place to remind everyone that when 13 years of Justice Thomas's financial disclosure forms were amended about a dozen years ago, it was because he failed to include his wife's income from Hillsdale College and the Heritage Foundation. We've obviously been hearing a lot about the Heritage Foundation lately)

Biden's Memory and Hur's

 

Memory is a motherfucker. That's something I picked up from Death and Other Details. But also from reality. Grief doesn't fix things into stone, like when you lost someone. You still have them, as a part of you, like a phantom limb, wearing their conversations in your mind. It can be a comfort and not a comfort all at once. You might know facts intellectually, but they don't exist in your lived reality. It's like two things, overlapping--what did happen, and what it feels like. 

Being human, being mortal, is weird. It just is. But the funny old thing is, Joe Biden is actually tracking quite well with reality. He has a lot of life experience. He can tell you about it in great detail. Damn near photographically. He also has had access to classified information and knows very well what to do and not to do with it. And his situation was not one damn thing like former President Trump's. There is no way to determine intentionality with what was retained by Biden, and some of what Hur looked at was diaries that were not a part of the PRA. Hur's characterization of Biden's memory was gratuitous and biased. 

Menendez Needs to Resign

 

Now, I rarely slam the hell out of Democrats, but here's one hell of an exception: Sen. Bob Menendez of NJ is busted and he needs to resign. To repeat: he is busted, used up, out of credit, persona non grata and a whole pile of bullshit. This man took the little bit of rope he got from a hung jury in his last federal case and made a noose for himself. No sympathy, no nothing. 

The man had close to a half million in cash in his home, some of it sewn into his clothes, and $100K in gold bars.  To me, that spells "BUSTED". What does that tell me? His money isn't in the bank collecting interest because if he took it to the bank, he'd get unwanted interest. And it's also a "to the mattresses" situation. It's around in the eventuality of his needing a reason to not stick around. 

I hear what Majority Leader Schumer is saying when he talks up Menendez' service and his day in court: with respect to his service, he's getting a grace period to figure out what he wants to do before the hammer comes down, so he can go out like it's his own choice. That's respectful, I get it. But if the man doesn't know it's not a "forever" pass, he's a whole idiot. Because the NJ Governor is ready to replace this fool, and he has a rich mine of good people to choose from.  And the Senate doesn't need him so much they will let him fuck around forever:

And that's what his statement is. He really wants to go with: It's because I'm a Latino, huh? 

How about that answer is what makes him seem extra guilty? 

Violence By Other Means

 

The promised indignant rampage of aggrieved MAGAs never did materialize, probably in part chastened by the real world sentences of the leaders of the 1/6 melee and with no clear goal available to them (stop Trump's arraignment today, and it only goes on another day...), so we never saw the American Carnage that marked the end of Trump's brutally stupid one-term reign. 

But what we did see was a brutal violence against truth--as in the above screen cap from Fox News, describing Biden as a "Wannabe Dictator" who had "his political rival arrested". Or, maybe, Biden is a president whose DOJ followed up on leads that Trump took documents that he had no business having, asked nicely to get them back, and then was lied to and had to issue a search warrant because they were after all, the property of the US Government, and not Mr. Trump's. Culminating in the selection of a Special Counsel once Trump announced he was running again for the office for which his one-term, twice impeached ass was manifestly unfit.

It has nothing to do with President Biden. Trump took the docs himself and is responsible for what he did with them--period. Trump choose to pretend he didn't still have docs when he did--he failed to turn over docs that were requested. He can pretend he thought they were his, but the law says no. The Presidential Records Act, which a lot of people think let Trump off, does no such thing--it reiterates that government documents created are the property of the US government and not the President. And Trump stopped being president January of 2021, no matter what fantasies his lil fanclub wants to entertain. This warping of reality is a form of violence. It is intended to create a false impression with the idea that people might act on that. Blame Biden for what, as anyone understanding the rule of law might understand, any AG might have charged Trump for. 

(This wasn't Biden or even his AG--but the result of an investigation by a Special Counsel, yet.)

Mike Pence, You Guys

 

"Our staff reviewed all the materials in our office and in our residence to ensure there were no classified materials that left the White House or remained in our possession" -- Mike Pence, earlier this month pic.twitter.com/iluxX6gQh6

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 25, 2023

And do you know what happened next?  By now, of course you do. He had docs in his home.  The FBI came to pick them up and all. Now, I'm not saying I think there's anything nefarious about his eventually finding some classified stuff in his house--but I am going to say it's really fun that he's on record being sanctimonious about it because sanctimony is a huge part of his deal. And it does make us now understand that this is a thing that can happen to outgoing Vice-Presidents, why not? 

Also, too, unlike former president Trump, Mike Pence did the right thing, just like President Biden did, of turning the docs over right away, not making a major issue over it, lying about it, pretending they were declassified, making lawyers lie about them, etc. 

Trump's problem is both the volume of docs and the obstruction. He is still a very different case from the other two. 

(Just as a side thing--it isn't gay to moisturize, and Pence severely needs to get some kind of lotion into his day to day. He looks frightful for a man his age. Step your shit up, get some retinols on that and a serum with hyaluronic acid to fill those lines. Or maybe he should just stay his homophobic unself-loved personage the way he is and be withered like some dried apple shrunken head. I'm not criticizing his looks to be mean, I'm being a Helpful Hannah out here explaining that skin care is medicine for a sick face. Also he being a bigot causes lines. So he could stop doing that, too.)

Garland Appoints a Special Counsel for Biden

 

Sure, people can complain about the swiftness with which Merrick Garland appointed a Special Counsel to investigate the Biden documents case compared with the time it took to do so in the Trump case, but you can't not know why, right?

Biden is the current president, and has to be held to a high standard, and Trump is corrupt as hell, and his party would prefer to hold him to no standard at all. The difference in degree and in the way the two men have comported themselves (Biden with cooperation, Trump with obstruction) doesn't figure into the math, here. Misplaced documents are serious and the issue has to be treated with seriousness--

Period. If somehow no special counsel were appointed for the Biden situation, the House Republicans would scream bloody murder. They will, anyway (some conservatives will now read the Robert Hur tea leaves for any indication that he's been anything but a conservative all this while), but they've been undercut; Trump is investigated, and Biden is also being investigated.  It is being taken seriously in both cases. Biden isn't being given some "special treatment."

There's another thing that I can't put my finger on and want someone looking into: what documents, why were they mixed with other Biden materials, why were they discovered now? I don't want to say the Trump era has made me paranoid (I've always been) but isn't it--weird?

I don't know. I just think that lefties who want to rap Garland for appointing a special counsel here are missing the point. Sure, Biden has been a responsible public servant for like fifty years and Trump is a corrupt ass. I'd be certain Biden's possession of these things was innocent and without his knowledge--but that literally isn't the point.  It's about demonstrating the USG takes classified document storage seriously, and it only bolsters a case against Trump by demonstrating he isn't just a poor embattled martyr getting picked on for no reason.

Which he will do and is doing anyway (WITCH HUNT!!!) but again, he looks sillier and more butthurt for it.

TWGB: Something Special?

 

With Trump's announcement that he was going to run in 2024 (not that I think that should have come as much of a surprise--although for my part, I was surprised to see that he not just announced, but also filed FEC papers), I don't think the appointment of a special counsel to insulate the investigate from claims of partisanship and political fuckery sound too far out of whack. 

I mean--it's pointless because Republicans have been crying partisanship and political fuckery all along. Trump's own announcement contained the claim that he was "a victim".  The announcement of the appointment of  a special counsel has GOP stalwarts in much umbrage--which is wild since the new GOP majority in the House has been crowing about how happy they will be to investigate Hunter Biden and impeach the current president. Public perception is a fine thing to talk about, but our national perspective is pretty far out of whack...and on a very particular side. (Although Trump's own AG, Bill Barr, the one who squashed the Mueller investigation, but also negated claims of mass voter fraud, admits that Trump is very likely headed for indictment--I say, he's partisan, but he is not a dummy.)

So really, it's about the end of the 1/6 Committee in the House and Merrick Garland being subject to the clown parade of a GOP-led Oversight Committee. Sure, there will still be some criticism from the right--but hopefully, things proceed from this point will all deliberate speed.

I don't have an opinion about Merrick Garland's or the DOJ's ideas about timing because, as always, I don't play a lawyer on this blog. I'm seeing on Twitter the usual war between the "there's a plan, just be patient" folks (who told us Mueller had it in the bag-- and I am old enough to recall folks wishing one another a very Merry Fitzmas) and the people who believe justice is being delayed and denied RIGHT NOW! Because obviously the man is guilty as a sonuvabitch and so are all his little friends!

It's dueling banjos. There are two things to look at--part of which I know hardly anything about, which is the time it takes to build a case that will be effective in a court of law, and the part I think I've got a handle on--the flagging attention span of the public and the easily-manipulated notion that if the man hasn't been indicted yet, then truly, they must have nothing on him. It might not be true, but it feels true. Because tell me, legitimately: if someone was behind a coup to overthrow the lawful government, or stole top secret documents, shouldn't their ass be under the jail by now?

This is how Trump goes around with his whole chest out telling people he "won't partake" in an investigation as if he was declining a glass of wine. Although there's plenty of evidence, as far as he's walking around able to run for president and be a pest about whether our elections are fair and running his various (under investigation) companies, he can claim he's as pure as the driven snow. 

He's pure as a driven slush fund. 

So, while I'm skeptical about results (after all this time), I don't think the appointment of Jack Smith has anything to do with slowing things down--he's being called up from where he's been prosecuting war criminals at the Hague, and that sounds to me like a guy who can handle a case against heavy hitters. He's not starting from scratch, and he will be getting what the 1/6 Committee already has. I don't have a reason to believe any of this is a set-up for failure.

But this case better move along with strength and speed, because it carries a lot of freight with it, including our national security and the future of democracy. 

The Big What-if?

 

Trump: I'm going to be making a very big announcement on Tuesday November 15 pic.twitter.com/EmpMcqYVt0

— Acyn (@Acyn) November 8, 2022

Ooooohhhhhh! A big announcement, is it? At Mar-a-Lago (the site where, two times, now, multiple boxes containing assorted government paper Trump had no business still having, were carted out--and this is important). The Winter White House. Much Florida Guy energy!

Not to overshadow the important message of the midterms, mind you-but whatever, whatever, whatever could it be? Did he strike oil while rustling up some food in the backyard at Bedminster? Does he have one weird trick for eliminating stubborn grout stains? Has he had a vision of the Blessed Virgin with several important prophecies for our future? Does he want you to know that you can donate your unwanted old vehicle to 1-877-kars 4kids? 

Not to bigfoot J.D. Puffenstuff's (who he does not own, he says) rally, or whatever, but Trump wants you to know you would be safer with him in charge of the nuclear codes because he'd know when to use'em! And also, Nancy Pelosi impeached him twice, which makes her just as much an animal as MS-13. That's serving some serious presidential vibes and doesn't at all sound like a sad self-important has-been about to be indicted for lots of things. He sounds like a sad, self-important has-been about to be indicted for lots of things who got told announcing he was running for the 2024 GOP presidential race would 1) possibly turn out the vote--against the GOP, 2) sever his legal fees being paid by the RNC and 3) end his Save America fundraising grift. 

He doesn't want to announce right now, but maybe--after he knows whether Lee Zeldin will be able to pardon him for anything he's maybe in trouble for in NY--then he might announce. When he's guaranteed that the 1/6 Committee goes away and we see Jim Jordan or (holy jumping jiggery-fuckery) Margarine Tater Grease having the gavel in the Oversight Committee, why, then, wow! His glidepath back to the "dump" feels so much more stable. Very legal and very cool. 

I have all the obvious questions and reservations you might think I have, especially in light of "Putin's chef" admitting screwing about in US elections has been on the menu for a long while and still is. And also, I think about the threat GOP wins might have on the future of support to Ukraine. And what it means to have election denialism become the default, not election security. Not one person, one vote, but one election, hordes of lawyers. 

He has basically already announced that he wants to announce. Our Democracy better batten down its ever-loving hatches. 

TWGB: Trump the Loser

 

This previously unseen footage shows Congressional leaders—both Republicans and Democrats—as they were taken to a secure location during the January riot.

Everyone involved was actively working to address the violence. All of them did what President Trump refused to do. pic.twitter.com/fcF4zBLGWm

— January 6th Committee (@January6thCmte) October 13, 2022

The violence on 1/6/2021 was premeditated, serious, and was addressed by Congressional leadership while they were under siege and working to ensure that the business of state--the confirmation of the legitimate vote, was continued. This leadership included Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who indeed tried to get the National Guard of nearby states to respond to the affray. 

(I am pointing this out because people who were actually there later had the stones to imply that she--who would be every bit the target of such a mob, was the one responsible for rejecting the assistance of the National Guard. They knew better and they lied to protect their little gutless loser President.) 

That mob was inspired by Donald J. Trump, who made up his mind before the election that he would just declare victory and lie his ass off about the results. Why? Vanity? Spite? Fear of his house of bottom-dealt cards falling in?

A little bit of all of the above?  This was a man who spent his entire presidency surrounded by scandals of his own making that he dearly wanted to blame others for. Like the Russian collusion mess. The one he seems to be using as an excuse/pretext for his stolen documents problem right now (which is unresolved in that he may still have documents not yet turned over and is being investigated under the Espionage Act).  (Also too, he's already in deep because he seems to gone out of his way to obstruct justice multiple times on this one, so, he knows they are not his docs and he is too dumb and bad to just give the game up.)

I know, right? We're back to "Russia, Russia, Russia"--oh, honey, we have never left. After all, the first impeachment in part was about trying to get Ukraine to investigate whether Ukraine, not Russia, actually interfered in the 2016 election to set things up to look like he was really colluding with Russia, which is pretty rich and barkingly mad on its face given the state of things. And this is the kind of bullshit line of inquiry DOJ's John Durham is, groaningly, doggedly, pursuing to this day.  (It's not going great and it was never going to. It's a conspiracy theory ginned up to pave over the obvious and already documented truth covered by several volumes of a Senate Intelligence committee.) 

TWGB: Barr, The Master of Muppets, and the Nuclear Hackeysack

 

Martha: He called you a RINO
Barr: A RINO for him is anyone who disagrees with him that the election was stolen. pic.twitter.com/aNER1VubFu

— Acyn (@Acyn) September 6, 2022

Einstein called it a "gedankenexperiment"--it's where you think something out instead of just believing you know what you might not know. MAGAs follow from Trump's pronouncements to presume that if Trump calls someone a RINO--that is what they are. If he calls the press "lying", they assume that is what the media do--they lie, because the obviously not ever lying Trump said so. Trump has found himself at odds with the media, with people who have worked for him, with politicians who formerly agreed with, at least, his policies. What if the common denominator here is Trump himself--a difficult and self-defeating person whose life is the center of a perpetual clusterfuck machine?

Like I said, it's just a thought experiment, but one that Republicans need to engage in, because they have been the ones making origami swallows of their conscience and their reputations on his behalf. Trump-appointed Judge Aileen Cannon allows for a special master in Trump's stolen documents case, which bodes to slow down the investigation, and even rejected an amicus curiae from former GOP officials who understand very well what Trump did wrong. Aw, c'mon Aileen? Are we really that obtuse? She could have just booted this case on jurisdictional grounds and not been the one to decide to slow down the process with an unnecessary Special Master. This is muppetry. She gave Trump's legal team more than it asked for, and I think entirely for appearances' sake. So as not to get a visit from Trump's flying monkeys. Or at least, I think that's the least stupid interpretation of why she might have. I certainly hope the reason isn't more transactional. 

TWGB: The Picture Worth a Thousand Takes

 

The rebuttal to the Trump filing I referred to as the "Clown Suit" from DOJ made some of the points I expected it to make, to wit--the former guy and his lawyers were lying about turning over all of the documents and they were already gone over so there was no need for a special master. It also included a picture of the kind of documents that had been found during the search, just to hammer home how clearly the top secret/classified docs were marked.  The white space is redacted. You aren't being exposed to anything other than what should be obvious to you by now--these were sensitive materials that should not have been in desk drawers or closets or boxes in a basement. They should have been in NARA's hands. 

Trump and his defenders are in denial. How dare anyone show these documents on the floor as if to suggest that was where he would carelessly leave them? Why would they take a picture of them if they were so secret? Is this how the FBI handles these docs?

Oh, for fuck's sake. This kind of picture is the story of many a bust. Cops love to pile up the evidence so people can get a tangible picture of what they were doing in a search:

In this case, the point is that you can see the clear markings on the docs, which were mixed in with random other shit and in boxes and in different rooms, because it's Trump who didn't care. The docs were on the floor (and they never did imply it was Trump who put them there) only to show the extent of what they were finding. And then those docs were put into containers and taken to where they were actually secure. The FBI didn't mishandle them--they were documenting what they saw.

TWGB: The Mine! Field

 

Apparently, we're at the point where people are exhausted enough with the Trumpaganda to start saying true things, and among them is, Trump saw White House documents as being his, for him. He did not understand the idea of US intelligence as being something for the US to protect the US. It was his. Because he doesn't understand that the US doesn't revolve around him. 

Really good lawyers don't want a part of his case, and there's good reason. He's a bad client. He does weird stuff like making negative public statements and apparently trying to gin up a violent reaction among his fan club, That's the sort of stuff good lawyers would recommend against. He doesn't have good lawyers. 

Among silly things his inexperienced lawyers have done is tacitly suggest civil violence. And also suggest they want the affidavit to be released so that there can be witness tampering. It is really weird when lawyers are fairly open to suggesting that maybe their legal strategy is obstruction of justice, but that exactly sounds like the strategy Trump would want. He loves witness tampering and obstruction of justice! They are his LIFE!

And you know, when one of your "reasons" for why you took the documents is so that the various entities looking onto your business (1/6 committee, assorted grand juries) can't get hold of them, that's bad. It's obstruction of justice, as well.

He doesn't own those documents. But he definitely owns this trouble--you could say he brought it home with him.